Telltale's series of adventure game adaptations have always been fun to play with a friend or two chipping in at crucial junctures. But August's "Batman" will expand the number of additional players by up to 2,000.
Crowd Play is coming to "Batman: The Telltale Series," a feature that makes it possible for up to 2,000 people to have a say in what happens next during any one playthrough.
If Crowd Play is enabled, players can let other people join in on the decision-making fun by way of a custom website address.
Guests can cast votes on what should happen next as Bruce Wayne and his alter ego Batman make their way through the game's adventure.
The impact of those votes depends on which Crowd Play mode has been selected: one allows the player to read the collective mood but reserve final judgement for themselves, while the other makes the crowd the final arbiter of choice.
The concept is well suited to public events, such as the San Diego Comic-Con presentation at which Crowd Play in "Batman: The Telltale Series" was demonstrated, though the idea would also work for smaller groups, whether in the same room or not.
An earlier live demo of 2014/15's episodic "Tales from the Borderlands" helped gestate the idea, as attendees shouted out suggestions, but Crowd Play could lend itself well to the Twitch Plays phenomenon of recent years.
- Fun in numbers -
That all started in February 2014, when an ingenious programmer turned 1996 classic "Pokémon Red" into a multiplayer game, viewers typing commands into the livestream's Twitch TV chatroom.
Before long, the wildly successful experiment spawned others in the same vein, running the gamut from the universally accessible "Tetris" through to the eminently challenging "Dark Souls."
But it's still early days for Telltale's Crowd Play, and with the first "Batman" episode arriving August 2, it's not expected to accommodate online streaming just yet.
That's due to latency issues -- the time it takes for instructions to travel over the internet -- a studio spokesperson told Shacknews, but improvements are on the way and Crowd Play should pop up again in future games; Telltale's slate includes a third season for its adaptation of "The Walking Dead," a second for "Game of Thrones," and a secretive project for Marvel Studios.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "Batman: The Telltale Series, Crowd Play, Comic-Con presentation, Batman: The Telltale Series game, Batman: The Telltale Series d")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}