Telltale's Batman series screenshot of Gotham

Telltale's modern adventure games have all been rather engrossing singleplayer experiences, but as anyone that ever played them with a friend by their side will tell you, they become even more enjoyable when you're trying to agree on your next move within the dozen or so seconds the tricky situations offer you.

Naturally, this method only works when you can get everyone into the same room, something that might not be possible these days given that you can have friends from all over the world. Thankfully, it does appear that Telltale is aware of these issues as they have recently announced that their future series, starting with the upcoming Batman one, will support co-op multiplayer by allowing a few thousand people to vote on which decision to make.

If you activate the multiplayer option during your playthrough a custom URL will be generated through which your friends, family and pets will be able to vote on the various choices. Depending on your settings, these votes will then either simply be displayed as a percentage on your screen indicating your public's wishes, or actually used to influence the game itself, essentially allowing you to crowd-source the whole decision making process.

While this is an amazing idea for small, tight-knit groups that might play together from across the continent, it becomes a whole lot more interesting when you consider streaming. Sadly, Telltale has stated that the initial version of this system will probably have too much latency for serious streaming, but with a couple of improvements this could be one of the best features they've added in a very long time. Twitch Plays Pokemon has already proven that the collective will of the Internet results in some hilariously stupid events, so seeing that repeated once again, though in a much more controlled environment, would be quite the spectacle to behold.

The exact details behind this whole system are currently unknown, but Telltale's Batman is coming on August 2nd so we won't have to wait for very long in order to find out.

 

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