Why Gotham Knights Doesn’t Use Stephanie Or Damien As Robin

I can’t be the only one who thought, “Okay, but why Tim Drake?” when developer WB Games Montréal announced Gotham Knights, an upcoming game that sees Nightwing, Red Hood, Batgirl, and Robin band together to take down the Court of Owls following Batman’s death. In the game, the Robin we play as is Tim Drake, the third individual to don the mantle. But he’s not the final one to do so, or even the most popular (far from it). So I ask again: Why Tim? Stephanie Brown and Damian Wayne are surely the more interesting choices.

“There were a lot of reasons–from a lot of departments–for Tim,” Gotham Knights narrative director Ann Lemay told GameSpot. “One of the ones that I specifically can point to is one of the things that we wanted to explore for Tim, [which comes] from the comic books, from his backstory: He crafted his entire identity as Robin [from the idea that] every Batman needs a Robin.”

Batman’s stories have been written and rewritten dozens of times over, but the agreed-upon backstory for Tim Drake is that he’s the third Robin, becoming Batman’s sidekick after the apparent death of Jason Todd in hopes of becoming an anchor for Batman–someone to ground the vigilante and keep him from slipping too far into the darkness.

“One of the things we get to explore with [Tim Drake] in this story, both for Tim as Robin and for Tim as Tim is, well, what is a Robin without Batman?” Lemay said. “And there’s a lot of interesting angles to look at there. And we are narrative-based so there’s a lot to pull at, [not] only in how he figures that out, but also in how he interacts with the others who are present.”

It’s not a completely novel concept for a Batman story, seeing as two of Tim’s allies, Nightwing and Red Hood, are former Robins who discovered who they wanted to be without a Batman. Dick Grayson left his duties as Robin to go solo as Blüdhaven’s protector, Nightwing, while Jason Todd, after being murdered and subsequently resurrected, adopted a more violent sense of justice as Red Hood. WB Games Montréal understands that Tim’s growth in Gotham Knights isn’t exactly unique–the point that the narrative team wants to make is that it’s specifically building on the story of a Robin finding independence where the Robin in question wholly believes in that Batman and Robin partnership.

“We definitely refer to the fact that we have three generations of Robins–it’s definitely part of both of the conversations and the interactions within the four knights that we have,” Lemay said. “And also from other people within the world, that’s definitely touched upon.”

Lemay added that each of the four playable protagonists was chosen for how iconic they are within Batman’s family of allies, with the narrative exploring their ties to Batman and, subsequently, their ties to each other.

In Gotham Knights, Tim is 16 years old. That puts him right around the age where he usually strikes out on his own as Red Robin, leaving the Robin identity for Bruce’s son, Damian, to pick up. With no Damian in the picture, however, it’s looking like Robin has his sights on becoming the next Batman rather than his own brand of hero. It’s somewhat of a new direction for the character, but one that still takes plenty of inspiration from established Batman lore.

“We looked at the comic books first and foremost,” Lemay said. “So many writers have written so many good storylines and content and quirks about all of these characters. But then also there was a portion of time that was dedicated to taking the characters we selected and making them ours.”

From that narrative foundation, the team then built the movements and mannerisms of the character. Gotham Knights animation director Lloyd Colaco referred to the process as a “creative explosion.”

“We start off talking to the narrative and game design [teams] to figure out exactly [Robin’s] personality and where he’s coming from even before we start moving,” Colaco told GameSpot. “And then the most exciting part for me on this project: how do you figure out how they move?”

Tim actually posed an interesting challenge for the team given the character’s traditional weapon of choice: a collapsible quarterstaff. As seen in the Gotham Knights Robin gameplay trailer, the animation team looked to Bōjutsu-type bo swing actions and stick tricking–incredibly fast movements that are not easy to capture. “We even captured motion on the bo staff, which is pretty incredible,” Colaco said. “I could see actors doing some incredible moves with the staff swinging around their neck, going under their legs, around their hips. And I’m like, ‘There’s no way in hell we could animate that.'”

So when it came to that added flair, the team had to cut it out, going for a combat style that prioritizes results over style. But there was another problem: Martial artists that excel with these kinds of weapons move at a speed that’s difficult to track with the human eye. That’s great if you’re using the weapon in real-life to defend yourself, but tricky for a video game where players need to actually see what’s happening on screen to figure out what’s going on. So despite Tim’s proficiency with the weapon, Colaco said, “sometimes we do slow down [Robin’s attacks] to get the clarity of the move.”

And it’s not just his fighting style–it seems that the developers have worked to ensure Tim’s sexuality will be made clear in the game as well. In the comics, Tim’s longest ongoing relationship has been with Stephanie, the fourth Robin who would go on to be Spoiler (and who should be in this game while Barbara remains Oracle, but that’s neither here nor there). Then, in Meghan Fitzmartin and Belén Ortega’s “Sum of Our Parts”–a story in Batman: Urban Legends #6–Tim started dating a friend of his, Bernard, canonizing the long-held theory that the current iteration of Tim in the comics is bisexual.

“Obviously we can’t go in-depth too much in terms of the narrative, but we are absolutely following what the comic books did,” Lemay assured me. “No, it’s not going to be main story stuff, but you will see that in there.”

Seeing Bruce’s acceptance of Tim’s sexuality is a heartwarming part of the pair’s dynamic, fitting into the tender found family storylines that counterbalance the more violent side of Batman’s comics. I do hope we get to see touching family scenes like that in Gotham Knights–they were unfortunately absent for the most part in the Batman Arkham games, which largely focused on the grittier side of Batman’s stories and didn’t include much in the way of the Batfamily just talking or being a family to each other.

“Found family, family dynamics, and how they originally sync up and how they grow together through the story is absolutely one of the main focuses the narrative team had,” Lemay said. “And [it was] one of the things we worked with animation and cinematics and audio and all of our other departments to carry through–that was a very important aspect of the story for us.”

Gotham Knights is scheduled to launch for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC on October 25.