Gotham Knights Review

In the famous words of Arkham Origins’ Joker “Ding Dong the Bat is Dead”, this is the world you face jumping into Gotham Knights, and they certainly don’t waste any time on it with the caped crusader meeting his untimely demise within the first 5 minutes of the game starting at the hands of everyone’s favourite league of shadows leader Ra’s Al Ghul.

So, with Batman dead, it falls to the rest of the Bat Family to prevent a sinister terrorist plot from another mysterious group, The Court of Owls. Players have 4 options to choose from to start the game, each with their own weapons and fighting style including: 

 Nightwing: The first boy wonder Dick Grayson who after helping Batman clean up Gotham left to fight crime on his own terms in Bludhaven

Batgirl: The daughter of Commissioner Jim Gordon, Barbara Gordon was left paralysed after a run-in with Joker but after extensive training and therapy, left her role as Oracle and donned her own cowl.

Red Hood: Often seen as Batman’s biggest failure, Jason Todd was the 2nd Robin until he was kidnapped and subsequently murdered by The Joker, however after being placed into the Lazarus Pits he was reborn and assumed the Red Hood mantle (a former alias of The Joker)

 Robin: The current iteration of The Boy Wonder, Tim Drake. A genius detective to rival Bruce Wayne himself, having worked out the identities of Batman and Nightwing (then Robin) before his 10th Birthday after seeing footage of them apprehending Penguin. 

Throughout the game, you will be required to check back to The Belfry (the Knights’ base of operations) where you are able to swap between all 4 of the playable characters so you are not locked into a character if you don’t enjoy how they play. During my time with the game, I have spent most of the time playing as Red Hood or Nightwing. I find both of their combos and fighting styles the most effective and certainly more brutal. Batgirl would probably come 3rd in the tiers with Robin’s play-style just not clicking with me. Each of our 4 heroes have 3 standard skill trees as well as an unlockable 4th skill tree called “knighthood”.  The skill trees primarily centre around your melee and ranged combat as well as your unique abilities. 

Speaking of combat, Gotham Knights takes a slightly different approach to this than what Arkham fans might be used to. Ranged attacks for example are far more effective and certain enemies are only affected by them. The melee side of things is similar with the ability to rack up some impressive combos and unleash devastating finisher moves, however WB Games have also added special abilities to the characters that can be used by building up the momentum metre. This is done by landing perfect strikes or having perfect evades.

One of the strongest parts of this game is the sheer level of customisation that players can have over their character. I seriously doubt many players will end up with 4 heroes who look the same – there are that many options. Players have the option to customise their suits, weapons, and masks as they progress, with iconic suits unlockable as well as the ability to custom-select cowls, suits, symbols, glove, and boots. Weapon skins and designs change as you upgrade and craft more powerful versions as well. Also, it is important to note that Gotham Knights makes a distinction between suit styles (suits that come with cosmetic and stat changes) and transmogs (suits that are purely cosmetic, and applied like skins)

No Batman game would be complete without his rogue’s gallery and this game is no different. Harley Quinn, Penguin, Mr Freeze, and Ra’s Al Ghul are a few to mention but fans hoping to see the Joker will be sorely disappointed as WB Games have confirmed that he will not be featuring in the game. This to me is actually a massive positive! Yes, we all know and love The Joker as the main antagonist of the Arkham Series but other characters such as Hugo Strange and Ra’s Al Ghul really stood out when they were given the chance and I think that keeping Joker on the side-lines here will give not only WB Games more flexibility going forward but any future Batman games as well by developing lesser-known villains.

As for Gotham itself, WB Games have absolutely smashed this! The city looks incredible with its constant fog effect illuminated by various neon lights spread out amongst its towering skyscrapers. This leads me to one of the features I am super happy they have included, and that is the photo mode. Some of the amazing shots you can grab as well as the unique effects that can be added to the images are simply breathtaking, Spiderman did this well but the added impact of night-time in Gotham takes it up a few notches!

Things aren’t all perfect however, the actual exploring of Gotham is certainly a weak point. First let us start with the biggest issue, the Batcycle! Yes, it isn’t mandatory to use like the Batmobile in Arkham Knight so you can avoid it if needs be, which is fine later in the game as you unlock fast travel points and the heroes’ unique traversal system (more on that in a bit) but to begin the game, having to travel 1500m+ in the map using the Batcycle really isn’t fun! The onscreen effects give you a sense of speed, but you never feel like you are really going that fast, a complete lack of any form of boost system doesn’t help either and in a game that features such vast customisation, the best you can do for the bike is give it a blast of paint! All heroes are equipped with a grapple hook as well which is lifted straight from the Arkham series but whereas you could launch yourself in the air and glide with Batman, traversal in Gotham Knights using the hook relies on you trying to combo grapple points to keep your character moving. As mentioned earlier things do improve as you progress through the game, and you unlock the heroes’ unique travel abilities. Red Hood has Mystical Leap, which uses what looks like Lazarus pit energy to bound over distances, Nightwing has his Fortnite-looking glider, Robin uses short-range teleporters and Batgirl uses her cape.

We also must address the elephant in the room… Locked 30FPS. Now whilst I agree it would have been lovely to have the game at 4k60fps, the developers made the decision to lock it to 30fps due to some of the features they have in the game, primarily untethered coop and after experiencing the coop side of the game, I for one completely back their decision! The drop in/drop out style of co-op is perfect for a game like this and is everything you could ask for in a multiplayer Batman game. We tested out the limits of the untethered system by first traveling to the furthest points on the map with absolutely zero issues whatsoever. Players also have the ability to complete different activities at the same time, so having Red Hood stop organ trafficking at the same time Nightwing stops a bomb threat whilst Robin and Batgirl stop a police assault is all possible! You benefit from shared experience points as well! The way they scale the game also works incredibly well. Higher-level players will have their perks/damage/health adjusted to match the level of the player that they jump in with but at the loss of exp gained so there is no penalty for playing with lower-level players.

In time I would love to see them add a performance mode and have the game run at 60fps even if it means running the game at 1080p or 1440p but if they decide to keep it as 4k 30fps then I can understand the dev’s decision on this.

Conclusion

Overall Gotham Knights is a fantastic single-player game and an even better coop experience. Fans of the Arkham series will be right at home and inexperienced players will pick the gameplay up with very little difficulty. Beautiful skyscapes, brutal combos, and unreal levels of customizability put Gotham Knights right up there with some of the best Comic Book Video Games.