New 'Batman: Arkham Knight' Gameplay Video

Have you ever been playing Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham games and thought "this would be great, but I really wish this character I'm playing as was less like Batman. I wish he'd wear a suit of Iron Man armor and drive around blowing up tanks with a machine gun"? Well, if you have, and to be honest, I cannot actually imagine that is the case, I have some very good news for you.

Yesterday at E3, hot on the heels of a teaser showing off the many, many guns mounted on the Batmobile, Rocksteady released gameplay footage showing off both the new city environment of their upcoming Batman: Arkham Knight, along with the drivable Batmobile tearing around the city and blowing things up. With its guns. The gigantic guns that have been mounted on the Batmobile, the signature car of Batman, a character who fights crime because his parents were shot with a gun. I just wanted to make all of that very clear before we move on.

Before you think I'm too much of a Grumpy Gus about this whole thing, I should say that while Batman's wearing a robot suit and shooting things, the game as it's presented here actually looks like it has a lot of fun stuff going on. The gliding through the gothic, neon-soaked Gotham City is as cool as it's ever been, and being able to launch yourself out of the Batmobile at high speeds is a great mechanic that definitely adds to the three-dimensional city that they've created in a really fun way.

Also, to their credit, they've gone as far as having it explicitly stated in the game that Batman's shooting at unmanned drone tanks, meaning that the storytelling on display here is at least as sophisticated as the '90s X-Men cartoon, where Wolverine could only punch things if those things were robots.

Arkham Knight is set to be released in 2015.