Gotham Knights Developer Addresses Justice League Connection
A new trailer for Gotham Knights was released today by WB Games Montreal that primarily highlighted the gameplay stylings of Robin. While the video mainly showed off how Robin will play and some of the abilities that he will have in store, Tim Drake himself also happened to name-drop the Justice League, which is the DC superhero group to which Batman belongs. And while this may have caused some fans to get excited about a direct involvement of the Justice League in the game's story, one of the developers at WB Games Montreal has clarified what this means.
Speaking to ComicBook.com in a recent interview, narrative director Ann Lemay told us about what this mention of the Justice League means for Gotham Knights. In short, Lemay said that the narrative of Gotham Knights will solely center around the events that are taking place within Gotham City associated with the four main characters: Robin, Red Hood, Batgirl, and Nightwing. However, the studio wanted to also ensure that this version of Gotham wasn't one that was existing within a bubble in the DC universe. As such, certain callbacks to other elements of the DC world, such as the Justice League, were also thrown in.
"For us, using the Justice League satellite teleportation for Robin just made complete sense. He knows it's there, he leverages it for himself in combat. It was obvious for us to use," Lemay explained. She went on to also clarify, "Gotham Knights is a self-contained story that happens in the city. They are part of a larger universe and we're never going to be like, 'Oh, they're just in their little bubble.' So there might be references, but that's about as far as we'll be going."
It's worth stressing that even though the Justice League might be existing within the world of Gotham Knights, this team isn't the same one that is seen in Rocksteady's upcoming game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Instead, the 2023 Suicide Squad game will take place within the same universe as Rocksteady's Batman Arkham series. By comparison, Gotham Knights is going to be set in its own version of Gotham, although the game's story does line up with the conclusion of Batman: Arkham Knight. This might be a bit confusing, but in short, you simply shouldn't expect Superman, Wonder Woman, or Green Lantern to suddenly show up over the course of Gotham Knights.
It remains to be seen just how many references and Easter eggs to other DC characters will be included in Gotham Knights, but we won't have to wait a whole lot longer to find out. The game is poised to release this fall on October 25th and will be coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC.