Batman’s Truly Dead In Gotham Knights, And Joker’s Absent Too

Bruce Wayne really and truly bites it at the start of Gotham Knights, creative director Patrick Redding confirmed at a San Diego Comic Con panel on Thursday. WB Montreal’s upcoming loot-focused beat ’em up won’t feature the Joker either, though Redding left the door open to Harley Quinn showing up and smashing a few things.

Batman is in fact “really dead” Redding told a fan at the Q&A, IGN reports (via Eurogamer). This might seem obvious to some, since Gotham Knights’ reveal trailer shows the caped crusader getting blown up in the starting minutes of the game. but WB’s Arkham games have been known for their stealthy twists and third-act reveals, leaving plenty of fans to speculate if the gravelly voiced detective would reappear before the end of the game. That turns out not to be the chase, however.

The Joker was another seeming mystery. While Gotham Knights revolves around a terrorist plot by the Court of Owls, the clown has a way of showing up uninvited even when he’s dead. Once again, though, Redding laid any lingering speculation to rest. Harley Quinn, meanwhile, is still on the table. “I will not confirm or deny whether Harley is [in the game],” the director told fans. The Arkham Asylum psychiatrist turned supervillain turned frenemy is also one of the main protagonists of Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, due out next year.

With Gotham Knights just a couple of months away from its October 25 release date, WB Montreal has also been liberally releasing new details and trailers, and its latest drop, compliments of SDCC, offers a brief glimpse into Batgirl’s character. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Gotham City it’s that people need symbols,” Barbara Gordon says before heading off into the night to knock some heads (the studio recently overhauled her backstory following some controversy).

The trailer shows Batgirl sporting a nightstick that can transform into nunchucks, as well as the standard staple of batarangs and grapple hook attacks. It also lingers a moment on some metal fins on her gauntlets, and ends with a massive ground-pound attack. In the game proper, she’ll be teaming up with Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood to take back control of the city, level up skill trees, and compare loot stats. I’m not sold on that last part, but I am eager to get back into a Batman game, especially one where Batgirl is playable again (she previously made her debut in Arkham Knight’s DLC).