Who Are The Villains We Get To Beat Up in ‘Gotham Knights?’

What’s the thing we love most about about a Batman video game?

Is it the bold storytelling choices? Is it the iconic voice acting? Is it the satisfaction of defending the innocent, giving hope to the hopeless, and becoming the hero that Gotham deserves?

No, it’s the kicking the shit out of people.

Seriously. The best part of any Batgame is the ability to beat the absolute tar out of waves and waves of goons. These guys are probably just low rent criminal types, trying to survive in the nasty banana republic of a city that is Gotham. They don’t come from means. They don’t have options. They were born into a system of poverty and violence and so they chose violence to get by because it’s all they know. And are we sympathetic? Hell no. We take the reigns of a billionaire ninja man who has single-mindedly decided to become Gotham’s judge, jury and executioner because some bad shit happened to his parents. Well some bad shit probably happened to Mook #2’s parents too, but we’re gonna send that guy home with a broken arm, three cracked ribs, and collapsed lung because he had the audacity to try to tell us that we are neither “vengeance” nor “the night.” And are we gonna let that fly? You bet your spandex covered ass we’re not. Because WE ARE BATMAN.

Except not, because Batman is “dead” in Gotham Knights, but that ain’t stopping Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood, and Robin from picking up where he left off. So who do we get to pick up and throw off the rooftops in this next iteration of the Batstory? Let’s find out!

The Freaks

Okay, these mooks look like they raided Party City, Hot Topic, and Dick’s Sporting Goods in order to try to put the hurt on us. But we’re gonna put the hurt on them for trying. These don’t appear in any other forms of Batman media, so it looks like they were made up for us to pummel for this game. Judging by their designs, one may wager a guess that they’re working for Harley Quinn. That guess would be correct, because Joker ain’t in this game. Sorry, y’all. You’ll have to punch these ersatz clowns instead.

The Regulators

Uh oh. Looks like some fuckleheads decided to pull some eurodollars together and try to go all Cyberpunk 2077 on us. Well, that wasn’t a good idea, because our tech is way better and they’re about to find out why. These losers were also invented for Gotham Knights but it looks like they were originally trying to get into Berghain before someone scooped them up and took them to Best Buy. These guys apparently like to perform heists around Gotham City. But we don’t much care for heists in Gotham City, do we? No sir, we do not.

The Penguin

FINALLY. A villain with a little clout. His goons have some style, too. One would think they’d be running around in rental tuxes but nope, they went and bought military surplus gear and Patagonia jackets. We’re not actually sure how big of a role The Penguin is going to play in Gotham Knights. We also don’t know if he’s actually going to be an active villain at all. He’s seen in the trailer giving Nightwing a lead to follow about another villain on this list. Either he’s on our side or he’s just thinning out the villain herd so he can stay on top. Bold move. We’re still gonna try and sock this bird one, though. Don’t tell PETA.

Man-Bat

OK, so this one is complicated. The first mission of Gotham Knights was released on Youtube, and in it a man named Kirk Langstrom is murdered. Kirk Langstorm is known to die-hard fans as Man-Bat, an honestly awesome horror-movie style human/bat hybrid in the Batman universe. I don’t know why they killed Kirk, maybe because Batman and Joker are also dead/gone. But this is comic book rules y’all. No one stays dead in comic books. I wouldn’t be suprised if Kirk Langstrom’s corpse is experimented on and he comes back as Man-Bat. I wouldn’t be surprised if Joker makes and end-of-game cameo only to be punched in the face by Batman himself who is also making his end-of-game cameo. We just don’t know. But my fingers and toes are crossed for all three.

Mr. Freeze

Our hearts are on fire for Mr. Freeze. We saw him in the trailer and my man looks good. He’s got some badass new armor that makes him look like he could bench press Bane. And he’s got a crazy looking rail gun thing that no doubt shoots cold shit like ice or liquid nitrogen or Bose-Einstein condensate or something. We love him. We actually don’t really like punching him in the face, though. His backstory is way tragic and it kinda feels … wrong? Don’t get us wrong, though, we are still totally gonna put this guy on ice if you’ll pardon the pun. We’ll just feel a lil’ bad about it.

Clayface

The B-list actor turned bad guy will also be making an appearance in Arkham Knights, and according to the trailer he’s spouting plenty of theatre-kid puns that make his gooey face all the more punchable. The problem is he’s just a little too squishy. It’s like trying to box some jello, it’s not really gonna work. We’ll probably have to use something boring like “creativity” instead of our fists to hit this guy. Don’t they understand that our sole creative pursuit is figuring out how to paint the floor with people’s blood? Does this guy even have blood? We’ll find out.

Harley Quinn

Sorry, Harley, when you’re not around Joker you’re kind of a gay feminist icon, but we’re still gonna have to punch you in the face. Don’t get us wrong, we love your new animated series, and we think that Margo Robbie is an amazing actor! But now you’ve got an electrified sledgehammer or something and you’re trying to hit us with it so naturally we’re going to try to hit you too. It’s not personal. It is. Totally personal. But it’s a good kind of personal. All love.

The League of Assassins

The only thing that can beat a bunch of rich ninjas is another bunch of rich ninjas, so this is gonna get ugly. Run by Ra’s al Ghul and/or his daughter Talia, the League of Assassins are some dudes you def don’t want to run into in a back alley. But we’re gonna. How do we know? Well, they don’t appear in the game trailer, but the Gotham Knights online marketing campaign has been lousy with their symbol. It’s everywhere.

The Court of Owls

Ohhhhh shit. Alright, these guys are honestly not to be fucked with, but fuck with them we shall. So these dudes are a group of other rich guys that haven been running the city of Gotham for centuries. They’re like the evil Rockefellers. Or just the Rockefellers in general. They also have no respect for the rights of dead people and raise a personal army of undead soldiers called the Talons. The Talons are not some shambling pushovers, either. They’re insanely deadly assassins who are nigh unkillable. Hopefully we get to kill them, though, without breaking Batman’s one rule because they’re technically already dead.

(featured image: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)