Recovered files show Tumbler gameplay from canceled Nolan-era Batman project

Kotaku reports that on January 12 retro game archivist MrTalida uploaded recovered files from Project Apollo, a canceled Batman game Monolith was developing in early 2009 that would have tied into Christopher Nolan’s films. The recovered files, created between April 2009 and January 2010, include early gameplay clips and in-engine tests with an emphasis on sound and music for the third-person action game.

Among the newly uncovered material is footage of the Tumbler driving through what appears to be a large train yard while escaping police and destroying objects and explosive barrels — a vehicle section characteristic of single-player AAA games from that era. MrTalida also posted a series showing how the Tumbler sequences progressed from October 2009 to November 2009 to January 2010, and the videos are available on the Internet Archive.

Previous footage from a later build leaked in 2024, and reporting by Liam Robertson in 2019 said Monolith had worked on the project for roughly 18 months. The title was planned as an open-world experience with traversal by gliding, grappling or the Tumbler and a system of randomly generated thugs that would return stronger later — an idea Monolith later turned into the Nemesis System used in Shadow of Mordor (2014) and Shadow of War (2017).

Key Topics

Culture, Project Apollo, Monolith, Tumbler, Christopher Nolan, Nemesis System