Gotham Knights has an unexpected philosophy at its heart. While it might be a game about four superheroes trying to fill the void left by a murdered Batman, the developers don’t want you to feel like you’re creating four successors. They want you to find a favorite, and turn them into a single new Dark Knight.

"We always understood that there had to be a sense, by the end of the story and by the end of your investment in the hero, that you have in some way transcended the obvious potential of this character in order to become a symbol," says Creative director Patrick Redding.

"This is someone who I believe can fill the vacuum Batman has left behind. So that's such an essential aspect of the fantasy that we felt like there needed to be a moment where that was reflected in the ability tree, where it was reflected in the RPG foundations of the game."

With that overall philosophy in mind, a game mechanic that has you constantly changing and experimenting with new techniques feels apt. Gotham Knights offers a lot of options in that regard, from new superhero suits, to ability-changing gear – but it doesn’t make that idea clearer than in its skill trees. Each character has four ability trees, which offer separate directions in which to specialize your hero.

"The main abilities that you see on the ability tree are abilities that you unlock after you've earned ability points, and that's something that's a natural functional leveling up in this standard RPG way," Redding explains. "You get XP, you level up, you get some ability points. And there's dependencies and prerequisites like you would normally see in an action-RPG, but that is the gating mechanism for those abilities. You're spending points, you're deciding where you want to spend them."

Of course, with four heroes, you’ll likely want to experiment, and the game accounts for that, without feeling like you’re leaving anyone behind while not playing with them.

"So, obviously," assures Redding, "we're a multi protagonist game and we expect that a lot of players are going to identify, fairly quickly that, 'Okay, I like this hero. This character matches my style of play. I'm invested in their progression and in their evolution. I want to play that character for a long time.' That said, there's three other heroes that you may decide at some point, it would be interesting for you to try, and that you want to be able to jump into playing without feeling like you're being penalized or need to go back and redo a whole bunch of work in order to get them advanced.

"So then what happens is, if you decide to switch characters, basically, you now have a surplus of ability points that you can go into the menu and spend. You'll sit there, you'll allocate them. You can look at the whole ability tree. You can decide what you want to have access to."

The skill trees themselves are made up of a mix of ability or stat-changing upgrades – but the paths they can take you down are purposely varied, allowing you to build different versions of the same hero.

Batgirl can specialise in 1-on-1 melee combat, but she can also focus on hacking abilities, or survivability. Nightwing can build on his acrobatics, but can also offer massive buffs for co-op play. Robin can build on his preternatural talents for stealth, but could equally work on tech that helps provide decoys, or enhance elemental effects.

We got a more in-depth look at the trees for the final hero, Red Hood (which you can see in the slideshow above) – Marksman, Brawler, and Vengeance. "So the Marksman tree is self-explanatory," says game director Geoff Ellenor. "It's really about dealing more damage at range. That skill tree focuses mostly on damage per second and rewards for shooting and rewards for taking the time to use precisioning.

"The Brawler skill tree is about melee combat, but more importantly, it's about powering up the fact that Red Hood is our largest character and he's got the best grab and throw mechanics in Gotham Knights. And that's a really brutal hand to hand focused skill tree. So if you're into that style of play, it's a great place to invest early, to get the most out of Red Hood.

"The Vengeance tree is essentially reflecting Red Hood's rage in different ways. He can be an intimidating character, so it's about leveraging parts of his personality and embodying them as abilities that allow him to be more frightening and to deal more damage against certain types of enemies that he is truly angry inside about."

You may have noticed that we talked about four skill trees earlier, and there is one more unique set of options – Knighthood. Perhaps the most interesting of all the ability options, Knighthood is available for every character, and represents a moment of self-actualization where your hero has worked out how they can become their own Dark Knight, rather than just a new Batman. It will begin to unlock after a specific point in the story, but every character will have to complete a set of unique challenges to begin earning the abilities inside.

"Unlocking the Knighthood tree gives you a couple of things," says Ellenor. "It unlocks the hero traversal for that hero. So if you're Batgirl, suddenly you can glide. It unlocks your ultimate ability – for Batgirl, that's the drone – and it unlocks the Knighthood ability tree where you can start to add additional, very powerful mechanics to your hero that are otherwise not available to you until that point in the story."

