Highlights

  • Gotham Knights has seen a boost in active players after being added to Xbox Game Pass, with a massive spike in player numbers.
  • The game was met with mixed reviews at its launch, but the availability on Game Pass as well as PlayStation Plus has led to renewed interest and a potential change in perception.
  • While PlayStation users engaged with the game for a longer period of time, the overall number of active players on Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus ended up being about the same.

Gotham Knights may have divided fans when it launched last fall, but it seems that more players are picking it up on Xbox Game Pass. Batman: Arkham Origins developer WB Montreal put out its own spin on the classic DC Comics mythos in Gotham Knights, which saw former sidekicks Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood, and Robin take over in defending Gotham City following Batman’s apparent death. Players could choose between one of these four heroes as they patrol an open-world city and take down various criminals and supervillains in either single-player or online co-op.

Despite this intriguing premise, Gotham Knights was met with mixed reviews when it launched on PlayStation 5 and Xbox last October, with many criticizing its plot, combat, and sidequests in comparison to Rocksteady’s much more beloved Batman: Arkham series. Almost a year later, Gotham Knights was announced as one of Xbox Game Pass’ slate of new additions for October 2023. Some fans have hoped that having the game available for free as part of a monthly subscription service like Game Pass could cause skeptics to warm up to Gotham Knights, especially after a year of patches and updates that addressed many of its most glaring technical issues.

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Recent reports indicate that Gotham Knights has seen a considerable boost in active players after being added to Xbox Game Pass in October. Industry analyst and former Activision and Warner Bros. Games executive Mat Piscatella shared a graph of Gotham Knights' player tallies on Twitter, and sure enough, there was a massive spike in players when the game was added to Game Pass. Gotham Knights’ player count also rose among PlayStation owners when it was added to PlayStation Plus a week or so later, but not to the extent shown in its Xbox counterpart.

Gotham Knights ultimately ended October with about the same number of active players on both Xbox Game Pass and PS Plus, and both went down as the month carried on. Piscatella himself notes that there could be any number of factors behind Gotham Knights' higher initial player number on Game Pass, and one of the other Twitter users commenting on his post noted that while Game Pass managed to capture twice the players that PS Plus did, PlayStation users seemed to engage with the game for a longer period of time.

Nonetheless, it seems that Gotham Knights has benefited from being available on subscription services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, which both allow players to access a large library of games at a fraction of the price of a single one at retail. Perhaps this renewed interest in Gotham Knights could lead to the once-controversial superhero action title being seen in a more positive light, especially with rumors of it being ported to the Nintendo Switch at some point in the near future.