Batman Arkham Asylum is easily one of the most anticipated games of the year, the combination of great looking gameplay and visuals combined with one of the most popular characters in comics had fans eagerly waiting for the release. After playing the demo (Batman Arkham Asylum impressions), some are even calling it the greatest superhero based game ever. Recently we had the opportunity to talk to Game Director Sefton Hill of Rocksteady Studios about Batman Arkham Asylum.

CraveOnline: Tell us about the use of the Riddler in the game.

Sefton Hill: Throughout the asylum, the Riddler has left all these challenges and riddles around because basically he wants to prove that he's smarter than Batman and he's going to do whatever he can to prove that. He's left these riddles around which often relate to how other characters connect to the Asylum itself. He'll leave a cryptic clue and you'll have to figure out what that thing is that he's talking about. There [are] 240 things that he is going to challenge you with throughout the course of the game.

CraveOnline: What was the most challenging part of the game design?

Sefton Hill: I think with the characters a lot of the real challenge was where we took the reinvention a bit further, like Harley Quinn (Harley Quinn Batman Arkham Asylum). We worked with Wildstorm and Jim Lee on that and Carlos D'Anda on the re-imagining of her with Paul Dini, of course who created her. I would say Scarecrow had a unique look as well. So it’s really exciting to be able to create a new look for some of the characters. But also to bring to life some of the classic images of the characters like Batman in his proper beefy state. The challenges are that [these are characters] people know incredibly well, so you have to be very careful, but the feedback we got has been extremely positive. We have to bring them all in to light with our vision… they have to have a consistent style throughout.

I also asked Hill about plans for downloadable content (DLC) for Batman Arkham Asylum and he mentioned that while DLC had not been announced officially, there were definitely plans for it.

Batman Arkham Asylum hits stores today and is available on the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360.