WB Games Montréal spent years teasing fans about its new game. The developer finally unveiled it as Gotham Knights during last weekend’s DC FanDome event. Yet, despite the lengthy story and gameplay trailers, an air of mystery still clouds the title. Fresh details have surfaced, though, providing much needed clarity about what the experience entails.
Creative Director Patrick Redding and Senior Producer Fleur Marty shared several more bits of information in an interview with IGN. For one, Redding reaffirmed that Gotham Knights doesn’t take place in the Arkhamverse. In fact, developing something separate from the Arkham series was the studio’s plan all along. This doesn’t mean story is taking a backseat, though.
It seems many are concerned Gotham Knights may assume the form of a Games as a Service. Marty addressed these worries, explaining the title wasn’t designed in such a way. He told IGN, “there is an ability tree, which is different for each of the characters, and then there’s gear that you craft–and so choices that you’re going to be making–but that does not mean that this is a game-as-service.”
Even though co-op is an option, Gotham Knights isn’t exclusively an online experience. Players will be able to go offline at leisure to play the entire game in single-player if they so choose. Marty elaborated, “we think that teaming up and living that dynamic duo fantasy can be also a really great experience for players, but we won’t force it on them.”
The options on how to play don’t stop there. If a player wants to assume the role of, say, Nightwing the entire time, they can. Mixing and matching serves as another possibility. And, yes, two co-op partners can call dibs on both playing as Red Hood.
Apart from what appears in the trailers, the devs remain tight-lipped about story specifics. However, Redding did divulge that Gotham Knights is an original story, though it shares a namesake with a comic series from the early 2000s. The Creative Directed teased, “it’s very much our interpretation of several aspects of the Batman lore and the Gotham City history, and we kind of synthesize them in a way that holds together as a very much a unified storyline.”
Gotham Knights will launch in 2021 on the PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X platforms.
[Source: IGN]
