Warner Bros. Games Montreal’s new game Gotham Knights made a big splash at DC FanDome today, but since the game’s reveal, fans have been speculating whether the co-op action title is meant to be a sequel or spinoff to the Batman: Arkham series, sharing those games’ setting in Gotham City and focusing on Batman’s allies Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing and Red Hood as the lead characters.
In a comment to Kotaku, WB Games clarified that Gotham Knights is set in its own continuity, and is in a separate universe entirely from the Arkham games. The decision to focus on the Bat-Family instead of Batman fueled fan theories that the game was a sequel to Arkham Knight, but this doesn’t seem to be the case despite the stylistic similarities.
As revealed in the gameplay footage released earlier today, Gotham Knights shares the open-world design and kinetic fight sequences that fans grew familiar with from Arkham, but the narrative won’t be a continuation of Rocksteady’s games. The game will also feature online co-op and RPG-style progression for the four player characters.
While the news that Gotham Knights isn’t related to Arkham may disappoint fans of Rocksteady’s critically acclaimed take on the Batman mythos, allowing WB Montreal to carve out its own niche with a new game may actually be better for fans rather than revisiting the narrative and gameplay we’ve already seen before. The studio’s previous title, Arkham Origins, was a solid game but didn’t have the staying power to keep fans interested in it over time; recent rereleases of the Arkham series skip over it entirely.
With Rocksteady moving on to its mysterious Suicide Squad project, giving Gotham Knights the chance to define its own legacy could also be the right move as fans move toward the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. A new generation of console hardware means that gaming experiences won’t have to limit themselves to what players have seen before, and other titles like Marvel’s Avengers and Insomniac’s Spider-Man built new experiences that expand and evolve the ideas present in previous superhero games.
Warner Bros. has been teasing Gotham Knights since last year with cryptic messages hinting at players squaring off against the Court of Owls, but the game was only revealed in full today during DC’s FanDome online convention. WB Montreal seems to be trying its hand at making a Batman game without Batman, putting players in the shoes of the Caped Crusader’s sidekicks instead.
Gotham Knights will release on current- and next-gen systems in 2021.