Redding adds, "Once you've unlocked Knighthood for one character, you don't need to go and do the story beat again for the other heroes in order to gain access to that progression, but you'll need to go out and do the challenges for that hero that are associated with these additional abilities."

Knighthood is a truly interesting combination of narrative and mechanic, a way of using traditional RPG ideas to help tell the story of Gotham Knight’s budding heroes.

"So literally, there is a moment where it's possible for you to have this epiphany with your character," Redding enthuses. "It can be the moment that Robin, suddenly... he's staring at the Batman shrine in the Belfry, and he's looking at the gauntlet and thinking about the technology and how Batman used it, because he's like the most recent member of that team. And Robin's thinking to himself, 'Wait a minute. Batman wasn't just what was in the Batcave or what he had on his person. It was also his relationship and his connection to the bigger universe of these superheroes.' The Justice League Satellite.

"So that's kind of the moment where he goes, 'Wait, I can tap into that. I can absolutely tap into that, and if I use it this way, it's going to open up a set of abilities and some ways of fighting crime.' And so that first moment is what opens up his heroic traversal. It's where he goes, 'I can do short-range teleportation. Okay.' So these are the kinds of thematic links that we've tried to create with the Knighthood branch."

Alongside all of these skill trees is another menu of unlockables – Momentum Abilities. These amount to special attacks that can be assigned to specific button combos. Many of the Momentum Abilities tie into the skill trees – but they’re earned differently.

"In the case of the Momentum abilities, you're getting those by engaging in challenges in the world, explains Redding. "You know when you look at the momentum ability breakdown, 'In order to unlock that, I need to do the following four or five things.'"

Ellenor continues: "I will say that the most amount of synergy between abilities in different trees actually happens between the Momentum abilities tab and the rest of the trees. For example, Batgirl's beat down is a Momentum ability, but can be powered up by other abilities in her tree that allow her to do it more effectively and with piercing damage, which the ability doesn't usually have at the start."

The developers’ goal with all of these trees isn’t just to tack on RPG mechanics to an action game, but to provide a legitimate sense that your heroes are growing, learning, and changing throughout the course of Gotham Knights’ story. As a player, you’re being asked to help create your own versions of those heroes – and the team doesn’t want you to simply be able to fill out an entire skill tree on your first playthrough, encouraging you to pick and choose carefully.

"If [I'm] playing through Gotham Knights in a regular way – so, I'm going after all of the main story arcs and I'm fighting the villain arcs – I will have unlocked most, but not all of the skill tree. So your choices are always going to matter as you, at least as far as what it takes for you to beat the story.

"I think players will, and probably should, mix and match to get the best out of the abilities in Gotham Knights. We know that players will choose ability clusters as we've arranged them in the trees, because they are excited about an individual ability, but there is a lot of synergy between trees and also, you have to experiment to find out what you really like."

You'll see how that experimentation can play out in our video of two different versions of Red Hood playing co-op together, and you can see how visual expression will be important alongside all this in our reveal of 28 superhero suits. If you want to see everything we've revealed from Gotham Knights so far, check out our IGN First hub.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Owen Wilson has revealed he's been scolded "multiple times" by Marvel for letting details slip about Loki, so he is treading more cautiously with Season 2.

The actor told ComicBook.com that he's currently filming the sophomore season of the Disney+ MCU series in London, but he stopped short of sharing any other information as he admitted that he's landed himself in hot water for being loose-lipped in the past. "I do think that... you know, we'll see what happens with this one," Wilson said. "I immediately get kind of self-conscious because they're so kind of uptight."

When asked if he had ever been "scolded" by Marvel for saying too much about the projects he's involved in, Wilson simply replied, "Yes. Yeah, multiple times."

While Wilson didn't share the exact details of the spoilers he's been reprimanded for, the Loki star told Esquire magazine last year that he received a mysterious text message after he "let it slip" that he had a moustache for his role on the MCU series. "I got an ominous text saying 'Strike 1,'" he said. "I don't know who that was, we think it might have been Kevin Feige using a burner phone but that wasn't confirmed."

Marvel is notorious for keeping spoilers under wraps and will take extreme measures to stop information from being leaked, though their attempts are not always successful. Tom Holland has been pretty bad at keeping secrets regarding the MCU, along with Mark Ruffalo who revealed that "everyone dies" in Infinity War, a mere nine months before the Avengers movie arrived in theaters.

