Gotham Knights might be an action-RPG, but it won’t follow the genre convention of having your characters start as weaklings. Instead, Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood will all be the powerful Batman acolytes you’d expect at the start of the game – and find their own unique ways to become stronger over the course of the game.

All four characters begin more or less fully adept at what the development team informally calls ‘Batman stuff’, with unique skill trees allowing them to blossom into different kinds of vigilantes as you progress. Speaking to us as part of our month of IGN First coverage on Gotham Knights, creative director Patrick Redding explained the thought process:

“It was very important for us that these heroes, our Knights are... They're already awesome at the start of the game. It's not a function of them being ineffective as crime fighters, quite the opposite. They are all effectively graduates of the Batman School of Crime Fighting.

"So when they start, they are at their most similar, in the sense that they have a lot of these basic tools of combat and stealth, and moving around in the world and using their grapple. And then it's really over the course of the game that they fully diverge into their own flavor of what a Dark Knight of Gotham City should be.”

You can see how that manifests in our footage of the first 16 minutes of Gotham Knights, in which Batgirl is already moving and fighting like Batman while looking into a mystery at Gotham University – and easily taking down goons from Gotham’s Freaks gang while doing so.

“We didn't want to do a dungeon crawler RPG where we send you into the forest to kill six slugs and return with your stick,” explains game director Geoff Ellenor. “These are ultimately very interesting people who have been trained by Batman and by others. They're very intelligent. They're very capable. But they still have this challenge of rising to the level of, ‘what does it take to protect Gotham City now that Batman is gone?’ There is an RPG progression, but they're not starting from zero by any stretch. They're already pretty rocking by the time you take the controller.”

This isn’t to say the game will be unchallenging, however – but it’s about managing the balance of who these superheroes should find it easy to take down, versus bigger threats:

“We don't want you to have that moment where one bad guy in an alley with a baseball bat is going to give you a hard time,” Ellenor continues. “That said, there are some mini-bosses in the game that are decently strong, and you have to pay attention a little bit in the beginning.”

Gotham Knights will be released for PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5 on October 25. Before that, however, we’ll have the whole of August to show you new gameplay, in-depth information, and more as part of IGN First.

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.

Gotham Knights might be an action-RPG, but it won’t follow the genre convention of having your characters start as weaklings. Instead, Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood will all be the powerful Batman acolytes you’d expect at the start of the game – and find their own unique ways to become stronger over the course of the game.

All four characters begin more or less fully adept at what the development team informally calls ‘Batman stuff’, with unique skill trees allowing them to blossom into different kinds of vigilantes as you progress. Speaking to us as part of our month of IGN First coverage on Gotham Knights, creative director Patrick Redding explained the thought process:

“It was very important for us that these heroes, our Knights are... They're already awesome at the start of the game. It's not a function of them being ineffective as crime fighters, quite the opposite. They are all effectively graduates of the Batman School of Crime Fighting.

"So when they start, they are at their most similar, in the sense that they have a lot of these basic tools of combat and stealth, and moving around in the world and using their grapple. And then it's really over the course of the game that they fully diverge into their own flavor of what a Dark Knight of Gotham City should be.”

You can see how that manifests in our footage of the first 16 minutes of Gotham Knights, in which Batgirl is already moving and fighting like Batman while looking into a mystery at Gotham University – and easily taking down goons from Gotham’s Freaks gang while doing so.

“We didn't want to do a dungeon crawler RPG where we send you into the forest to kill six slugs and return with your stick,” explains game director Geoff Ellenor. “These are ultimately very interesting people who have been trained by Batman and by others. They're very intelligent. They're very capable. But they still have this challenge of rising to the level of, ‘what does it take to protect Gotham City now that Batman is gone?’ There is an RPG progression, but they're not starting from zero by any stretch. They're already pretty rocking by the time you take the controller.”

