The Strong National Museum of Play has acquired the Volition collection, which includes essential materials to reconstruct the 30-year history of the developer behind the popular Saints Row series. This astonishing find offers a unique insight into various forgotten projects, including a playable demo of a Batman game, developed in 2003, that was never released to the public.
Stealth, puzzles, and everything we expect from the bat
The digital preservation director of the museum, Andrew Borman, recently showcased the demo, revealing a game that features stealth mechanics and puzzle-solving that anticipated aspects of future titles in the Arkham series. Although the demo suffers from certain imperfect aspects, it showcases the early innovations of Volition, such as the use of tools like binoculars, grenades, and a grappling hook.
The context of the Batman demo is intertwined with the development of a game called Underground, which was supposed to be a heist title in an open world. However, this project was canceled for not resonating with the expectations of the marketing team after the success of Grand Theft Auto III. The co-founder of Volition, Mike Kulas, had mentioned that the game’s mechanics did not meet the market demands at that time.
Despite the similarities that arose between what Underground was supposed to be and the ideas outlined in the Batman demo, the game never saw the light of day due to the interruption of its development. Thus, the acquisition by the museum not only preserves fragments of Volition’s history but also highlights how the studio has even more history than we know.
