Fan of Rocksteady’s Batman games? Like the art? Want to know more about the making of the excellent trilogy? Yeah, this is for you.

Released alongside the final part of the trilogy, The Art of Rocksteady’s Batman (unsurprisingly) covers all three games developed by the British studio. The art ranges from sketches and 3D models to exactly how everything appeared in each final releases. For someone like me, a huge fan, it’s a fascinating look at how the talent at Rocksteady brought what we played in Arkham Asylum, City and Knight to life. I found it interesting to compare early sketches of Batman to the later stuff and, of course, how he finally appeared. It was also (in a good way) strange to look at early concept art of environments I came to know very well and how they differed to the final product. Gazing at the different pieces of art, I was (believe it or not) fascinated by the creative process and how it all eventually came together.

And that’s where The Art of Rocksteady’s Batman elevates itself above just being a book with pretty drawings. You see, accompanying the art is a whole load of text (courtesy of Daniel Wallace) giving you an insight into the creative process behind each game. There were some nuggets of story, art and other information that even I didn’t know, and I followed the development of each game quite closely given what I do here at NGB. Various members of the development team, including game director Sefton Hill and acclaimed Batman writer Paul Dini all offered their unique piece of insight. If you’re interested in how these three fantastic games got made it’s all a very good read.

Coming in at 304 pages, there’s plenty of gorgeous art to look at and interesting words to read. As mentioned earlier, all three games are covered, but with differing levels of detail. I found it strange that Arkham City has 55 pages dedicated to it whereas the Asylum and Knight have over a hundred each. City is arguably my pick of the bunch (loved the balance of open world and rogues) so I would’ve liked to see a bit more attention paid to its creation process. That’s a minor negative though, as the rest of the content present in The Art of Rocksteady’s Batman is fantastic. If you’re a fan of the Bat and games Rocksteady has created, you need this book in your collection.