Let’s face it, we love to pummel the enemies in front of us. That feeling of overwhelming superiority in the face of rivals who can’t do anything else but accept our slaps is very pleasant. If even above we add the factors of not being touched while we do capers of all kinds, turn off and let’s go. You know, the typical combat of Batman Arkham and Assassin’s Creed.
However, we have never given it a name, at least for Spanish speakers. The term in English to refer to this type of mechanics is FreeFlow Combat, and comes to mean that the fights flow naturally and dynamically. That is, without any kind of problem you can go from throwing a punch at one enemy, kicking a second, dodging the charge of a third and counterattacking a fourth. That is to say, we are not talking about the classic one-on-one combats that work so well in sagas like Dark Souls.
It is precisely in the FromSoftware titles when we greatly appreciate the appearance of two simultaneous bosses, either with the recurring Ornstein and Smough or with the recent Sacroderm Duo in Elden Ring. We are not used to experiences of this type and counteracting them is very difficult, but with FreeFlow it is intended to offer the feeling that we are almost invincible. That yes, it is necessary to demonstrate it with the hands in the control.
A feather that hits like a hammer
Sefton Hill, longtime director of Rocksteady and one of the main people in charge of the Batman Arkham, explained perfectly what is intended to be achieved with FreeFlow:
FreeFlow Combat is designed for the player to experience what it’s like to be the master of melee combat, allowing the player to take on huge groups of Joker’s minions in brutal melee fights while seamlessly chaining together unlimited combos. The player is not limited by the animations that can be chained or by having to learn a series of button combinations to perform a move.
The player is free to make any move at any time, and if this move is successful, they can continue until they have finished off all villains. Combat has a unique look and feel. All the moves flow seamlessly thanks to the way Batman reacts to his attackers based on his stances and attacks. Each fight is very well choreographed, but the player is in complete control at all times.
To this dynamic we must add the fact that the more hits we chain without being hit, the greater the damage we do. A instant and organic reward that moves away from other equally valid formulas seen in hack & slash like Devil May Cry or God of War. There the style is rewarded, the variety of combos that we can execute is perfected and the pause is a reward within the score. With FreeFlow the pace only increases and we must keep it high so that the damage is maximized.
Yes, Batman can throw Batarangs and Ezio has throwing knives, but they’re tools to get to that minion that’s too far away to get close and attack. The use of the Batarang is not rewarded for adding another possibility to the combat, it is one more resource for the combo to be maintained. Just the opposite of the typical button mashing system, as the damage will be even less.
Both models have their difficulties, of course. Hill points out that “to master the FreeFlow system, you have to make split-second decisions in three areas constantlywhich requires a very quick assessment of the situation and a lot of skill.” If you have taken a tour of Gotham or Arkham Asylum, you will understand that feats like the ones in this video are reserved for a few.
Slaps from another era
So, it is key to discover where this type of mechanics comes from. We know that at Rocksteady and Ubisoft there is a tremendous amount of talent but, as is almost always the case, we find the answer by looking back in time. Ubisoft itself used FreeFlow in a masterpiece like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and during the 2000s we saw great examples of this.
The Matrix: Path of Neo allowed us to relive the events of the Wachowski sisters’ films and was an excellent title to allow us to do stunts as if we were untouchable. Mark of Kri, one of those jewels that the PS2 exclusively hides from the hand of San Diego Studio, also brought to the table a combat style that we love to enjoy. However, there is a game that has gone completely unnoticedbut it is the demonstration of how to incorporate FreeFlow into a context that makes perfect sense.
Virtually no one remembers Jet Li: Rise to Honor, a PS2 work that put us in the shoes of actor Jet Li, one of the most prolific martial arts experts in Hollywood. It is enough to take a look at the gameplay of the Foster City Studio game to see that FreeFlow was a basic concept in the title.
To whom do we owe such divine choreographies? The name that you must write down is that of Corey YuenWell, we are talking about one of the most important choreographers, producers and directors of the action genre in cinema. His are works like never back down, never give up con Jean-Claude Van Damme, Righting Wrongs con Yuen Biao o Dragons Forever with the legend Jackie Chan.
In fact, he is the author of DOA: Dead or Alive, Tecmo’s fighting game adaptation and worked in 1985 with Michelle Yeoh. Yes, the same one that has freaked us out with the recent Everything at once everywhere. You can already get an idea of the style of films we are talking about, where the fight dances are very elaborate and are in themselves the great claim to see the tapes. His work on the PS2 artwork is impeccable.
An outstanding student of this style is Sleeping Dogs, that sleeping GTA based on Hong Kong that gave us so much joy back in 2012. Knowing that Yuen is a master of martial arts, now it makes much more sense the answer that Sefton Hill gave about where the inspiration for the Batman Arkham FreeFlow comes from:
The combat system started out as a rhythm action game. It was based on my love for the classic movies of Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung. They have a lovely combat rate that I have never seen in a game. Although we removed the requirement for rhythmic action, the core of that idea lived on in the FreeFlow.
Of course, not only is it worth looking at Yuen’s work, because in Rocksteady they understood that they had to get FreeFlow to work on its own. So much so that the Batman Arkham They usually offer maps as a secondary mode where we can fight with the thugs. “We developed FreeFlow in isolation from the rest of the game to make sure it was good enough to justify its place not just as part of a larger experience, but as a core mechanic in its own right,” Hill says. Of course, they totally hit the nail on the head.
