PLATFORM: PC, PS5, XBOX SERIES (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: 21ST OCTOBER
Batman is dead, and the duty of protecting Gotham has been left to some of his most trusted companions – Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing and Red Hood (the Jason Todd / former Robin incarnation). With the local gangs and villains running amok in the wake of Batman’s death, the team has a lot of work on their hands to keep the city safe, but there’s also the small matter of Batman’s final case – the one he was working on when he died – which needs to be investigated. This case forms Gotham Knights‘ main storyline, sending the team down a rabbit hole that leads to an encounter with the most powerful secret society in the city…
Each of the knights shares the same basic controls, but they all have their own unique combat style, abilities and special moves. Hand-to-hand combat will feel very familiar to anyone who’s played any of the main Arkham games, although Gotham Knight changes just enough to lend the game its own feel. Close-up and ranged attacks, a fancy dodge, and stealth attacks form the bulk of your most accessible moves, bolstered by a range of “momentum abilities” which slowly unlock as you progress through the game. Some light RPG elements come into play with a levelling system, whereby all four heroes gain experience at the same time, regardless of whichever one you’re currently using. The points that you earn when levelling up can be spent on a handful of small skill trees to beef up your powers and unlock new abilities, the best of which are reserved for after you complete each character’s “knighthood” challenges. There are plenty of costumes and weapons to get your hands on too, as well as mod chips that add a variety of effects to your equipment.
Gotham Knights‘ mission structure takes a bit of getting used to, and feels a bit unwieldy at first. The gang spend their days at their base in the Belfry, which – in what feels like a bit of a mis-step – is the only place where you can switch between characters. Leaving the Belfry to head out on patrol, Gotham becomes your crimefighting playground. The more minor crimes you deal with (usually beating up no more than one or two baddies), the more information you’ll gather about slightly larger “predetermined” crimes (defusing bombs, taking out bigger groups of enemies, locating harvested organs and returning them to a medic, that sort of thing). The more of these you attend to, the more experience points and components you’ll earn for levelling up and crafting new gear. As well as these, all manner of challenges are available, which also lead to further crimefighting opportunities, although in a mildly frustrating oversight there’s no way of tracking these on screen, so you have to constantly dig through the menus to remind yourself of what the objectives are.
As fun as many of these distractions can be, the game really comes into its own during the main missions where you solve Batman’s final case while also tracking down some of Gotham’s most well-known villains. These missions, which are activated from your case files in the Belfry, take you from the open world of Gotham to a variety of slightly more linear scripted levels. Undeniably forming the game’s high points, these missions contain some really stunning action-packed set-pieces that, at times, provide some memorably thrilling encounters. Boss fights against the major villains are all enjoyably chaotic and exciting, with Clayface in particular proving to be a standout, alongside the mysterious Court of Owls whose first appearance in Gotham Knights is one of the coolest introductions in any Batman game so far.
The first couple of hours are quite slow, and it takes a while for the knights to acquire enough powers to really feel like heroes. The opening missions don’t give the best representation of how much fun things become after you’ve spent a few hours upgrading your team, so it’s worth keeping in mind that it’s one of those games that’s absolutely worth sticking with for an hour or two. Beyond that, there’s a lot of minor busywork (as there always is in open world RPGs) which quickly feels quite limited in scope as the handful of crimes you’re asked to deal with will soon start repeating themselves, and graphical fusspots might not be overjoyed to learn that a performance mode is completely absent and the game is capped at 30fps on consoles. What might have been referred to as a “solid seven” in the days of rating things out of ten, the satisfying combat and gripping set-pieces are more than enough to earn Gotham Knights a hearty recommendation, plus the main storyline brings so many familiar characters into play that anyone with even a passing interest in the Batman universe will definitely find something to enjoy.
