We were lucky enough to be able to talk with Batman Akham City’s Game Designer, Sefton Hill, before the BAFTA Game Awards begun. Here’s what he had to say when myself and group of other journalists who bombarded him with questions.

(M= Media, SH= Sefton Hill)

M: Congratulations on Batman. Is it eight nominations you are up for?

SH: I think nine, yes, nine… not that I’m counting or anything.

M: So obviously quite a controversial ending to Arkham City. How do you think fans have reacted to that?

SH: I think it’s been good. Like it’s not saying that we wanted to do as like a kind of cheap shot. We really felt that we had a good story to tell, and obviously the story between Joker and Batman is the cornerstone of the two games. So we really felt that [Joker's death] was an interesting place to go and how that affects Batman and that struggle between the two of them. So it’s been good because we didn’t promote it, we wanted it to be something that was just a natural extension of the game that wasn’t a cheap way to get people to play the game, and that’s something people have responded well to.

M: Have you had good feedback on the Catwoman levels?

SH: Yeah people really enjoyed playing with Catwoman. It’s nice to have that kind of contrast with Batman, getting to play someone who isn’t correct all the time, morally straight all the time. Catwoman is a character we had great fun with because you’re never sure which way she is going to go, and it’s really nice to be able to do that kind of ambiguous ending for her where we could have her decide to either leave Batman of save Batman, because with Catwoman you’d never really know, which is what I think makes her such a fascinating character.

M: Are you excited about The Dark Knight Rises?

SH: Super excited. You know I am such a big Batman nerd that it’s unbelievable. It’s great to see what we’ve seen of the film. In a sense I really like that uh, we don’t know anything of it. You know, because I get to see it as a fan. We get to work on the game, never really get to enjoy the game in the same way. Seeing the film is something that I am really excited about.

M: So what is the highlight of working on the Batman games?

SH: Getting to work with the characters, getting to work with Batman with write stories for Batman, Riddler, Two-Face, Joker. It’s such a phenomenal rogues gallery that the writers have laid down over the years that it’s just a genuine privilege to work in this space. It’s so exciting to get to write these stories and flesh out those characters and do interesting things in the game stage with those characters.

M: Do you find the strong mythology of Batman creates pressure on you when making the game?

SH: Yeah it’s definitely a pressure because there is a weight of expectation that you don’t want to let down anyone with the game. You know there are people waiting for an exciting game. So you definitely feel that pressure. I mean to be honest, I try not to focus on it too much because, you know, I think we’ve sold over five million copies and if you think of five million people waiting for something it just blows your mind. I think we just try and make the best game we can make and be honest and passionate about it as we can and hope that other people pick up on that passion.

M: Is there anything that the fans have missed in Arkham City?

SH: I think there’s a couple of things that people haven’t found yet. I mean we put a lot of stuff in there and we were surprised at how fast some people found some of the stuff. I came up with this code and I was thinking there’s no way that anyone will break this.  Then three days later someone had broken it.  There are a few things in there, so as Catwoman you can decide whether you leave Batman or save Batman. If you leave Batman you get the rewind video and in that rewind video there’s a message on Joker backwards. So if you reverse that, play that, there’s things like that which are so obscure we’ll be surprised if anyone finds them, but there’s a number of things like that which we’ve hidden.

M: How does writing the story for Batman differ from the comics or films? Does the fact that the player can interact with the story make it harder?

SH: I think it’s harder, but maybe I would say that. the good side is that players get to feel immersed because they are having such a great interaction with the game that they really get pulled in with the story and really get to enjoy the story. Although you have the problem that the player can decide, I’m gonna go over here for two hours and you’re like ‘urgh’, but that level of immersion is something that we really try to embrace. So if the player wants to do that, they can. That’s why we really worked on those side stories so the players could engage with them whenever they want, rather than just follow the main story. We had to write thirteen stories. In-fact we wrote about thirteen stories. We wrote all the back-stories and things like that so fans could really enjoy the game.

M: Was it fun to get Mark Hammill to sing ‘Only You’?

SH: I mean we talked about it. It’s kinda one of those ideas in the game where we think, oh it would be really funny to do that, and sometimes the things that make you laugh are the things that resonate with people. So we kinda kicked that idea around and thought: I wonder if he’ll go for it? We spoke to Mark and he was totally up for it. Yeah it was really good fun.

M: Would you make a Superman game?

SH: The six million dollar question that I always get asked. I mean, I’m sure there’s a great Superman game to be made Maybe hasn’t been done yet. If you can focus on what it is that makes him so special then you could make a great Superman game.

M: Would you ever consider making a film tie-in, or do you feel this would constrain gameplay too much?

SH: I think it would constrain us because of the way that we work. The story we wrote for Arkham City was a 15 hour story and if you’ve got a ninety minute or two-hour film story, sometimes you feel like you’re just stretching it out.  Games need a very particular structure to get the best out of them. I think of it more like a TV series where you are writing stuff that are in hour-long chunks, for fifteen hours. Films are just one thing and you’ve got someone’s undivided attention for that period of time. In games people drop in and play for fifteen minutes and stop playing, so I think that would be quite limiting for us, but never say never I suppose.

Remember we interviewed a whole load of people. Read more from Portal 2, Minecraft and  Modern Warfare 3′s creators here.

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