The long-rumored Batman game from WB Games Montreal has finally been revealed today during the DC FanDome online event, and it is called Gotham Knights.
It is not immediately clear if Gotham Knights is set in the Arkham universe, but it does bear a similar gritty aesthetic. It is hard to tell if the legendary Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy has reprised his role from the Arkham games, though the actor is still very much involved in the general world of Batman. It is possible that it is a new version of the Batman universe, but regardless, it appears Bruce Wayne has been killed and has passed the mantle on to his four most famous sidekicks: Nightwing, Robing, Batgirl, and the Red Hood.
Gotham Knights is a game that can be played entirely in single-player or two-player co-op according to WB Montreal’s gameplay demonstration. The demo showcases Batgirl and Robin, who seem to have melee combat similar to Batman from the Arkham games. Batgirl is able to stealthily perch above enemies like Batman used to do, while Robin is able to teleport thanks to his hacking into the Justice League’s satellites.
There are also cool teamwork moves the characters can pull off together, similar to WB Montreal's work on the Batgirl-centric "A Matter of The Family" DLC for Batman: Arkham Knight. The game features an open world-looking Gotham with Bat-cycles the 4 playable characters can use to traverse the city quickly.
Montreal says the footage takes place “a dozen or so hours” into Batgirl’s character progression, which will involve a leveling system where enemies will scale up or down to always challenge players. It is unclear yet if there is a story arc for each of the four characters, or if it is one story that players can simply choose who to play as. The demo video did seem to suggest though that players will be able to tackle missions in a different order. It is also unclear if there will be any four-player co-op to utilize all four members of the Bat-family at once.
The announce trailer then ends with a confirmation that the game will in fact feature the Court of Owls. The Court of Owls has been one of the main elements teased by WB Montreal, and it almost seems like a fake-out that they were not featured until the very end. Fans are surely excited to see how the Bat-family will clash the Owls and their deadly assassins, the Talons. WB Montreal called the gameplay demo a pre-alpha build, meaning that the game still has a long way to go in development, and will likely release towards the latter half of 2021.
That is not all the exciting DC news that will be coming out of DC FanDome today. The aforementioned Suicide Squad game coming from Rocksteady Studios is scheduled to be revealed at 8 pm EST.
Gotham Knights is slated for release in 2021 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
