The next video game out of Gotham City is missing its former hero, at the worse possible time. So it’s probably for the best Bruce Wayne left some very trusty friends behind—because they’re going to need each other to go up against a familiar threat from DC’s comics.
Following its reveal at the DC Fandome event last year, Warner Bros. Montreal—the studio behind the Arkham prequel spinoff game, Arkham Origins—returned this year to give us an updated look at what to expect from Gotham Knights, as players hop between four playable members of the Batfamily. Although not explicitly a continuation of the story seen in the Arkham games, Knights is set in a world shortly after the seeming death of Batman, killed in a blast that also took out his Batcave. Dick Grayson’s Nightwing, Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl, Tim Drake’s Robin, and Jason Todd’s Red Hood will have a lot to deal with stepping up to defend Gotham in the wake of Bruce’s seeming death, so it’s a good job you’ve got four times the heroes to play around with.
As the new trailer shows, Dick, Babs, Tim, and Jason will have plenty of villains to face, from members of Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery looking to capitalize on the Dark Knight’s death (like the Penguin, glimpsed in the trailer), to a sinister new threat: The Court of Owls. The villainous cult was one of the first rumors circling the next Arkham game well before Gotham Knights was officially unveiled last year. Introduced by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo during the 2011 New 52 Batman run, the Court is a secret conglomerate of some of the oldest families to have ever lived in Gotham, operating beneath the city’s surface—and beneath white owl masks. They use their money and influence to maintain a grip over Gotham at large and struck against Batman with an army of agents called Talons—plenty of who we get to see here, too—assassins enhanced with a powerful formula to give them regenerative abilities and increased strength and reflexes. Suffice to say, the Bat family’s going to have a hell of a time stepping up to the plate. Check out a little more of the Talons in action in some behind-the-scenes footage below.
Gotham Knights is set to release in 2022.
Wondering where our RSS feed went? You can pick the new up one here.