The narrative director for Gotham Knights has explained some of the challenges behind writing unique dialogue for all the game’s protagonists. Gotham Knights is out in less than a month and we’re starting to get some really meaty details about the project. As we already know, Gotham Knights takes place after Batman dies and his sidekicks (Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood, and Robin) are left to defend the now-vulnerable Gotham City. Players are allowed to play as any of these four heroes and even team up with another one thanks to the game’s two-player co-op, but given they’re all vastly different from each other and have their own personalities, they can’t share the same dialogue.
Speaking with ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian, Gotham Knights narrative director Ann Lemay confirmed that they had to write every scene multiple times in order to correctly portray the various characters. The writers would start with a “master scene” that essentially keeps the core structure and story of the scene the same. Villains and other characters like Harley won’t have different dialogue, but the protagonists will since they can react differently to the situations in front of them. The writers would then take the master scene and go in to put special twists on the dialogue to make it unique to characters like Batgirl. Lemay noted this was a lot of work and other departments would work together to pull it off.
“For narrative, it was definitely four times the work in the sense that every Knight has unique lines,” said Lemay. “There’s no single scene where we had a line that was the same for all the characters. They’re each very different characters with different emotional reactions to things. Say you have a scene with Harley, her lines don’t change, her body language doesn’t change, her emotional reaction to what’s being said doesn’t change. Even if we’ve got one character that’s approving and one that isn’t approving, we have to make sure everything flows properly.”
This should encourage players to replay the game with different characters given they’ll have the opportunity to see different things, even if the changes are minor. As of right now, it’s looking like Gotham Knights is shaping up quite nicely and will give players a lot of bang for their buck. In addition to a variety of dialogue, the game will also ensure that characters have their own distinct abilities and playstyles to keep things fresh.
Gotham Knights releases on October 21st, 2022 for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC. Who do you plan to play as? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