Wilson will have to continue to keep things under his hat (though he won't confirm or deny whether he's actually wearing one), as Loki Season 2 isn't going to hit screens until next year. The plot is currently top secret, with the first season leaving plenty of unanswered questions. Additionally, only three cast members have been confirmed to return so far – Wilson, Tom Hiddleston, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Owen Wilson has revealed he's been scolded "multiple times" by Marvel for letting details slip about Loki, so he is treading more cautiously with Season 2.

The actor told ComicBook.com that he's currently filming the sophomore season of the Disney+ MCU series in London, but he stopped short of sharing any other information as he admitted that he's landed himself in hot water for being loose-lipped in the past. "I do think that... you know, we'll see what happens with this one," Wilson said. "I immediately get kind of self-conscious because they're so kind of uptight."

When asked if he had ever been "scolded" by Marvel for saying too much about the projects he's involved in, Wilson simply replied, "Yes. Yeah, multiple times."

While Wilson didn't share the exact details of the spoilers he's been reprimanded for, the Loki star told Esquire magazine last year that he received a mysterious text message after he "let it slip" that he had a moustache for his role on the MCU series. "I got an ominous text saying 'Strike 1,'" he said. "I don't know who that was, we think it might have been Kevin Feige using a burner phone but that wasn't confirmed."

Marvel is notorious for keeping spoilers under wraps and will take extreme measures to stop information from being leaked, though their attempts are not always successful. Tom Holland has been pretty bad at keeping secrets regarding the MCU, along with Mark Ruffalo who revealed that "everyone dies" in Infinity War, a mere nine months before the Avengers movie arrived in theaters.

Wilson will have to continue to keep things under his hat (though he won't confirm or deny whether he's actually wearing one), as Loki Season 2 isn't going to hit screens until next year. The plot is currently top secret, with the first season leaving plenty of unanswered questions. Additionally, only three cast members have been confirmed to return so far – Wilson, Tom Hiddleston, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

The Pokémon Company has confirmed that new information regarding its upcoming Pokémon Scarlet and Violet video games will be revealed on Sunday, August 21.

Revealed during the Pokémon World Championship's opening ceremony, president of The Pokémon Company Tsunekazu Ishihara announced some new content for mobile game Pokémon Masters EX and MOBA Pokémon Unite before teasing that the biggest news would be coming during the closing ceremony.

"We also have news for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and the future of the Pokémon Trading Card Game," Ishihara said, "but I'd like to share those updates with you during our closing ceremony, so I ask that you wait just a little bit longer."

Despite the wave of disappointment heard throughout the crowd, fans won't have too long to wait as the closing ceremony begins at 8AM Pacific / 11AM Eastern / 4PM UK on August 21. The Pokémon World Championships - essentially the premiere competitive Pokémon gaming event with the TCG, mainline series, Pokkén Tournament, and so on - typically features big announcements including the reveals of brand new Pokémon.

It's also often the event where new TCG mechanics are announced, with the likes of Ultra Beasts, Tag Teams, and more having been announced at the World Championships in the past.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will likely be the headlining news, however, as only a handful of new pocket monsters have been shown off so far. The ninth generation of games will be released for Nintendo Switch on November 18, bringing with it a series first cooperative mode, an open world set in the Paldea region, and legendary Pokémon that turn into motorbikes.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

The Pokémon Company has confirmed that new information regarding its upcoming Pokémon Scarlet and Violet video games will be revealed on Sunday, August 21.

Revealed during the Pokémon World Championship's opening ceremony, president of The Pokémon Company Tsunekazu Ishihara announced some new content for mobile game Pokémon Masters EX and MOBA Pokémon Unite before teasing that the biggest news would be coming during the closing ceremony.

"We also have news for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet and the future of the Pokémon Trading Card Game," Ishihara said, "but I'd like to share those updates with you during our closing ceremony, so I ask that you wait just a little bit longer."

Despite the wave of disappointment heard throughout the crowd, fans won't have too long to wait as the closing ceremony begins at 8AM Pacific / 11AM Eastern / 4PM UK on August 21. The Pokémon World Championships - essentially the premiere competitive Pokémon gaming event with the TCG, mainline series, Pokkén Tournament, and so on - typically features big announcements including the reveals of brand new Pokémon.

It's also often the event where new TCG mechanics are announced, with the likes of Ultra Beasts, Tag Teams, and more having been announced at the World Championships in the past.

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will likely be the headlining news, however, as only a handful of new pocket monsters have been shown off so far. The ninth generation of games will be released for Nintendo Switch on November 18, bringing with it a series first cooperative mode, an open world set in the Paldea region, and legendary Pokémon that turn into motorbikes.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Major video game modding websites Nexus Mods and ModDB have taken a public stance against anti-LGBTQ+ content, after a Spider-Man PC mod aimed to remove every Pride flag in the game.

Nexus Mods, a website in which users can share their custom content for PC games, initiated the movement after an established user created a new account (branded a sock puppet) to upload the anti LGBTQ+ content, which swapped out the rainbow Pride flag for the American flag. The mod was subsequently removed.

The user, who Nexus Mods called a "coward", had both their new and old account banned, with the creation of the sock puppet account making it "a very easy decision".

A blog post on Nexus Mods said: "The fact the user needed to make a sock puppet like a coward to upload the mod showed their intent to troll and that they knew it would not be allowed. Had they not been a coward and had they used their main account instead, we would have simply removed the mod and told them that we did not want to host it, only banning them if they reuploaded it again after being fairly warned."

The website also made clear that it will take similar action against any similar cases in the future, stating that "we are for inclusivity, we are for diversity" and, as a private business, "we have a right to choose what content we do and do not want to host on our platform."

Nexus Mods added: "We don't want to and won't argue this with you. We've now explained our stance and we won't be providing a platform for you to distort our position in order to feed an irrational and paranoid narrative. You can do that elsewhere, where we won't care enough to read it.

"If this policy upsets you, if we've broken some moral code of conduct as a business that you can't accept, then please, delete your account and move on, as we will."

Hi! We've removed the content and banned the users. ModDB is an inclusive environment for all and we do not permit targeting marginalised groups. Our content moderation is largely automated but when identified, we have a zero tolerance policy for this kind of content. https://t.co/0leqjUxqJD

— ModDB (@ModDB) August 17, 2022

As reported by PC Gamer, ModDB followed suit and removed the same Spider-Man mod and banned the users behind it. "ModDB is an inclusive environment for all and we do not permit targeting marginalised groups," the website said on Twitter (above). "Our content moderation is largely automated but when identified, we have a zero tolerance policy for this kind of content."

The porting of PlayStation Studios' Spider-Man to PC earlier in August has seen a number of mods added to the game including one that turns Spidey into Stan Lee. Users have also been digging through the game files, discovering what appears to be a scrapped multiplayer mode and mentions of a potential PlayStation PC launcher.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

It seems Netflix's ad-supported tier will have even more differences from the higher tiers, as a new report suggests subscribers to Netflix's upcoming cheapest plan won't have the ability to download shows to watch later.

First reported by Bloomberg, code found inside the Netflix iPhone app revealed that users for the ad-supported tier won't be able to download series and movies for offline viewing. As expected, the code also shows that customers won't be able to skip ads, and that playback controls will be unavailable during ad breaks.

Currently, Netflix subscribers on mobile devices can download content to watch when offline. For example, this is particularly useful when getting ready for a flight, as you can download stuff to watch without paying for in-flight wifi.

This isn't the only limitation we've heard about for the ad-supported tier, as last month we learned Netflix's ad tier might not include every Netflix show.

Netflix is targeting early 2023 for its ad-supported tier. The tier will offer a lower subscription cost for the tradeoff of unskippable advertisements while streaming content. Some of Netflix's competitors use a similar system, and Disney+ is adding an ad tier of its own starting in December. We also know Netflix is partnering with Microsoft to create the tier, as Microsoft will serve as Netflix's "technology and sales partner to help power their first ad-supported subscription offering”.

The ad-supported tier is coming as Netflix is dealing with losing nearly 1 million subscribers. The company is also in the midst of a password sharing crackdown, testing the ability in certain markets to purchase additional "homes" to use your Netflix account in.

There's been some good news for Netflix lately too, with Stranger Things 4 becoming one of the most-watched series in Netflix history.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

It seems Netflix's ad-supported tier will have even more differences from the higher tiers, as a new report suggests subscribers to Netflix's upcoming cheapest plan won't have the ability to download shows to watch later.

