Having penned the masterful Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, writer Paul Dini has announced that he won't be working with Rocksteady and Warner Bros. Games on a third instalment, explaining exactly why he won't be returning in a blog post.

The reason for Dini's absence from the rumoured third Rocksteady Batman title has something to do with a scheduling conflict, which saw the writer booking future work after he thought that Rocksteady and Warner "had filled their writer needs".

"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," writes Dini. "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 I had something else interesting coming my way, I might want to take it."

Dini went on to explain that his schedule leaves him unavailable to write the rumoured Silver Age Arkham prequel Batman game featuring the Justice League of America (JLA) that Rocksteady may or may not have in the pipeline: "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," Dini continued.

"I had long before taken WI's (Warner Interactive) advice and booked my schedule with a number of other projects, leaving me unavailable to take on anything new until 2013. It was fun working with Warners and Rocksteady on the first two Arkham games and I am grateful to them both for a tremendous experience. Rocksteady has a great crew of artists and storytellers, and it was exciting and enlightening for me to be part of that team. If we wind up working together again at some point, that would be cool, too."

[Via CVG]