Batman: Arkham Knight Dual Play Trailer Kicks Butt With Nightwing

Rocksteady is giving gamers a nice inside look at the upcoming Arkham Knight, due to drop after E3 wraps up on June 23rd. The game will be available for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC, and a new seven minute video showing off some of the new dual play that they added to this newest (and Rockstead's final) game in the Batman: Arkham series. You can grab a look below.

As the video explains, the dual play mode features Batman and another ally tag-teaming against baddies.

In the video above we see Nightwing and Batman engaged in fisticuffs against a warehouse full of a gang of baddies. Batman makes a dynamic entrance from the ceiling, landing right down there in the middle of them. He's then joined by an AI controlled Nightwing. As mentioned in the video, gamers have the ability to switch between Nightwing and Batman during the dual play segment. As you can see, you can seamlessly move back and forth between the two heroes where you can perform combos against enemies or when the combo meter fills up you can do an instant tag team move that incapacitates a foe.

As you can see in the video, and as mentioned by the developers at Rocksteady, the enemy count for the dual play sessions in Batman: Arkham Knight have been ramped up significantly. According to them, it fits in line better with the gameplay narrative that Batman would need help from a teammate when the odds are so clearly stacked against him.

If I could mount just an intsy bit of criticism about the whole bad guy thing. When it's mentioned by lead AI programmer Tim Hanagan that the game's AI count was bumped up for these encounters, I was expecting a bit more push back from the enemies. A lot of them seemed to just kind of stand around and only few seemed to throw punches or kicks that Batman and Nightwing were required to counter.

I suppose my biggest gripe is that even if Nightwing didn't show up it's something Batman could have handled on his own, it just would have taken him a lot longer to get it done. Maybe in the final game we'll see the difficulty ramped up so that the extra presence of a buddy will feel necessary. Speaking of the presence of a buddy... why isn't that just a drop-in two-player mode? That would be perfect for a bit of local co-op in those segments. Or heck, a bit of online co-op... allowing friends to drop in and out when those segments pop up similar to how Capcom had it setup with Resident Evil 6's PvP segments scattered throughout the story mode.

Anyway, outside of Nightwing coming to Batman's aid in Arkham Knight, there is also Catwoman and Robin. Throughout the game the various allies will pop up and help Batman out during some tough binds. And if you're into pre-ordering games (which has become a taboo amongst many hardcore gamers and for very good reasons) you can gain access to a season pass that will enable you to play another one of Batman's allies... Batgirl.

Batman: Arkham Knight is set to release on June 23rd for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC.