We're at least a year away from the fall 2011 release of "Batman: Arkham City" (Rocksteady Studios' insanely anticipated sequel to last year's "Batman: Arkham Asylum"), so the fact that details are hitting the ether now just seems...cruel. Awesome as all get out, but cruel nonetheless.

As if "GameInformer" magazine's latest cover feature wasn't enough to get fanboy button mashers worked up about the open world(!) epic -- revealing the overarching story that finds Bats in an "Escape from New York" styled setting of a walled-off prison colony run by Gotham's worst villains -- now comes more details via SuperHeroHype.com about what fans can expect from the next installment of this groundbreaking franchise.To quote "Arkham City" director Sefton Hill:

"Our objective in this game is not to make the biggest game we can, but to make the best game possible. Gamers who played 'Batman: Arkham Asylum' will know how dedicated we are as a studio to injecting an incredible amount of detail into every environment we build. It is this attention to detail that gives our games the deep and intense atmosphere that so many players have found so compelling, and so we have had to seriously scale up our art team in order to bring the same level of detail to 'Arkham City,' which is about 4-5 times bigger than 'Arkham Asylum.'"

Adding to the expansive landscape of a gang-torn Gotham neighborhood, Hill further reiterated that Batman will have double the number of moves he had in "Arkham Asylum," but not at the expense of continuity, as he'll will start off with many moves and gadgets he had at his disposal from the proceeding title.

Massive worlds, more bone-breaking moves -- but we still have to wait a full year for this game! See what we mean by "cruel?"

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