A Gotham Knights reveal from not long ago showed off some gameplay featuring both Nightwing and Red Hood with some interesting details revealed about each of them during the segment. To get around Gotham, each of the playable members of the Bat Family have their own means of traversal, and for Nightwing, it was revealed that he’d use something called the “Flying Trapeze.” That tool just happened to look a whole lot like a glider from Fortnite, and after people drew comparisons between the two, the Gotham Knights devs addressed the similarities in a recent Q&A.
But before seeing that response, you can check out the gameplay video below to see the Flying Trapeze in action. Upon hearing about it for the first time, you may think that people are just weaponizing Fortnite’s popularity to dumb Nightwing’s traversal method down to a simply Fortnite cosmetic, but once you see him using it, it’s hard not to see Fortnite. Even the way Nightwing hangs off of the glider and kicks his legs is reminiscent of Fortnite, and one could make the argument that that’s just how gliders work, but again, when every Fortnite match starts this same way, it bleeds into other games.
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The Gotham Knights devs recently held a Q&A within the game’s Discord to talk about whatever topics it saw fit to address from the many questions that the community asked during that event. One of those questions straightforwardly asked “Why does Nightwing have a Fortnite glider?” Gotham Knights creative director Patrick Redding responded to say the idea was rooted in the character’s comics origins while also serving as a fitting way to compliment his gameplay.
“The ‘Flying Trapeze’ was inspired by a couple ideas: First, some of the classic issues in the Nightwing solo book where he extends his aerialist moves with jet-powered gliders,” Redding said. “Second, we liked the death-defying angle of him looking at all the various stealth drones in Batman’s arsenal and calculating that he could just get away with hanging off one of the smaller models and still be able to maintain or gain altitude with it. It’s designed to feel a bit improvised, and dependent on his extreme athleticism, which fits Nightwing’s approach to everything. Flying it has such a different feel from Batgirl’s cape-gliding, and it blends really well with his bigger parkour and leap moves, as well as with grappling.”
Gotham Knights launches on October 25th – but not for the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One – so expect to see Nightwing, his Fortnite glider, and the rest of the Bat Family then.
