The PS2 Batman Begins game was considered such a "disaster" that Christopher Nolan turned down a Dark Knight-inspired game

One of the biggest what-ifs in licensed games was Pandemic's adaptation of The Dark Knight, which never ended up releasing. In fact, the only movie in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy to get a game was Batman Begins. However, there was almost an original game set in the Nolan universe from the recently shuttered Monolith Productions. This game had details surface last year, including the fact it's the originator of the Nemesis System that would later be used in Shadow of Mordor.

Former general manager at WB Games, Laura Fryer, has revealed some more details about the cancelled project, including the real reason it was cancelled. In a YouTube video titled 'My Time with Monolith,' Fryer showed off some footage from the cancelled Batman title. The game is described as an open-world game "where gamers could explore and solve missions and could use different approaches like combat or stealth." Fryer didn't reveal when this game started development, but it was shelved in 2011 meaning it's very likely that it was in development at the same time as Batman: Arkham City – which was also an open-world Batman game featuring combat and stealth.

The game was kept under wraps during development, as Fryer reveals, "WB was excited about the game and asked us to work on it in stealth mode until we could talk to Nolan." But that's where things came apart. "Unfortunately, when we finally spoke to him, he didn't want us to do it" with the reasoning coming back to that Batman Begins game. Despite nabbing a mixed 65 on Metacritic, Fryer mentions, "the Batman Begins game had come out, and it was a disaster; Nolan didn't want a repeat of that experience."

Fryer added that the team had talked about postponing the game until after The Dark Knight Rises had released, but "leadership didn't want to wait that long, and we ended up shelving it in 2011." After that, many of the team members moved over to developing the Lord of the Rings MOBA Guardians of Middle Earth.

Fryer also revealed that the Nemesis System was created because WB wanted to target second-hand sales.