A blog post by Paul Dini saying that he had not been approached to write the third instalment of the Arkham series of Batman games reminded me that I hadn’t shared this quote from Variety:

But Variety has learned that WBIE is expected to reteam some of the characters in some form for the next installment in Rocksteady Studios’ gritty vidgame series that began with Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.

New, highly stylized title is being developed as a prequel that revolves around Batman’s first meeting with the Joker. It’s based on the Silver Age of DC’s comicbooks from the 1950s when the Caped Crusader teamed with other heroes like Superman and founded the Justice League of America.

There are quite a few ways to read that and I’ve seen several re-postings of this that claim that this will be a Justice League game. The wording stops a little short of that. To me it sounds like an Arkham Asylum prequel which guest-stars a few of the other Justice Leaguers.

There had been hints — or red herrings? — that the next game might be something called Arkham World. When the Joker popped up to accept an award at the 2011 Spike awards he was holding a script for “Batman: Arkham World”.

The World title also hints at the line of characters expanding, potentially highlighting other locations key to other Justice League characters — a visit to the Fortress of Solitude perhaps?