First reported by Bloomberg, code found inside the Netflix iPhone app revealed that users for the ad-supported tier won't be able to download series and movies for offline viewing. As expected, the code also shows that customers won't be able to skip ads, and that playback controls will be unavailable during ad breaks.

Currently, Netflix subscribers on mobile devices can download content to watch when offline. For example, this is particularly useful when getting ready for a flight, as you can download stuff to watch without paying for in-flight wifi.

This isn't the only limitation we've heard about for the ad-supported tier, as last month we learned Netflix's ad tier might not include every Netflix show.

Netflix is targeting early 2023 for its ad-supported tier. The tier will offer a lower subscription cost for the tradeoff of unskippable advertisements while streaming content. Some of Netflix's competitors use a similar system, and Disney+ is adding an ad tier of its own starting in December. We also know Netflix is partnering with Microsoft to create the tier, as Microsoft will serve as Netflix's "technology and sales partner to help power their first ad-supported subscription offering”.

The ad-supported tier is coming as Netflix is dealing with losing nearly 1 million subscribers. The company is also in the midst of a password sharing crackdown, testing the ability in certain markets to purchase additional "homes" to use your Netflix account in.

There's been some good news for Netflix lately too, with Stranger Things 4 becoming one of the most-watched series in Netflix history.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Avalanche Studios, the team behind the Just Cause series, was apparently working on an Iron Man game for multiple years before Marvel and Disney pulled the plug on the project.

In an interview with MinnMax, Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg said the game "was in development for a couple of years" before it was ultimately canceled around 2012. It would have been an open world game where Sundberg said you'd be able to "take off and just fly anywhere." Sundberg also mentioned the abilitry to punch enemies through walls with Iron Man's repulsor gloves.

In this clip from MinnMax's interview, Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg reveals for the first time that the creators of Just Cause were working on an open-world Iron Man game before Disney and Marvel canceled the game around 2012. https://t.co/Ups3MrWmE4 pic.twitter.com/ODeya496uE

— MinnMax (@MinnMaxShow) August 17, 2022

The Just Cause games are chaotic open world romps filled with action and explosions, so you can get some idea of what an open world Iron Man game from Avalanche may have looked like.

Instead of this game from Avalanche, the Iron Man games we got at the time were not very good, with both Iron Man 1 and 2's movie adaptation games getting poor reviews. However, nearly a decade after Avalanche's Iron Man cancelation, an Iron Man VR game launched in 2020 featuring a spin on the character from outside the MCU.

Marvel video games are in a much different place than they were back in 2010. From Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine to Firaxis's Midnight Suns, there are plenty of Marvel projects in the works. In fact, the first-ever Disney and Marvel games showcase is coming next month, where we're already expecting to learn more about Midnight Suns, Amy Hennig’s Marvel ensemble game from Skydance New Media, and more.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Avalanche Studios, the team behind the Just Cause series, was apparently working on an Iron Man game for multiple years before Marvel and Disney pulled the plug on the project.

In an interview with MinnMax, Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg said the game "was in development for a couple of years" before it was ultimately canceled around 2012. It would have been an open world game where Sundberg said you'd be able to "take off and just fly anywhere." Sundberg also mentioned the abilitry to punch enemies through walls with Iron Man's repulsor gloves.

In this clip from MinnMax's interview, Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg reveals for the first time that the creators of Just Cause were working on an open-world Iron Man game before Disney and Marvel canceled the game around 2012. https://t.co/Ups3MrWmE4 pic.twitter.com/ODeya496uE

— MinnMax (@MinnMaxShow) August 17, 2022

The Just Cause games are chaotic open world romps filled with action and explosions, so you can get some idea of what an open world Iron Man game from Avalanche may have looked like.

Instead of this game from Avalanche, the Iron Man games we got at the time were not very good, with both Iron Man 1 and 2's movie adaptation games getting poor reviews. However, nearly a decade after Avalanche's Iron Man cancelation, an Iron Man VR game launched in 2020 featuring a spin on the character from outside the MCU.

Marvel video games are in a much different place than they were back in 2010. From Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine to Firaxis's Midnight Suns, there are plenty of Marvel projects in the works. In fact, the first-ever Disney and Marvel games showcase is coming next month, where we're already expecting to learn more about Midnight Suns, Amy Hennig’s Marvel ensemble game from Skydance New Media, and more.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.