Scarecrow is not messing around in this new Batman: Arkham Knight trailer. Ever since Arkham Asylum's horrifying hallucinations, he's been trouble, but this is a different kind of scary. The rogue's gallery of Gotham assembles for his scheme in the video embedded below, titled 'Gotham Is Mine'. You'll see a bunch of familiar faces, but Arkham Knight's impressive new-gen visuals imbue them with a more threatening presence than you may be familiar and/or comfortable with.

Apparently the key to taking the Riddler from 'question-mark-bedazzled goofball' to 'terrifying sociopath' is to give him a too-wide grin, an unflinching stare, and a few days of stubble. Seriously, that could be single-handedly responsible for the 'M' rating - as you may recall, all the other Arkham games have been 'T' so far. Anyway, make sure you see for yourself in the trailer embedded below. And after you're done with that, click on for more details. It just might make the wait until June a little bit easier...

The Dark Knight is one of the most omnipresent characters in pop culture, but people can't get enough of the Caped Crusaders. They want to know when his next comic series, film, or video game will come out, and now there's an answer for one of those. Batman: Arkham Knight now has the global release date of June 2, 2015. Yes, that's a worldwide date, avoiding the standard separate launches for different parts of the world. That date is two weeks before E3 2015, in case you were curious how it fit in your gamer calendar.

For a game that was once planned for release this year, it's good to hear that Arkham Knight will be ready before the fall. And, because it's a major release in the modern age, you'd be right to guess there's an extra-fancy special edition, filled with exclusive DLC, an art book, a comic, and statue of the Batmobile - or a Batman memorial, which seemingly implies a dark ending for the Dark Knight.

has a great story, but it plays things way too safe. The prequel lacks the innovation you'd expect from a new Arkham game, probably because Origins was developed by Warner Bros Montreal; not series-creator Rocksteady. It was a stop-gap, while Rocksteady spent time working on a new Batman game for a new generation of consoles. It's clear that Arkham Knight is the real follow-up to Arkham City.

Rocksteady has already mentioned numerous times that Knight is the conclusion to the Arkham trilogy of games. It's interesting to me that Rocksteady barely acknowledges the other 'third' game, Batman: Arkham Origins. That stubborn mindset shows that Rocksteady isn’t just going to settle for business as usual: the team is going to shake things up for this trilogy's finale, starting with an addition fans having been dying to see...

Rocksteady finally has a drivable Batmobile in its Arkham universe, and it's central to the new game. It looks like a combination of Christian Bale’s tumbler and the Michael Keaton-era vehicles, and it moves like an unstoppable beast. It plows through trees, concrete barricades, and taxis, all while being nimble enough to jump over gaps and even drive up walls if you've built up enough speed. It flies through the wide city streets with a powerful engine, blasting fire out of the back.

Gotham City has been rebuilt to make room for the Batmobile, so it slots in naturally. The driving is impressively integrated with Arkham’s traditional grapple ‘n glide gameplay. If you’re flying, a button press will summon the Batmobile for Bruce to hop right in, while you can eject out at any moment and return to the air. Even the Riddler challenges are now underground driving tests, trading brainteasers for drift racing.

As you're driving around Gotham (or through it, depending on your driving skills), the Batmobile is virtually indestructible. It's built like a tank, and can even transform into one. With the push of a button, it morphs into a nimble machine (also called battle mode) that lets you strafe and move around in all directions with ease and fire everything you’ve got at enemy drones. Armed with heavy cannons, rockets, a Vulcan cannon, riot suppressors, and who knows what else, Batman’s sweet ride is fully-loaded with a ton of toys to play with. It even has a containment unit in the back that can hold people or other precious cargo.

The Batmobile's standard form, or pursuit mode, comes equipped with booster rockets (to do booster donuts) and a power winch that’s strong enough to raise bridges and elevators. Like a good sidekick, the Batmobile comes when called, but it also comes with a remote so you can switch views and control the Batmobile from any location, helping you solve puzzles and essentially save yourself when you're in a pinch.

Too many games make compromises to stretch themselves across current-gen and last-gen. Arkham Knight is part of a growing group of PS4/Xbox One/PC-only games, and that focus is really paying off. Arkham Knight looks so good, with lighting, weather effects, and intricate visuals that the old systems could never duplicate.

It is one of the best looking titles I’ve seen, and the devs explain that the game simply couldn’t be created on the old hardware. In particular, they say that the Batmobile is only possible in Arkham Knight thanks to the current-gen horsepower they have at their disposal. It certainly looks like one of the true show-pieces for the new set of consoles.

The Arkham games have always kept the full glory of Gotham City tantalisingly out of reach. It's in the background of Asylum, a chunk of it forms the jail in City, and Origins blankets another portion of the town in snow. Arkham Knight gives you ALL of Gotham City. On a clear day. And it’s approximately 20 times the size of Arkham Asylum. The demo gives me a guided tour of the city, including the blazing neon of Chinatown and the famous clocktower base of Oracle.