This isn’t to say the game will be unchallenging, however – but it’s about managing the balance of who these superheroes should find it easy to take down, versus bigger threats:

“We don't want you to have that moment where one bad guy in an alley with a baseball bat is going to give you a hard time,” Ellenor continues. “That said, there are some mini-bosses in the game that are decently strong, and you have to pay attention a little bit in the beginning.”

Gotham Knights will be released for PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5 on October 25. Before that, however, we’ll have the whole of August to show you new gameplay, in-depth information, and more as part of IGN First.

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.

Tony Hawk has once again proved why he is just a wonderful human being as he recently jumped on stage with a Tony Hawk cover band called The 900 in the UK to sing a couple of songs for a very surprised crowd.

Hawk took to Twitter to share a video of him and The 900 singing Agent Orange's Bloodstains, which appeared in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, at Signature Brew Haggerston. Hawk also said that Bloodstains was a huge inspiration for him in helping shape the soundtracks for his games.

My / our rendition of Agent Orange’s Bloodstains from last night’s show at @SignatureBrewE8. This was one of the first punk songs I heard as a kid and it was a catalyst for shaping the soundtracks to THPS games. Thanks to @The900Banduk for summoning me to the stage! ➡️⬇️⭕️ pic.twitter.com/wR49DWUx0z

— Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) July 31, 2022

"My / our rendition of Agent Orange's Bloodstains from last night's show at @SignatureBrewE8," Hawk wrote. "This was one of the first punk songs I heard as a kid and it was a catalyst for shaping the soundtracks to THPS games. Thanks to @The900Banduk for summoning me to the stage!"

Hawk and The 900 also sang Goldfinger's Superman, which appeared in in the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and again in both Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2.

So I went to see a Tony Hawk cover band in a small bar in East London and @tonyhawk showed up and sang some songs. WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL. @SignatureBrewE8 pic.twitter.com/xxPSQro2Pt

— Isabel Davies (@IsabelDavies_) July 30, 2022

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 is the latest entry in the long-running and beloved skateboarding franchise and, in our review, we said that it "is such a tremendous turnaround from 2015’s disastrously dismal Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 that it’s difficult to believe they share even a shred of DNA. The accessible yet tricky skating is earnest and old-school fun, the wonderful looking levels are lovingly designed odes to the past, and the music is like the hearty embrace of an old childhood buddy."

For more on Tony Hawk, check out our look at how Tony Hawk's Pro Skater made games cool for '90s kids, the making of THPS' soundtrack, and our interview of Tony Hawk him about going from a skateboarding superstar to a video game icon.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Pat Carroll, the Emmy and Grammy Award-winning voice behind The Little Mermaid's Ursula and an entertainer whose career lasted over 70 years, has died at the age of 95.

As reported by Variety, Carroll's death was confirmed by her representative, Derek Maki, and he shared that Carroll "died with her best friend by her side" in Cape Cod, Massachusetts while recovering from pneumonia.

Carroll was born on May 5, 1927, in Shreveport, Louisiana, and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was five. Before becoming an actor and securing her first role in 1947 in the film Hometown Girl, she enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II.

After Hometown Girl, she would appear on many variety shows and would win an Emmy Award in 1956 for her work on Sid Caesar's House. She could also be seen in Make Room for Daddy, The Jimmy Durante Show, The Danny Thomas Show, Too Close for Comfort, and She's the Sherriff.

Carroll also popped up on some of the most iconic TV shows of all time, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laverene & Shirley, The Love Boat, Designing Women, and ER alongside a handful of game shows.

She would win a Grammy in 1980 for best spoken word (documentary or drama) for her performance as Gertrude Stein in her one-woman theater show.

1989's The Little Mermaid would prove to be one of her best roles and she helped make Ursula one of the most beloved villains in Disney's long history. Carroll would continue to lend her voice to Ursula in the following years, including for video games like Kingdom Hearts, Disney theme park attractions, and the 1993 Little Mermaid CBS series.

Carroll is survived by her daughters, Kerry Karsian and Tara Karasian, and her granddaughter, Evan Karsian-McCormick.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.