With Batman's origins in 1939, the lore around the character has grown massively over the years. Bruce Wayne has become more complex, the city he operates in has quickly become one of the best in fiction, and his associates are continuing to forge their own path. Gotham Knights will explore the lives of the Bat Family not long after Batman's tragic and untimely demise, focusing on how they react to the ever-present and looming threat of the Court of Owls. It's a game that has all the tools to succeed, especially as it's a part of a universe so ripe for intriguing narratives to take place.
Gotham City has a history of crime, violence, and corruption. Batman is just a spoke on a constantly changing and rotting wheel, but his villains are perhaps more ingrained in the city's lore as they so frequently leave their mark on the skyline. From Joker's evil deeds to Penguin's vicious ambitions in Gotham's criminal underworld, the bad guys that Batman faces are critical to the reverence of the city he calls home. When they're not committing crimes with city-wide implications, many of them reside in Arkham Asylum, and while WB Montreal includes this facility in the game, such a move runs the risk of not spotlighting other locations and underserving this one.
Gotham Knights' Gotham City
Gotham Knights will likely rely on the tried-and-tested familiarity of Gotham City, including iconic locations to make the area feel familiar to fans. Arkham Knight presented a version of the setting that was met with mixed results, and Gotham Knights would do well to differentiate itself from what came before, offering a different tone and aesthetic to a city that's seen a myriad of revisions and takes over the years.
The Asylum is only present in Arkham Knights in a small and subtle way, which allows the game to focus on areas that had yet to be explored in the series. The GCPD Building, ACE Chemical, and Riddler's Lair are all featured in the 2015 game and are given so much screentime because Arkham Asylum can only be seen in the distance. As such, Arkham Knight feels like a different geographical and narrative approach to Arkham Asylum, and Gotham Knights should adopt a similar formula if it wants to recreate the city in an engaging and unique way.
Rocksteady's Perfect Take on Arkham Asylum
Rocksteady undoubtedly has the monopoly on Batman-centric video games, and this all began in 2009 with the release of Arkham Asylum. Taking place in the titular hospital for the criminally insane, the game was a love letter to fans of the property and effortlessly matches the gothic, suspenseful, and psychologically compromising tone of the comics. Arkham Asylum's halls were tight, cramped, and dripping with atmosphere, and Batman never felt like the predator like he was in later Arkham titles. It was far more impactful than the open world that Arkham City presented because it always felt as though Batman was fighting a losing battle.
While the characters were all well written, acted, and implemented, Arkham Asylum's setting was the main character. Much like BioShock's Rapture, Arkham Asylum is a place that always seems to further corrupt its residents, and with Gotham Knights including the facility, it will surely be compared to what Rocksteady achieved 13 years ago. Gotham Knights will have to spread its attention to detail across all of Gotham whereas Arkham Asylum wasn't stretched as thin, making it unlikely that WB Montreal will be able to mimic the magic of what came before.
Arkham Asylum is more than just a Gotham Attraction
There are plenty of structures, areas, and locations that are familiar to Batman fans. The Iceberg Lounge, Gotham Docks, Amusement Mile, and Park Row are essential pillars of the city, and without them, it wouldn't have the deep sense of identity that it has created over its 82-year existence. Arkham Asylum is often lumped in with such places, and while it's important to the presentation of the city, it's so much more than just one stop on a guided tour of Gotham. Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane is a hospital first and foremost, but its practices are often less-than-standard procedure, making it feel similar to Gotham itself.
Batman has such a close like to the Asylum because he's often the one to add to its ever-growing patients list. The residents are some of Batman's greatest failures, and their treatment often has a reverse effect than intended. It's a setting that offers its own unique narrative benefits that Rocksteady's Arkham Asylum and Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth take advantage of beautifully. Surrounding Batman with a litany of his villains like Joker and Killer Croc at their most vulnerable is always fascinating, offering a different experience to Batman gliding off rooftops en route to the other side of the map. Reducing the Asylum to a small piece of a huge puzzle would diminish its impact on Batman lore, so Gotham Knights will need to be careful and use it intently.
Arkham Asylum Deserves More Than Gotham Knights Can Give
Gotham Knights is an ambitious title, and attempting to recreate Gotham City to provide hours of fun will be a monumental task. Fans will surely have high expectations as other developers are constantly pushing the bar in the ever-growing popularity of the open-world genre. Batman's home city is one that has been subjected to decades of world-building, and achieving the desires of players will be tough, let alone creating something unique and memorable.
Including Arkham Asylum could be a step too far, though, as it's a location that houses too many characters and has too rich a lore for Gotham Knights to give the attention it deserves. Compared to Rocksteady's maiden Batman title it's unlikely to turn heads with the way it implements the hospital, and focusing on the plethora of other locations in the crime-ridden, hope-devoid city would be for the best. Since it's there, what WB Games Montreal should do is ensure that it's more of a setpiece than an explorable open-world location and try to avoid a presentation wide open for comparison, yet pay it as much respect, if not more, than other locations in the game.
Gotham Knights launches on October 25, 2022, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.