You can appreciate the wide-ranging scope of the city because all the people have been evacuated. Call it a lame excuse if you like, but thanks to a toxic threat from the returning Scarecrow, all the regular folks in Gotham have town, leaving the burg to the cops and crooks that stayed behind. I’m fine with this reasoning, mainly because it opens up the sprawling, lovely metropolis to be enjoyed to its fullest.

Batman’s combat skills are still the gold standard in action-adventure, and Arkham Knight looks to beef them up considerably. When it comes to hand-to-hand, Batman can now hold onto weapons after disarming thugs, beating them with their own clubs, all while he smoothly chains combos together. While in stealth mode, the Caped Crusader can use Fear Takedowns, a move that gets the drop on three thugs at a time via a brief QTE. That’s in addition to Environmental Takedowns for unique knockouts based on where the guy is standing when you attack.

Batman’s newfound ferocity manifests in the Batmobile sections too. When chasing an armored car, the Dark Knight can shut it down with some well placed Neutralizer Rockets. And when the driver crawls out of the wreck, Bats threatens to break his arm unless he coughs-up some information. Of course, Bats then breaks the thug’s arm once he has given up the info. Nice. Also, did we mention batarangs to the face?

Tacked on multiplayer modes , and Arkham Origins shows that there’s room for engaging, team-based combat featuring the Bat-family of characters. Despite reasonable quality, Origins’ online battles have never been popular, so it makes sense that Rocksteady isn’t going to spend any of it’s resources on multiplayer. Like a good book, and the dour caterwauling of James Blunt, Arkham Knight is meant to be enjoyed alone.

Rocksteady mentions that--based on the size of the current team--it would have a tough time creating great single and multiplayer modes, so the team is sticking with the solo action it does so well. There are still the challenge rooms to keep you busy afterwards, including the announced Harley Quinn pre-order bonus. Plus, I know so many people that found Arkham City’s wealth of content daunting enough, so those folks may never see all Arkham Knight has to offer.

Early footage from Arkham Knight show familiar faces like Riddler, The Penguin, and Two-Face boldly stalking the streets of Gotham, while Scarecrow goes as an unseen force that’s risen up in the villain ranks. These guys have all moved up to fill the void left after beware Arkham City spoilers The Joker’s death in the previous game. This means Batman is facing a more solidified force without Mr. J’s chaos disrupting their plans... but that’s the least of his problems this time around.

See, the Arkham Knight in the title isn’t actually Batman, but a mysterious new villain Rocksteady conceived in conjunction with DC Comics. Arkham Knight appears at the end of my demo, beating Batman convincingly, and seemingly shooting Bruce in the face as the screen fades to black. Arkham Knight’s style will remind comics-fans of previous Bat-pretenders like Azrael and Red Hood, but this new enemy’s motives and identity remain a closely guarded secret.

Arkham Knight sees the Scarecrow go from fear-inducing annoyance to a criminal mastermind out to level Gotham City. He's replacing The Joker not only in the criminal underworld, but also in Arkham's DLC, where Scarecrow will be the boss of a number of bonus missions. And all of them will be exclusive to the PS4.

Exclusive DLC is all the rage right now, so it isn't a surprise to see Batman join in on the action with 2015's Arkham Knight. Too bad for fans who play on Xbox One and PC, but they can hold out a glimmer of hope that the stages will have timed exclusivity instead of permanent.

Early footage from Arkham Knight show familiar faces like Riddler, The Penguin, and Two-Face boldly stalking the streets of Gotham, while Scarecrow goes as an unseen force that’s risen up in the villain ranks. These guys have all moved up to fill the void left after the events in the previous game. This means Batman is facing a more solidified force, but that’s the least of his problems this time around.

See, the Arkham Knight in the title isn’t actually Batman, but a mysterious new villain Rocksteady conceived in conjunction with DC Comics. Arkham Knight’s style will remind comic fans of previous Bat-pretenders like Azrael and Red Hood, but this new enemy is a highly-skilled combat specialist with his own (secret) agenda, and has a powerful military force at his disposal. He may be acting as Scarecrow's lieutenant, but with a infantry units, tank divisions, and airborne drones, it looks like he has bigger plans for himself. Good thing for battle mode!

The game’s reveal hinted at some other interesting bits of new gameplay functionality and the like, but that’s not the most pressing question for fans that grew up with Batman: The Animated Series. They want to know if Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman for multiple projects and the first two Arkham games will return after being replaced in Arkham Origins. And the answer is yes.

It was confirmed in the earliest preview, which is good because we already had a hunch he'd be back. After Arkham Origins was announced, said that he had just recorded stuff for a new Arkham game. And yet, he wasn’t the voice in Arkham Origins, making the then-unannounced Arkham Knight is confirmed as the game he was referring to. Arkham Knights' Batman is supposed to be very experienced and later in his career than most incarnations of Batman, making Conroy the perfect fit for the established crime fighter.

In the modern gaming world, where we sometimes know too much about upcoming titles, it’s nice to see Arkham Knight remaining so mysterious. In the end, it's what I don't know that makes me so excited. But what are you hoping to see in the final game? I want to hear your opinions in the comments!

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