Batman may have entered the world in 1939, but he’s been reborn many times since. It’s inevitable that creations of such ripe vintage will outlive their creators, and thus be passed down from one set of heads to the next. Each time, these ideas are reconstructed in a slightly different way, with some new style or status quo. The Court Of Owls, which provides Gotham Knights with its primary villain, is the result of just such a rebirth. The version of Batman Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo inherited in 2011 had spent several years battling with demons, ghosts and space gods across space and time under writer Grant Morrison. They wound him back to a more Gotham-based crimefighter, and in the process reinvented the city itself. Now, they told us, Gotham had always concealed a secret society of avian-masked rulers.

It makes a certain sense, then, that WB Games Montréal should turn to the Owls. With Gotham Knights, the studio finds itself in a similar position, picking up the videogame incarnation of this character and world from another creator whose tenure had been defining. And there is a clear effort to break away from Rocksteady’s games. Its main threat is new to this medium, while a fresh status quo is established right up front, as Batman is killed off in the opening cutscene. The introduction of his successors (Batgirl and three generations of Robin) brings with it an opportunity for cooperative play. There’s a greater emphasis on open-world exploration too. And, in what can only be seen as a minor victory for good taste, the Penguin is no longer a cockney slumlord with a piece of broken glass bottle for a monocle.