Paul Dini won't be writing Batman prequel

If, like many, you loved the writing in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, you may be aware you have comic and cartoon veteran Paul Dini to thank for it. It may be disappointing, then, to learn the "classic" styled prequel to those games won't be written by him; for reasons unknown, it seems publisher Warner Bros. is looking to internal writers for the next game in the series, which you might say is a shame, given how long Dini has been at it.

He explained the situation via Livejournal:

"The last talk I had with Warner Interactive about future games was while I was doing promotion for Arkham City last September. Naturally as there was such a rush of interest about Arkham City, everyone was asking me about a third game, and frankly, I had been wondering about that myself. When I asked about the possibility of working on a third game I was told that as Rocksteady had just finished wrapping the second one, it would be a while before everyone was ready to sit down and discuss future plans. That said, it was intimated that for future games, Warner and Rocksteady might not be looking as much to freelance writers, the message being, that if had something else interesting coming my way, I might want to take it. "

"When I later read their subsequent announcements about the Harley Quinn's Revenge game expansion and the rumored Arkham prequel/JLA game, I figured they had filled their writer needs. I had long before taken WI's advice and booked my schedule with a number of other projects, leaving me unavailable to take on anything new until 2013."

Dini added he had fun working with the teams on the two games, is "grateful to them both for a tremendous experience", and would like to work with them again.