GOTHAM KNIGHTS and SUICIDE SQUAD (post-Arkham games)

Started by JasonPratt, August 22, 2020, 02:26:53 PM

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JasonPratt

Well, this explains the very confusing signs we've been getting for years...



Warner Brothers licensed a relatively minor studio named Rocksteady to create the world's best Batman game, Arkham Asylum, Lord I don't even know how many years ago, it can't be almost 20 could it?  :hide: Which they then made the world's greatest Batman game series, spanning six games and some DLC expansions (for the series ongoing plot). The series ended with Arkham Knight some years ago, but there were definitely sequel hooks for continuing on after ArkKnight and even room in the game's continuity to add one or two more intraquel games (taking place between the main games Arkham Origins: Blackgate and Arkham Asylum.)

While Rocksteady declared they were done making new Batman games (at least for now), their Montreal development branch (who had made ArkOrigins and who had ported ArkKnight console code to PC) has been hinting for two or three years that they've been developing a new Batman game continuing with the basic engine created by Rocksteady.

These hints have been increasing over the past year, but potential release announcement dates came and went with nothing more to show for it. (Possibly due to COVID delays.) Now DC has finally released a trailer and gameplay footage. The trailer is what I linked above; there's also an extended 7:30 gameplay footage reveal on DC's Youtube page.

While the new game is a spiritual successor, sort-of, to the Arkham Knight game, it does not follow the "Arkham" series storyline (by evidence in the trailer), but takes some cues from the end of ArkKnight to start a completely new story. So it's a series reboot, with no actual connections to the prior story, but feels like a sequel to ArkKnight. Bruce Wayne is (apparently?) dead, with his mansion and Batcave destroyed, and his quasi-children (three Robins and Batgirl) will investigate and bring his murderer(s) to justice, growing into his legacy. (Previous guesses were that the game would be a sequel called Arkham Legacy following the three Robins and Batgirl after Batman's (apparent?) death.) Lurking in the shadows, as the main villains of this game, will be a super-secret political group behind a lot of Gotham City's problems called the Court of Owls. (The devs have been super-strongly hinting that the Court will be involved in the game, perhaps with ties to one of Batman's longer-running main villains Ra's al Ghul, which would have hinted at this game being an intraquel if in the Arkham series continuity, since the Court would have factored more obviously into the events of the last three games chronologically if they were still active.)

By severing connections with the past series, the devs -- now notably called Warner Brothers' Montreal, not named with Rocksteady anymore -- are free to sort of start over fresh, although to be honest it still doesn't make sense that Batman could have operated long enough to train three Robins without running afoul of the Court already. Still, fans of the Arkham series (myself included) tend to agree that the Montreal studio did a great job with the writing of ArkOrigins (arguably the best story and writing of the series), so I'm willing to give them some leeway.

Whether anyone will want to concentrate on playing the younger Batfamily members rather than Batman himself, seems more of a dubious proposition to me, but the gameplay engine has always been super-solid (and highly influential in the engines of other games since ArkAsyl), and ever more refined over the years, so I'm willing to give it a try next year (for the putative release, whether that's Q1 or Q4 who knows).


Edited to add: changed the thread name to include the new Suicide Squad game.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Gusington

I have only dabbled in these games as well as the books (just had Batman: Damned delivered today as a matter of fact) but there was nothing in that above trailer that did not moisten the old batloins.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

JasonPratt

So, having explained the situation for anyone needing the context; and having watched the 7 minute pre-alpha gameplay...

1.) Voice acting is grating. Batgirl's new actress is not someone I want to listen to for ten hours, so I'll likely play one of the Robins. And cringe whenever Barbara's around. Or talking to Alfred. Or to Montoya.

2.) Dialogue so far is weak.

3.) Enemies now scale up as you level up, instead of scaling narratively and logically with the game progression. And they have health bars. And level markers to let you know how far your level grinding has been automatically matched by the game to ensure that you'll have some challenge. Absolutely no one anywhere asked for this.  :pullhair: #:-)

4.) I can only pray that the music is a pre-alpha placeholder, because it's an industrial techno scratchy mess. If that was ambient music from a location that fit (like The Birdcage strip club and bar in Origins), I could tolerate it more.

This is all from the same team that (presumably??) wrote and designed the ArkKnight DLC "Matter of Family" which features Batgirl's first public mission in the Arkham series chronology, alongside the youngest Robin -- which was miles, miles better in all regards.

The bright flashy action style is kind of annoying, but I could sort of accept it: Batgirl and the Robins aren't usually known for being sneaky overpowering threats that give criminals nightmares, so it goes with the topic.

I must say my enthusiasm for the game's announcement (at last) has diminished. This might have dropped down to buy-on-substantial-sale.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Gusington



слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

salazarus

It doesn't look good. I hate health bars and level-scaling. This two things ruined AC Odyssey for me. I think they are putting too much RPG elements in this game. But I don't think this is rebootquel. This is proper rebootquel:


JasonPratt

I don't know how GK couldn't be a rebootquel since (1) it's obviously a new continuity (thus a reboot) due to Barbara being Batgirl instead of crippled; and (2) it's picking up elements from the end of ArkKnight which make it seem like a sequel.

Suicide Squad is even weirder, though, and definitely a rebootquel. The voice acting borrows from the Arkham games, which suggests continuity with the setup of Task Force X / Suicide Squad in Origins and Blackgate; but the characters are obviously based on the film's interpretations (Deadshot is Latinesque in the Arkham storyline not black for example) and don't fit in the Arkham series storyline (King Shark died in literally the only Arkham canon piece featuring the Squad, and Quinn thinks Batman ISN'T dead and never worked for TFX in Arkham).

Overall while I'm not a big fan of the Squad, this looks better than the GK to me. The writing is clearly better; the basic concept is better; there are clever touches like Boomerang being upgraded to being at least partially a speedster (which is the only way he could really fight the Flash). The writing even pokes fun at Tara Strong's horrid squeaky attempts at Quinn's voice acting ever since the original actress (Arleen Sorkin) dropped out (her last role as Harley being in the first Arkham game).
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

salazarus

Gotham Knights are developed by WB Games Montréal. That's why I think this is a spinoff, not a reboot-sequel. It also looks like some sort of experiment with formula. I think Rocksteady Studios is responsible for the Batman main line. That's why I think Suicide Squad is a proper reboot-sequel and start of new trilogy maybe.
Gotham Knights left me completely cold. I don't like the changes and I'm afraid of grinding with the new level system. Suicide Squad looks better, but we haven't seen much.

JasonPratt

Wouldn't a spinoff be in continuity, at least originally? (Example: Agents of Shield, and the Netflix Marvel shows, originally in continuity with the MCU, then just became their own things.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

salazarus

I think Knights are spinoff in alt-reality. Maybe they are trying to make multiverse with spinoffs in other dimensions. The devs confirmed that Suicide Squad is in Arkhamverse.
I think Knights aren't in continuity. But they might be if they sell well.  :)

JasonPratt

Quote from: salazarus on August 24, 2020, 02:49:30 PM
I think Knights aren't in continuity. But they might be if they sell well.  :)

It would be hard to put them in continuity, with Barbara glide-kicking around and her father dead moments after the end of ArkKnight, instead of preparing for a wedding with Drake (and a honeymoon afterward in DLC). But your cynicism seems sufficiently pessimistic, that I can't deny the possibility!  >:D

I know the Squad developer from Rocksteady made words with his mouth suggesting that his game is in the Arkhamverse, but that seems very unlikely from the content shown so far. The game's art is clearly inspired by the film, suggesting its origins as a cash-in property (before the film blew its cred with many geeks). I still sort-of like it better than GothKnights.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!