The reveals of Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and WB Montreal’s Gotham Knights at DC Fandome was certainly exciting but resulted in quite a bit of confusion regarding how (or if) these games share the same universe.
The heart of this confusion can be traced back to the reveal of Gotham Knights. The debut Gotham Knights trailer kicks off with Bruce Wayne confirming that he is dead, which echoes the ending of Batman: Arkham Knight in which Bruce Wayne seemingly kills himself as part of the Knightfall Protocol.
That trailer strongly suggested that Gotham Knights was a sequel or continuation of the plot of Arkham Knight, but WB later revealed that is not the case. In fact, Gotham Knights will feature several notable deviations from the “Arkhamverse.” It just so happens to share some similarities.
The confirmation of that information left fans with two seemingly simple questions: “Is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League in the Arkhamverse?” and “Why in the love of all things good are there so many universes for these games?” We’re not sure how to answer that second question, but we do finally have an answer for the first.
“This is a continuation of the Arkhamverse, so a lot of the threads and storylines you’re going to see come to fruition in this game,” said Rocksteady Studios’ Sefton Hill during a DC Fandome interview. Sadly, Hill did not expand on what, exactly, that mean’s for the game’s plot and world.
Despite a lack of official specifics, that simple statement not only confirms that Suicide Squad is a continuation of the Arkhamverse (despite not being a direct continuation of the Arkham games) but suggests a few intriguing possibilities.
The first involves Batman himself. While WB says that Batman is dead in Gotham Knights (despite our doubts on that subject), the extended ending of Arkham Knight suggests that Bruce Wayne may still be alive and utilizing Scarecrow’s fear toxins to create an altered (and terrifying) version of himself. Not only does that mean that Batman could appear in the Justice League that the Suicide Squad is trying to kill, but that idea kind of stylistically meshes with the deadly version of Superman we see in the Kill the Justice League trailer.
Additional loose plot threads the game could address include the death of The Joker, Gordon’s reign as mayor of Gotham City, and a cameo or two from some of the members of the Batman rogue gallery presumed to still be alive following the events of Arkham Knight.
This whole situation is more muddled than it ever needed to be, but we’re glad that Rocksteady (kind of) cleared this up and we’re eager to get our hands on Kill the Justice League sometime in (*sighs*) 2022.