Gotham City Impostors
Gotham City Impostors was a first-person shooter multiplayer-only video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Set in the universe of DC Comics' Batman, it consisted of two teams of six players which try to kill the other team: one with amateur vigilantes dressed like Batman, and the other with criminals dressed like his archenemy, the Joker. It featured customizable characters and a range of both traditional and imagined weapons.
Gotham City Impostors
- Date
- 2012.
- Publisher
- Warner Bros. Games.
- Language
- English and French.
- Genre
- first-person shooter.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
Gotham City Impostors was a first-person shooter multiplayer-only video game developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Set in the universe of DC Comics' Batman, it consisted of two teams of six players which try to kill the other team: one with amateur vigilantes dressed like Batman, and the other with criminals dressed like his archenemy, the Joker. It featured customizable characters and a range of both traditional and imagined weapons.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for Gotham City Impostors. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q615990 · wikipedia · Gotham City Impostors
In this article
Gameplay
Gameplay
Unlike other Batman games, Gotham City Impostors was not physically released. It was released on Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network and Microsoft Windows via Games for Windows – Live in February 2012. The game was re-released on Microsoft Windows as a free-to-play title on August 30 the same year via Steam using Steamworks.
Gotham City Impostors was playable by, at the most, 12 players simultaneously. Players could customize their costume, gadgets and other aspects of the game. It featured a colorful and over-the-top visual style, including such settings as an amusement park. In addition to guns and knives, the players could use other gadgets such as grappling hooks, glider wings, roller skates and explosives. The game included both conventional guns and outlandish weapons, including a grenade fashioned like a jack-in-the-box and a rocket launcher made of PVC piping. The game had four different modes: "Psych Warfare", "Fumigation", "Bounty Hunter", and "Team Deathmatch". "Psych Warfare" involved the two teams trying to bring a battery back to their base and defend it long enough for it to allow a machine to brainwash the other team. "Fumigation" had players to capture and hold three gasblasters, a type of command post, to get their gas level to 100%. Players were treated to the sight of the enemy being swarmed by bats (if the Bats won), or suffocated by a poison cloud (if the Jokerz won). In "Bounty Hunter", the players could win the match by collecting coins enemy players drop when they die; they can could pick up teammates' dropped coins to deny the other team points. In "Team Deathmatch", the goal was to kill enemy players as fast as possible. There were also "Challenges"; these were played alone, and were used to master gadgets and earn extra experience. Lastly, there was a training mode called "Initiation", where the Bats' leader instructed the player on how to use weapons and gadgets.
Development and marketing
Development and marketing
Batman: Impostors, a storyline that ran through Detective Comics #867-870 (Sept.-Dec. 2010), was inspired by Gotham City Impostors. The premise for the storyline is that the impostor Jokers were created by Winslow Heath, a man who was a victim of Joker venom early in Batman's career as a result of narcotics that he had ingested before he was exposed to the venom. Heath survived the attack, but was left paralyzed while fully conscious for years; his mouth twisted into a permanent duplicate of the Joker's own smile. When he regained full mobility, he discovered that his girlfriend, Beth – who was exposed to the Joker venom under the same circumstances, as the two took the same drugs - was left to die in their apartment as Batman was so caught up in trying to catch the Joker that he never looked back after 'rescuing' Heath, with the result that Beth was left to get eaten alive by crows. Driven insane by the torment that he endured in the hospital, Heath called himself the Impostor Joker and created a unique 'Joker juice' he named Formula 5 that would turn those who used it into temporary duplicates of the Joker with a significant high in the process, simultaneously posing as the Impostor Batman to rally others to also become impostor Batmen, go up against the impostor Jokers and trigger a gang war. Although Batman deduced the truth and defeated Heath (who later escaped), he was left troubled at the implication that Heath was correct in his statement that Batman creates his own villains. The preview for Cartoon Network's upcoming animation block DC Nation Shorts in 2012 included animation of Gotham City Impostors. Downloadable content was released for all platforms and included new weapons, costumes, and three new stages: the 25th Floor, Arkham Asylum, and the East End. The game went free-to-play in 2012, but since then no new updates have been released. Due to GameSpy shutting down in May 2014, the servers for the PS3 version were shut down on July 25, and the game is now unplayable. Gotham City Impostors was removed from Steam in August 2021 and is no longer obtainable.
History of the object
Dated record
History of the object
Explore 2012–2021
The full dated record · 3 entries
2012
Gotham City Impostors published.
2012
Gotham City Impostors is recorded as published in 2012.
2021
Gotham City Impostors ceased or was dissolved.
Reception
The Escapist writer Allistair Pinsof called the demo a "carbon copy" of Call of Duty first-person shooter games, but said it added enough new features to be enjoyable. G4 writer Leah Jackson said of the playable demo: "Quite frankly, the game doesn't feel like your run of the mill downloadable title. It controls great, looks fantastic, and with all of the options, I can say that I was quite impressed". The game scored a 65/100 on Metacritic, indicating "mixed or average" reception. Greg Miller of IGN rated the game a 7/10, calling the game "[...] one-dimensional and straight forward," but felt that aspects such as character customization and usable weapons were "fine" and felt that it was overall "a functional shooter." GameSpot's Jason Venter gave the game a 7.5/10, calling it "a consistently thrilling experience that's easy to recommend" for its combat, arena design, controls, and "fun movement abilities," but criticized the game's matchmaking system.
Primary material
Documents and archives
institutional register
- Internet Archive holdings naming Gotham City Impostors
General reference · Internet Archive
reference work
- “Gotham City Impostors”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q615990: Gotham City Impostors
General reference · Wikidata
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Gotham City Impostors Free to Play on Steam. Gothamcityimpostors.com. 2012-08-30.
- 2.Kollar, Phil. The First-Person Spin-Off. Game Informer. 219. 63. July 2011. 1067-6392.
- 3.Pinsof, Allistar. E3: Gotham City Imposters. The Escapist. June 9, 2011.
- 4.Jackson, Leah. Gotham City Impostors - Psychological Warfare: Multiplayer Impressions. G4. June 9, 2011.
- 5.Hill, Owen. E3 2011: Gotham City Impostors trailer brings the crazy. PC Gamer. June 8, 2011.
- 6.Crecente, Brian. 'Gotham City Imposters' goes free to play on Steam. The Verge. August 31, 2012.
- 7.Gotham City Impostors Free to Play on Steam. Gothamcityimpostors.com. 2012-08-30.
- 8.Metacritic. Gotham City Impostors for PC Reviews.
- 9.Metacritic. Gotham City Impostors for PlayStation 3 Reviews.
- 10.Metacritic. Gotham City Impostors for Xbox 360 Reviews.
- 11.Gotham City Impostors Review - PC Review at IGN. 2012-02-14.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
institutional register
Internet Archive holdings naming Gotham City ImpostorsInternet Archive
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witnessauthority record
General reference
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Collectables
20,755 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- GotchaWork
- Gotcha ForceWork
- Gotcha!Work
- Gotcha! The Sport!Work
- Gotham KnightsWork
- GothicWork
- Gothic 3Work
- Gothic RemakeWork
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a copy of Gotham City Impostors?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.