When Gotham Knights was first revealed in 2021, there seemed to be a bit of a lukewarm reception to it. Perhaps it was the memory of WB Games Montreal’s Arkham Origins that was to blame. Or perhaps Bat fatigue had set in. Either way, most of the gaming community didn’t seem to be excited at the gameplay that was revealed at the time. As one of the few people who actually liked Arkham Origins, and was excited by the little bit that WB Games showed us of Gotham Knights, Gotham Knights jumped onto my most eagerly anticipated games list.
Now we’re just a little under a month from launch and in the last three months, WB Games has been slowly giving us a glimpse into a world without Batman and what that would look like. A world that, apparently, underwent some design changes from that first reveal.
So what do we know about the game now? Certainly a lot more than before. Is it something we should be worried about? From the looks of it, no, for WB Games Montreal has adopted the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality while adding some new mechanics to help the game scale with today’s modern conventions. It may be a little shocking to realise that Arkham Knight came out in 2015 and while the core gameplay and mechanics of the Arkham series are as strong today as when we first infiltrated Arkham Asylum in 2009, there are some new mechanics for superhero games that players may want added on.
First, we know that the game will be tackling the Court of The Owls storyline, sometime after Batman’s apparent death. Personally, I’d be very surprised if the Bat is actually dead. I’m honestly expecting more of a “he’s been turned to the Dark Side” reveal myself. Players will take on the role of the other four main members of the Batfamily; Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood and Robin. Even though the mysterious Court and their undead Talon assassins will be the main storyline, you can expect a slew of familiar faces to come out to play. We know that Harley Quinn, Clayface and Mr Freeze at least will be rocking up to gum up the works and I’m sure we can expect more of Batman’s Rogues gallery to make an appearance.
From the get-go, Gotham will be a fully open-world experience. Using a variety of traversal techniques, which includes Batman’s patented Grappling Hook, you can go where you want, when you want to. Tired of sticking to the rooftops, you can jump onto a Batcycle and take to the streets to find your clues. It’s no Batmobile, but it looks cool and fast all the same.
The game won’t feature a Day/Night cycle. Instead, whenever you hit the streets, it will always be nighttime, with an evening of activities for you to do. When you jump back to your base in the Clock Tower, it will be daytime until you decide to venture out. As with previous games, there will be street crimes happening along with whatever lead you’re following for the main story. Some of them will be simple once-off affairs, while others will have more to do. Interestingly, if you choose to skip some of these, they won’t be available again as the developers wanted them to feel as though they were happening regardless of your interference.
The game will also feature co-op play and will handle story progression in this mode in a feature I feel is long overdue. Thankfully you won’t be tethered to your partner which means that you can head to separate areas of the city to play in before meeting up again. You can jump into story missions with your friend as well and the game will manage this as whoever game you joined will be the leader. You can complete it with them and if you load up your own game to play on your own, the game will detect that you’ve completed the mission and ask you if you want to replay it or simply accept that it’s been done and gain the requisite rewards. This is a great way to make sure you can help someone out without having to replay content again.
The actual gameplay isn’t any different from what we’ve seen in the previous games. You get to explore locations with a more refined and cleaner version of Detective Vision to find clues while the combat seems to follow the same style as before as well, though looking a bit heavier. That’s no bad thing as the combat in the Arkham games was great. This time you’ll just have four different sets of play styles to get used to. Red Hood seems to be embracing Gun-Fu with his non-lethal dual pistol fighting style while Nightwing bounces around like the acrobat he is. Stealth is also a viable play style, as it should be.
Jumping into modern RPG mechanics, is the game’s gear system and character levelling. You get to upgrade your characters with gear which enhances their various attributes through a crafting system that relies on you having the correct components and blueprints. It gives you a slight sense of levelling up and progression along with a character build. Sadly, the game seems to have specific costume sets instead of allowing you to mix and match components for that Jack-of-all-trades hobo look.
Finally, the developers have said that there will be an endgame as well. What this will look like is unclear as they’re keeping tight-lipped on this. I guess we’ll just have to wait till the release to find out whether that’s some form of extra quests to do or, perhaps, co-op RAID-style missions.
Right now Gotham Knights is looking really good, both in terms of gameplay and its visuals. Sadly, last-gen owners wanting to play this on consoles will have to invest in next (now?) gen hardware if they want to stalk the night as vengeance from the rooftops.
For everyone else, Gotham Knights will launch on PS5, Xbox Series and PC on October 21st, 2022.
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