Gotham Knights’ oddest cutscene involves Jason Todd’s trauma coming to light while playing a Just Dance-esque video game. The new Warner Bros. Montreal video game stars the various protégés of Batman coming together to protect Gotham after Batman’s deaths. One of the strongest parts of the game are various cutscenes that take place in the Belfry, the headquarters for the Batfamily after the destruction of the Batcave, that show Nightwing, Red Hood, Robin, and Batgirl interacting with each other and coming to terms with the death of their father figure and assorted other traumas.
However, not every cutscene carries the same emotional weight due to some rather bizarre story choices. One of the weirdest moments in Gotham Knights is when Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) picks up a new version of the console game “Dance Moves” (a clear knockoff on Just Dance) to play with Jason Todd (Red Hood.) In both DC comics continuity and the continuity of the game, Jason Todd was killed by the Joker and resurrected by Talia al Ghul with the Lazarus Pit and Gordon is clearly trying to reconnect with Todd by playing a game they presumably enjoyed when they were younger.
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The new “Dance Moves” game is a horror-themed game, as a level called the “Pit of Despair” clearly triggers something within Jason. Green mist begins to emulate from Jason’s hands as he dances and he’s quickly forced to sit down before the game triggers a further reaction. It’s unclear whether this is solely a psychological effect or if dancing somehow almost turned Todd into a mystically-powered zombie like what we see elsewhere in Gotham Knights, but the rest of the scene plays out with Gordon trying to comfort Todd mostly by trying to return a sense of normalcy to the discussion.
Obviously, the game is trying to demonstrate that trauma and PTSD can be triggered by even the most mundane of activities or actions, but the super-powered nature of Todd’s backstory undercuts the scene. It’s a rare miss for one of the stronger aspects of Gotham Knights, which does a good job fleshing out the relationship between these characters through cut scenes.
Gotham Knights is available now for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC.
