Gotham Knights is stepping out of the shadow of Batman’s cape and cowl for a co-op action-RPG that centers on the Dark Knight’s Bat Family. Gotham Knights looks to be a refreshing change of pace for fans who loved the Batman: Arkham series but want DC to pave a new path with a unique IP.
However, while Gotham Knights has not even been released yet, there is another classic team of DC superheroes that should be reprised in its own open-world, AAA co-op game. In a similar approach to how Gotham Knights has been designed, a game that centers around the Teen Titans could have the potential to be hugely successful because of its diverse character roster, hilarious character-to-character camaraderie, and infinite content potential.
The Roster of Teen Titans Characters is Diverse
One advantage that an open-world, AAA Teen Titans game would have over a game like Gotham Knights is that each character in the Titans is fully unique, beckoning completely diverse play-styles and gameplay from character-to-character. Not to the discredit of Gotham Knights, but each Knight is a regular human character with relatively similar combat, gadgets, and traversal, with the eccentric exception of Red Hood, who has received soul energy abilities due to his resurrection that result in mystical leaps.
Further, three of the four playable protagonists in Gotham Knights have had the Robin moniker. Still, fans are surely excited that if they will not be playing as Batman in Gotham Knights, they will at least be playing as the closest affiliation to Batman: members of the Bat Family.
Teen Titans has no character replication in its diverse roster; indeed, the Titans ranks have changed often in comic book lore and have featured multiple different heroes in subsequent continuities, but the core affiliates whom are seminal to the Teen Titans known today are Robin, Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven, and Cyborg. Robin has both the fortune and misfortune of already being thoroughly designed and developed in recent games, not to mention the character’s portrayal in Gotham Knights as Dick Grayson’s Nightwing and Tim Drake’s Robin.
Dick Grayson’s Robin may not have had that many depictions in games, but Robin as a character behaves similarly across each iteration, and he would be easily adaptable to a Teen Titans game as a result. Combat would likely be similar to Robin in the Batman: Arkham series, or maybe even Gotham Knights’ own Robin, but either way his gameplay would probably not have to break any emergent molds in order to be satisfying. The rest of the Titans, on the other hand, would make for incredibly diverse gameplay.
Starfire, the Tamaranean princess Koriand’r, would primarily fire green starbolts for long-ranged combat while she makes use of flight capabilities; Beast Boy, known as Garfield Logan, could mix up gameplay drastically for players to possess his unique shape-shifting ability and utilize the specific potential of a range of animals, with experimentation and progression left open-ended and infinitely creative.
Raven, a human-demon hybrid, could unleash demonic powers and her telekinetic constructs to manipulate darkness, shadows, and time at will; and Cyborg, the tragic Victor Stone, could manipulate advanced cybernetic enhancements to produce high-powered arm cannons and other gadgets, as well as an inherent knowledge of any technology to surpass security systems and other mechanical designs, which could provide an edge in team-based co-op gameplay.
The Teen Titans Have a Popular and Beloved Camaraderie
One of the reasons why the animated Teen Titans series from the mid-2000s is such a seminal and popular iteration of the group is that its established camaraderie between each character is overwhelmingly beloved. Gotham Knights has only shown a tiny sliver of its characters interacting with one another in a cutscene with Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, but the two seem to have little to discuss or relate to each other.
Gotham Knights’ protagonists may not all be as close as their comic book counterparts, and perhaps were only brought together again in the wake of Bruce Wayne’s death. But even if that is the case, the Belfry clock tower shown in Gotham Knights’ latest gameplay demonstration featured all characters without any of them speaking to one another. Character interactions in a modern Teen Titans game could be similar to those in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, where the team’s family dynamic is a paramount staple of the narrative and consistently brings about humorous banter.
The heart of the team truly lies here in these seemingly mundane moments where they joke around and hang out at Titan Tower, so that should be represented appropriately in a modern Teen Titans game. If a Teen Titans game also featured two-player co-op as Gotham Knights does, these character interactions would be made even more integral and important, but players could select any Titan they wanted to control.
Like Gotham Knights, a Teen Titans Game Would Have Great Content Potential
Before the game has even launched or shared more details about post-launch content, fans have expressed their desire for Gotham Knights to feature other playable Bat Family characters, either in a DLC or sequel. Such characters include another Batgirl in Cassandra Cain or Stephanie Brown, another Robin in Damian Wayne, or Helena Bertinelli’s Huntress.
It is undetermined if additional characters will be made available at all, but they may appear as NPCs or have references made to them somewhere in the story. If a Teen Titans game were to have similar post-launch content, there would be a massive potential for skins, DLC, and additional characters.
For example, Robin could receive a Red X skin; Starfire, Raven, and Cyborg could receive skins inspired by their appearances in the Injustice franchise; and Beast Boy could receive a new post-launch animal variety that would add to his gameplay mechanics. Honorary Titans could be considered for additional characters, such as Conner Kent’s Superboy, Garth’s Aqualad, Wally West’s Kid Flash, or Donna Troy’s Wonder Girl.
It would ultimately depend on how extensive a Teen Titans game plans to be, but the potential is great for a base game, let alone a franchise with post-launch content. No such title is even rumored to be in development, but Gotham Knights has laid bare the foundation for what future superhero titles may look like if they intend to focus on co-op.
Likewise, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy and other team-oriented titles should help influence a Teen Titans game. Still, if it followed a similar blueprint to Gotham Knights’ co-op action-RPG, a Teen Titans game could potentially land DC another landmark AAA title in the future if it found the right developer.
Gotham Knights releases October 25 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.