Gotham Knights is not set in the same universe as the Batman: Arkham games, but the title does feel like a successor to it in many ways. Batman is dead, Gotham City is in shambles, and players must pick up the pieces as Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, or Red Hood.
Gotham Knights players must defend the citizens of Gotham City, solve crimes left and right, and somehow rise above their own grief regarding Batman's death to defeat major villains, investigate the Court of Owls, and become Knights in their own right. Gotham Knights is an absolutely fun game with a lot of little moments that shine, but unfortunately, it is also a game that buckles under any degree of scrutiny.
Gotham Knights' core gameplay loop and depiction of Gotham City are its saving graces. It is a truly fun game, and for many players, it may be easy to overlook many of its shortcomings as a result. Players will be in the Belfry during the day when they can advance major story points, launch new investigations into certain villains, craft new suits and weapons, look at various challenges, and interact with the other team members. At night, players don the cowl as one of the four playable characters and enter a patrol of Gotham City. It's here where they must stop random crimes, find and progress certain story beats, search for collectibles, and so on. When players have had their fill of crime for the night, they return to the Belfry, rinse, and repeat.
Why this works so well is it brings out the best of Gotham City. The city is beautiful, feels alive, and is constantly filled with activity. In some ways, Gotham City is a generic open world where players must complete a checklist of activities; however, it masks itself as something else entirely. Players will never be inundated by random activities on the map because the game paces them out well. Players will see major story developments on the map, but to complete activities like premeditated crimes, players have to investigate random crimes, interrogate enemies, and unlock them. Sometimes premeditated crimes unlock the same night, but most of the time, doing these smaller-scale activities build "clues" that unlock new activities but require players to return to the Belfry first.
There are contacts on the map like Detective Montoya or The Watch that can unlock more activities, and players are rewarded for participating in these. What happens is that players are able to self-pace their advancement of various side activities, and it's a pleasing way to interact with the world when something as simple as saving one citizen from Gotham Knights' Freaks faction builds up the world around it. Indeed, this is complemented by the fact that, while there are recurring activities, players never know what they're going to walk into when dealing with regular crimes or even premeditated crimes. It might be as simple as saving someone or racing away to preserve a black market organ.
The sheer variety of combat encounters brings out the best of Gotham Knights' gameplay. It's not quite as smooth as Batman: Arkham's free-flow system, but it's a close imitator. Players are encouraged to change up tactics between melee and ranged weapons, perfect their ability to dodge, manage elemental effects and specific builds for their Gotham Knights characters, and sometimes deal with auxiliary issues like bombs, defending points, and so on. Furthermore, certain enemies are only vulnerable to specific tactics, which adds even more variety when dealing with these factions or multiple factions. At times, this puts players at a disadvantage if they are using a hero they haven't spec'd in a certain way, but overcoming that is rewarding. Gotham Knights combat is fun, addictive, and stylish, while its city is not only the best version of Gotham City to date but a lesson in how to pace open-world activities.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem the rest of the game is held up to the same level and a lot of it doesn't blend like the gameplay. For example, its story isn't bad, but it's not great. It feels like a car driving 45 MPH the entire time. There are no surprises, no major curves, and its few plot twists are predictable. There is no closure in Gotham Knights' story, with the ending feeling like the game was never played at all, and a lot of the story is very slow. The opening and first few missions are dragged out, the core story missions do hit a reasonable pace, and then the ending feels unnecessarily padded out.
There are plenty of moments where the grief shared by the Bat-Family is palpable, but also alleviating moments where they can all be together as a family and nothing more. All the characters end up being a little one-note, unfortunately, and while there is character development, each character tends to retread familiar territory. Red Hood, for example, never fails to mention his death, while Nightwing always makes a corny joke. The game clearly relies on a fan's knowledge of DC to build any emotional connection; it's there, but it often feels forced.
Gotham Knights' story is generic and unmemorable, yet it's still better than villain case files. Gotham Knights trailers confirmed three secondary villains for the game, and that's all players get. There are no surprises as to who players will face, and these enemies and stories are even less interesting than the main plot. They are designed to be paced alongside the main story, and while some of these involve interesting backdrops in their missions, they ultimately go nowhere. These villains' motivations are unclear, they are inconsistently and uninterestingly paced, and one will require a lot of attention, while the others are mostly ignored. The main plot and the villain substories will leave most players confused if they try to look deeper than the sheer novelty of it, with entire characters and story threads being completely dropped on top of that too.
Unfortunately, these villains also highlight the fault of Gotham Knights' combat. It is clearly designed for battling multiple humanoid combatants, but if placed 1v1 against an enemy with a huge health bar or a large, non-humanoid creature, the combat becomes a lackluster grind against spongy enemies. The game only features a handful of boss battles as it is, and this is probably why. They take something fun and worsen it.
If this was all that buckled under scrutiny, Gotham Knights would be much better off; unfortunately, this remains true of many of its features. Gotham Knights includes a loot system more akin to looter-shooters than RPGs, and in a way, it's easy to see how these could become grindy, except there is no incentive to ever care about the loot or crafting. Players are able to transmog their suits, which is perfect for designs fans don't like, but the only way to gather loot is by engaging in open-world activities. Different activities have better chances at legendary loot, but there's no real reason to try to specialize a build when there's nothing special to use it against.
There is no endgame content like many loot games, and while that could be Gotham Knights' Heroic Assault mode coming in November, it's not there now. Heroic Assault is based on arena challenges, and the current boss battles don't necessarily give better loot. They can't even be repeated, if someone even wanted to.
Gotham City itself is a strong point of the game, but even it is brought down by lackluster traversal. The batcycle is functional, but not impressive. And using the grappling hook to navigate feels like a janky take on Marvel's Spider-Man's web-swinging. Players eventually unlock fast travel, and that helps, but each character also unlocks a Heroic Travel feature that is purely mechanical and not fun. There's a lot about the game that feels half-baked, from major features like this to small details like Investigations, and these elements bring down what's otherwise a solid title.
Gotham Knights is a lot of fun, and for someone looking to mindlessly beat criminals as a superhero, it's an easy recommendation. Yet, anyone interested in anything more than that is going to face a lot of disappointment with its story beats, gameplay elements, individual features, and many other elements.
Gotham Knights launches October 21 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. Game ZXC was provided an Xbox Series X code for the purposes of this review.
Gotham Knights
Gotham Knights is an open-world action RPG developed by WB Games Montreal. Featuring Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood, players explore Gotham City to take on iconic Batman villains like Harley Quinn, customize their characters through gear and skill trees, or team up together through two-player co-op gameplay.
The action-packed story is set in DC's Batman Universe where Belfry is the base of operations and the heroes will need to solve the mysteries that are devastating Gotham.
