Highlights
- The Arkhamverse continuity established by Rocksteady and WB Games Montreal is considered the gold standard in world-building and canon for superhero gaming.
- Gotham Knights, while not living up to the Arkham franchise standards, was a commendable effort as the first open-world DC game since Arkham Knight besides LEGO titles, taking a big risk by establishing its own universe and opting for an ensemble co-op game.
- The nature of Robin as a character is always connected to Batman, making it difficult to create a standalone game that doesn’t heavily feature the Caped Crusader.
What Rocksteady and WB Games Montreal achieved with the Arkhamverse continuity will always hold one of the most prevalent and substantial Batman interpretations in any media. It’s not hyperbolic to say that the Arkham games are unmatched in their attention to detail in world-building and the canon they crafted is revered even today as an almost untouchable franchise in gaming. There likely won’t ever be an open-world superhero game that isn’t at least mildly compared to the Arkham franchise now, and that’s a wonderful standard superhero games should certainly strive to exceed if they want to be as special and remarkable themselves.
Gotham Knights failed to live up to these standards, but it was arguably a commendable effort being the first open-world DC game since Arkham Knight aside from LEGO titles and going with an ensemble co-op game outside the Arkhamverse was a big risk when it needed to quickly establish its own universe. Even Rocksteady is being criticized for not having Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League be more like its previous Arkham games, and neither Suicide Squad nor Gotham Knights has been able to step out of Batman’s shadow. That’s why, even though a standalone, single-player Robin game could be fascinating, it would definitely never flee from that bat-shaped shadow, either.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s Strongest Foe May Have the Biggest Weakness
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will need to be creative with how it decides to portray one of DC’s most omnipotent superheroes as a villain.
Robin Could Lead His Own Game, But Would Always Be in Batman’s Shadow
Robin’s Nature is to Be a Sidekick to the Dark Knight or Lead an Ensemble
Until Dick Grayson’s Robin leads the Teen Titans or graduates to Nightwing and heads off to Bludhaven, each conventional Robin is essentially only a sidekick to Bruce Wayne’s brooding detective. The dynamic duo is popular for a reason and makes for fun interactions between them in any iteration, but Robin is typically only a product of those Batman stories and that would make it incredibly difficult to craft a standalone Robin game that doesn’t plaster a Batman throughout it.
Batman will always be more popular than Robin and especially now with Kevin Conroy’s passing it will always be exciting to see which actors play Batman next in games, even if Batman himself is only an NPC who players see out in Gotham City or nesting in the Batcave.
Still, a solo Robin game like this shouldn’t be undercut for the sake of Batman since Robin is underutilized as his own playable protagonist and it’s about time he led a single-player game. It would be fascinating to play as Jason Todd and be killed by Joker halfway through the game, for example, only to be brought back to life and become a gun-toting Red Hood, but even then players would wonder where Batman is the whole time.
No Matter Which Robin, They are All Intrinsically Linked to the Caped Crusader
The fact is that any Robin imaginable must be connected to Batman in some way, and that relationship would always be where the attention is centered. Likewise, Gotham Knights more or less butchered the premise of Batman being deceased in a story meant to accentuate the Bat Family since he was still highly prominent in the story and was brought back in the third act to be a servant pawn of Talia al Ghul for a boss fight.
Therefore, it’s unlikely that any non-Arkhamverse story attempts that same idea. The only way a Robin game might have allowed for the full attention of its Boy Wonder is if it’s set in the present day after Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Here, Robin could be left to defend Gotham City on his own with Batman out of the picture as a member of the Justice League, and that’s if Task Force X doesn’t really end up killing Batman and the rest of the Justice League anyway.
Gotham Knights
Gotham Knights is an open-world action RPG developed by WB Games Montreal. Featuring Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood, players explore Gotham City to take on iconic Batman villains like Harley Quinn, customize their characters through gear and skill trees, or team up together through two-player co-op gameplay.
The action-packed story is set in DC’s Batman Universe where Belfry is the base of operations and the heroes will need to solve the mysteries that are devastating Gotham.
- Released
- October 21, 2022
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op
- How Long To Beat
- 17 Hours
- X|S Enhanced
- Yes
- Number of Players
- 1-2 (Campaign); 1-4 (Heroic Assault)
- PS Plus Availability
- Extra & Premium
