The footage (above) shows the first time you’ll take control of one of the Knights, taking you through the basic controls and abilities for both combat and traversal. The opening of the game takes place among the rarefied surroundings of Gotham University, with the Knights following Batman’s latest lead and searching for Dr. Kirk Langstrom (known to comic book fans as Man-Bat). After discovering that he was apparently murdered before you arrived, you’ll need to investigate the crime scene and fight the Freaks gang members, who are sweeping the campus, emboldened by Batman’s death. In the final game, you’ll be able to choose which superhero you want to play this section with, but today we’re featuring Batgirl’s version of the intro. While the events of this section are the same for each Knight, all four characters will have different dialogue and animations during this section. Gotham Knights – Tutorial Module Screenshots The interesting thing here is that, despite the fact that this is the opening of an RPG, none of the Knights are meant to be weak – instead, all four are already skilled in Batman’s style of crime-fighting, and as you progress through the game it helps everyone. one finds their own powers beyond that (more on that development later this month). “They’re already awesome at the beginning of the game,” explains creative director Patrick Redding. “It’s not a function of them being ineffective as crime fighters, quite the opposite. They are all practically graduates of the Batman School of Crime Fighting. So when they start out, they’re very similar, in the sense that they have a lot of these basic combat and stealth tools, as well as getting around the world and using their combat. And then it’s really during the game that they completely diverge into their own flavor of what a Gotham City Dark Knight should be.” What comes before this first playable section is much more of a mystery. WB Montreal is extremely coy about the Gotham Knights prologue, refusing to say how and where Batman dies (and who is responsible). All we know is that his four protégés – Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing and Red Hood – meet at his grave and decide to work together to solve the mystery that seemingly led to Batman’s death. We’ll know more when the game launches for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5 on October 25th. Before that, though, we’ll have all of August to show you new gameplay, detailed information, and more. Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive News Editor. Follow him on Twitter. Do you have a tip for us? Want to discuss a potential story? Send an email to [email protected]
