Batman: Arkham Knight arriving for PC, PS4 and Xbox One on October 14

Warner Bros. Games has announced the fourth and supposedly final iteration of its hit Batman franchise, to be called Batman: Arkham Knight. The game is set for a 14 October 2014 launch across major platforms, namely PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Batman: Arkham Knight's story is set one year after events in Batman: Arkham City, and can be considered its sequel. For your reference, in chronological order as opposed to release order, events in the franchise began with Arkham Origins (2013), and carried on in Arkham Asylum (2009) and Arkham City (2011), leading up to Arkham Knight (2014).

Notably, one of the 'core elements' of Batman: Arkham Knight will be the inclusion of the Batmobile (also the first inclusion of a vehicle-element), which can be called on practically at any time in the game.

The Batmobile, in one of its most rough and deadly avatars, can be driven on the much wider roads of the densely populated Gotham city, which is said to be at least five times larger than Arkham City. The vehicle is loaded with missiles, can go through most of the objects, and can eject Batman at any point of time.

Besides the city's massive structure and new additions, Batman: Arkham Knight is said to work seamlessly and without any stuttering, mainly while entering new locations. With bigger city and wider roads, the number of activities are also said to get revamped. "At any given time, there are between three to five times the number of thugs active in Gotham City than there were in Arkham City," stated Tim Hanagan, lead AI and combat programmer, to Game Informer via IGN.

Game director Sefton Hill also described the game as the last in franchise, and confirmed Batman: Arkham Knight will not have multiplayer, unlike the most recent game in the series - Batman: Arkham Origins, "This is the natural end for the story. We really want to go out in style. This is a single-player game. There is no multiplayer. Right at the start this was our vision. It's going to take all of our effort for all of this time. We don't have the time to do multiplayer... to focus on making the best single-player experience we can. We don't feel that it needs a multiplayer element. Warner Bros. backed that up right at the start."

The players will face off some of the popular enemies like Two Face, Penguin and Harley Quinn. Notably, Quinn will also be a playable character in the game. A new enemy is said to be introduced in the game, a 'militarised' version of Batman, with a 'A' symbol seen on his chest. The game notably features voice-actor Kevin Conroy playing both Bruce Wayne and Batman.

Batman: Arkham Knight is being developed by Rocksteady Studios, the acclaimed developer of the lauded first and second games in the franchise, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. The third game in the franchise, Arkham Origins, was developed by Warner Bros. Montreal, and received lukewarm reviews. We hope the return to Rocksteady as developer will make Arkham Knight a title worthy of its illustrious predecessors.

As listed on the game's official site, Batman: Arkham Knight is currently up-for pre-order in the United States, via various online retailers.

The official trailer of Batman: Arkham Knight can be seen below: