Yves Lachance has been promoted to senior vice president of development for Warner Bros Games Montreal, where the studio will work on games based on Game of Thrones and Harry Potter. NetherRealm, headed by vice president of development Shaun Himmerick, will continue to work on Mortal Kombat games. Warner Bros. Games New York, on the other hand, will be headed up by Steven Flenory as vice president of central tech and services, as well as central tech and services. The studio will focus on QA, user research, and customer service.

The trio will work directly under Warner Bros Discovery’s CEO of global streaming and games, J.B. Perrette. Internally, teams working on production and tech will report to Lachance and Himmerick. The publishing division at WB Games will continue to be under Perrette.

“Our company is home to some of the biggest franchises in the world, and we are optimizing our team structure to develop long-term franchise roadmaps to delight players and fans of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat and DC games,” Perrette said about the move. “We are very fortunate to have a strong stable of development and technology talent, and Yves, Shaun, and Steven are respected leaders with excellent track records in their areas of expertise. I’m looking forward to working closely with them and the team as we work to make the best games possible for our key franchises.”

Back in March, Warner Bros. had reaffirmed this plans to focus on its big four franchises in a letter to its shareholders. According to the company, it wants WB Games to “refocus our resources and capital on proven IP and games from proven, world-class studios.”

“As we have previously said, 2024 was a disappointing year for our Games business, and we have recently announced a restructuring plan to refocus our resources and capital on proven IP and games from proven, world-class studios,” wrote the company in the letter. “We are focusing our Games business around four tentpole franchises that have each generated over $1 billion in consumer sales in past years: Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat, and DC – particularly top tier characters like Batman.”

Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav had first spoken about this plan to focus on Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat, and DC back in November 2024. Talking about the company’s relatively bad year in the gaming market, Zaslav also spoke about how the gaming division at Warner Bros. will bounce back.

“We’re through some of the worst — and it hasn’t been pretty on the gaming business — but we have four games that are really powerful and have a real constituency that loves them, and we’re going to focus on those four primarily,” he said. “We’re going to go away from trying to launch 10, 12, 15, 20 different games. I think we have a real chance now with focus to have the gaming business be steadier.”

“We have four strong and profitable game franchises with loyal, global fans: Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, and DC, in particular Batman. We are focusing our development efforts on those core franchises, with proven studios to improve our success ratio.”

As confirmed previously, progression carries over if you decide to switch characters. “If you decide to switch characters, basically, you now have a surplus of ability points that you can go into the menu and spend. You’ll sit there, you’ll allocate them. You can look at the whole ability tree. You can decide what you want to have access to.”

So if you want Batgirl to focus more on 1v1 melee combat or hacking, or for Nightwing to provide buffs in co-op, then have at it. Red Hood’s Marksman and Brawler trees have already been showcased, but he also has the Vengeance tree.

“The Vengeance tree is essentially reflecting Red Hood’s rage in different ways. He can be an intimidating character, so it’s about leveraging parts of his personality and embodying them as abilities that allow him to be more frightening and to deal more damage against certain types of enemies that he is truly angry inside about.”

A fourth Skill Tree, Knighthood, becomes available after a key moment in the story. However, earning the abilities in this tree requires completing challenges. Do that, and you gain new hero traversal methods, like gliding for Batgirl and her ultimate ability, a drone. And once again, you don’t need to beat the story again with other heroes to unlock their respective Knighthood trees. Just complete the challenges.

Momentum Abilities are special attacks that correspond to specific combinations of buttons. They’re earned by completing challenges in the world and are powered up with regular abilities. “For example, Batgirl’s beat down is a Momentum ability, but can be powered up by other abilities in her tree that allow her to do it more effectively and with piercing damage, which the ability doesn’t usually have at the start.”

It’s worth noting that playing through the game normally, completing the main story and villain arcs, will unlock “most, but not all of the skill tree. So your choices are always going to matter to you, at least as far as what it takes for you to beat the story.

“I think players will, and probably should mix and match to get the best out of the abilities in Gotham Knights. We know that players will choose ability clusters as we’ve arranged them in the trees because they are excited about individual ability, but there is a lot of synergy between trees and also, you have to experiment to find out what you like,” says Redding.

Gotham Knights is out on October 25th worldwide for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. It recently went gold. Stay tuned for more details and gameplay in the coming months.

While going “gold” means that principle development has wrapped, a day one patch seems a given. Originally announced at DC FanDome in August 2020, Gotham Knights is an open-world action RPG with co-op and stars four heroes – Nightwing, Red Hood, Batgirl and Robin. Batman is seemingly dead, and while the city’s villains are taking advantage, the mysterious Court of Owls lurks in the background.

Though slated to release in 2021, Gotham Knights was delayed to this year. It launches on October 25th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC (with the Xbox One and PS4 versions cancelled). Check out the latest gameplay here, which showcases two different high-level builds for Red Hood. More details on the different skill trees are coming later this week so stay tuned.

https://twitter.com/WBGamesMTL/status/1559926759184908290

The Marksman tree is all about fighting foes from range (with completely non-lethal bullets, of course). One skill allows for channeling Mystic Energy into shots and bouncing them off multiple foes. The Brawler tree leans into grabs, shoulder charges and empowers Red Hood for melee damage. You could also take some pot shots with his handguns from a distance though.

Details on skill trees and how they work will be revealed later this week so stay tuned. Gotham Knights releases on October 25th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. For more extensive gameplay, head here. You can also learn more about Gotham City’s five boroughs here.

The map shows five distinct boroughs in the Gotham City envisioned for Gotham Knights: North Gotham, New Gotham, Downtown Gotham, Historic Gotham, and Lower Gotham.

IGN goes deeper through the history of Gotham City to help further embellish the map, from the arrival of five families from Europe, all the way through Gotham City’s founding, and how the five zones each have inherited the architectural stylings of one of the five families.

In terms of affecting gameplay, the revealed map doesn’t really show much aside from a few icons. Unfortunately, there aren’t really any details on what these icons might mean.

A recent trailer for Gotham Knights showcased the gameplay for Red Hood. Real name Jason Todd, Red Hood’s gameplay revolves around using his dual handguns (with non-lethal ammo), and mystical powers like the Mystic Leap.

Gotham Knights is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on October 25.

In our deep dive look at Gotham Knights for IGN First, we caught a glimpse of the game's map, which has 400 years of lore and history poured into it. https://t.co/Ph4JsLW309 pic.twitter.com/paSU1fc2dw

— IGN (@IGN) August 11, 2022

Due to his resurrection by the Lazarus Pit, he also has mystical powers (somehow). The Mystic Leap allows for jumping through the air and navigating the city. However, he can also charge shots with energy and have them bounce between enemies. Mystic energy can also seemingly be used to buff his overall strength.

While Todd has some issues, he’s fully committed to his role as a hero. How this plays out, especially given his past as a villain/anti-hero, remains to be seen. Gotham Knights releases on October 25th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC. Head here to check out 16 minutes of the first mission featuring Batgirl.

Two of these, Beyond and KnightWatch, can be acquired by purchasing the Deluxe and Collector’s Editions. Speaking to IGN, creative director Patrick Redding said, “Player expression for us is very important, but we wanted to make sure that we could harness that in a way that allowed for a degree of clarity and unity to the look of all of these different suits and suit styles.”

Game director Geoff Ellenor added, “We wanted the liberty to make suit styles that were different from one another enough that they all had their own really strong personality. And to do that, we wanted to make sure that you always looked cool. You don’t want to end up with a Red Hood that looks sketchy because you made bad fashion choices. Red Hood is supposed to be always cool.”

Artists from Germany, Korea, Japan, US, and France all contributed to the suit styles but WB Games Montreal came up with different philosophies for each. Associate character art director Jianli Wu explains, “For instance, the Beyond one [which you can see on the first slide of the gallery above], the artist, his portfolio was already looking, I would say, 70% close to what we were looking for. So that gives us a sort of like the initial confidence to talk to them, and then to reach out [and ask them to work on the game].”

Suit styles are fixed but have some customizable elements here and there. Players can apply colorways and change the cowl, logo, gauntlets and boots. However, parts from suit styles can’t be mixed and matched. Different suit styles are associated with different activities and factions that are fought.

“So they’re thematically connected to the story as you play, and you keep getting blueprints dropped to you by completing crimes and unlocking different beats of the story,” said Ellenor. Colorways range from black, gray and white colors to different versions of colors seen in the comics. If you want Batgirl’s suit to have Red Hood’s colors, that’s possible.

Gotham Knights is out on October 25th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC. Check out the latest gameplay here.

Many will know the character as Man-Bat but by the time Batgirl arrives, Langstrom is already deceased. She begins exploring his office (using AR Mode) for clues, eventually locating the scene of his death and happening upon a secret lab. While exiting the building, gang members attack and start wreaking havoc. Combat thus begins with one button used for melee attacks and another for ranged attacks.

Holding either button down results in heavy strikes, which can break through a shielded enemy’s guard. Much like the Batman: Arkham titles, it’s possible to execute takedowns from stealth and on high. No counter strikes here – enemy attacks can only be evaded by dodging.

Gotham Knights releases on October 25th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC. A “big villain” is slated to be revealed in the next few weeks so stay tuned.

Unfortunately, fans looking for a late-game twist and potentially playable Dark Knight won’t get their wish. During a fan Q&A at San Diego Comic-Con (via IGN), creative director Patrick Redding said that Batman is “really dead.” While his death occurs in the initial ten minutes, he’ll remain that way until the very end. Interestingly, while Redding confirmed that the Joker wasn’t in the game, he said, “I will not confirm or deny whether Harley is.”

While nothing was said about Riddler Trophies making a comeback, it was noted that “exactly one” question mark for the villain is present throughout the game. Whether this means an appearance by Edward Nygma himself or an Easter egg remains to be seen. Interestingly, Redding also noted custom dialogue and cinematics depending on which character was being controlled at any given point.

This could indicate that certain scenes play out slightly differently based on the character present. Gotham Knights is out on October 25th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

Sadly the trailer doesn’t really show much in the way of Batgirl’s gameplay. Instead, it acts as a short introduction to the character, showing off some of her cool moves, as well as some tandem attacks Batgirl can pull off alongside her team mates.

The studio recently started teasing a gameplay showcase for Batgirl, indicating that the full gameplay reveal for the character will make its debut during San Diego Comic Con.

So far, 3 out of Gotham Knights‘ 4 playable characters have gotten gameplay showcases, with the most recent trailer showing off Robin’s gameplay. Nightwing, and Red Hood have also gotten similar showcase videos.

Gotham Knights is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on October 25. The game was originally also set to release on PS4 and Xbox One, but the scale and scope of the game made the studio decide to leave the last-gen consoles behind.