Update: Kotaku is reporting that Gotham Knights is not set in the Arkham universe despite picking up on a plot point very similar to the ending of Arkham Knight.
Batman Arkham Knight gave us an explosive ending that made it, without dropping spoilers, rather difficult to create a follow-up sequel. And while Rocksteady is done with the Arkham universe, WB Montreal has picked up the torch and wants to imagine what a Gotham without Batman might look like in Gotham Knights.
Set to release sometime in 2021, Gotham Knights puts you in the shows of not one but four different vigilantes. In this game you’ll be able to play as Nightwing, Batgirl, Robin, and Red Hood as they fight the much-rumored Court of Owls–something WB Montreal has been teasing for nearly two years.
There are a bunch of questions about what this game will be like. The footage above gives us a good look at some early gameplay, which has the player playing as Batgirl. She has a reverse trike (it can do wheelies!), which builds nicely on the Batmobile in Arkham Knight, and the mission has her working with the current Robin (Tim Drake) to infiltrate Mr. Freeze’s icy base.
Gotham Knights: Co-op?
The four-character cast is a big departure from the previous titles in the series, which have all starred Batman himself and relegated other characters to short segments or post-release downloadable content. Here, the Bat-Family takes center stage. That leaves us wondering if this game will offer a cooperative multiplayer and maybe even hot-swapping between characters. Polygon calls Gotham Knights a “cooperative game set in an open-world Gotham City,” but we haven’t seen that echoed anywhere in the trailers or from other sites. WB Montreal has not yet sent out a press release as of the time of this writing to confirm this.
This definitely feels like a bold move–a Batman game apparently without Batman, which depends as much on the bankability of characters like Batgirl and Robin to sell as it does the Batman logo. I’m excited to see what Gotham Knights ends up being.
WB Montreal says Gotham Knights will release in 2021, but didn’t offer a window with any more detail than that. The team also avoided saying what platforms it will be on. With a 2021 release, we’re betting on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
