Gotham Knights is Pretty Good, and Here's Why

DISCLAIMER: This game does not make you feel like Batman, nor do I think that is a good way to describe any video game. Being Batman feels like repeated physical and mental trauma, not pressing buttons on an X-Box controller.

Finally, a game that focuses on Nightwing the Robins. And Batgirl. You know what, we can just use “Robins” as shorthand for the Bat-Family, it’s fine.

Anyway, I’ve been looking forward to Gotham Knights since it was announced, and to my surprise it really does deliver- mostly. Despite not being an Arkham game, which I would like to briefly address:

In the days and weeks surrounding Gotham Knights’ release, most of the negative press about it boiled down to “it’s not a continuation of the Arkham series/they got rid of Arkham combat, so it’s a bad game”. Let me be very clear: This is a deeply stupid thing to say. Lots of games, dare I say most games, are not Arkham Games, nor do they have its’ signature combat mechanics. God of War: Ragnarok, for example, doesn’t have freeflow combat. Is it a bad game? Or maybe a more direct analogy: Bloodborne isn’t a Dark Souls game, and does not have traditional Dark Souls combat. Is Bloodborne a bad game? Of course not.

Saying that one game is bad because it lacks a feature or mechanic from a different game, even when those games are different adaptations of the same property, even when developed by the same studio, is not a valid criticism. You have to treat the game as its own distinct entity, which it is. The only connection Gotham Knights has to the Arkham Games is the Batman license. And that’s okay.

But does Gotham Knights stand on its own merits? For me, yes. With a few caveats. It’s not without its faults. But I’ll get to that.

The first big aspect of the game that I liked was Nightwing’s ass that the Bat-Family actually acts like a family. That is, even though they bicker and argue sometimes, they all care very deeply for one another and it shows in their words and actions. Imagine a superhero team that’s actually friends…

It’s clear that the team members in charge of the dialogue have siblings. The Robins’ interactions with each other are honest and believable, heartwarming, and even funny. And this is one area where I’m going to break my rule and compare this game to the Arkham series: In Gotham Knights, Bruce Wayne is shown to be an extremely loving foster father to his proteges; even though he’s only formally adopted Dick and Jason, he regards Tim and Barbara as family, too. This is a MASSIVE turnaround from the four Arkham Games, where Batman is consistently shown to be such a massive dick that it shatters my suspension of disbelief to think he had even one partner, let alone the seven(Dick, Jason, Tim, Jim and Barbara Gordon, Selina, and Alfred) he’s shown to work with over the course of that series.

Am I a hypocrite for making that comparison? Maybe, but notice I didn’t say the Arkham games were bad because Bats is a jerk. His being that way to the people around him is a perfectly valid, if overused, interpretation of the character and it’s because of that, that the kinder, more loving Batman of Gotham Knights resonates with me.

Not to leave the villains out; I also really liked their characterizations. Ra’s al Ghul is a violently insane shell of a man after countless exposures to his Lazarus Pits. Mr Freeze successfully cured his wife, but she left him because of his criminal activity and he’s left with only crime to fill the void. Clayface is trying to put himself back together after a disastrous encounter with Batman more than a year ago. And the Penguin served his time and is totally on the side of the law now, for realsies, trust me, you don’t need to see his tax returns.

But my favorite thus far is Harley Quinn, so she gets her own paragraph. She’s introduced as a prisoner at Blackgate, having gone straight(“ish”, according to Jason) and helping Batman with a secret investigation. So this setting’s version of Harley is already a little more moral than usual, but no less crazy. It’s implied she dumped Joker’s ass because he killed Jason. But any thoughts of true reform fly out the window when she learns that Batman is gone for real. She breaks out, and her plot reads to me as an expression of grief, more than a reversion to her true nature. She’s trying to sell brain implants that make you stronger, selling it to the citizens as reassurance that they’ll never have to be afraid of Gotham again. I really like this version of Harley.

Oh, and speaking of Joker, he’s not in the game at all. Barely even mentioned, and never by name, thank God.

In terms of gameplay, Gotham Knights shines until it doesn’t. Each Robin has a unique playstyle that they specialize in. Tim is more stealth-oriented and can teleport; Barbara is a hacker as well as a fighter, so she is great at infiltration and has a glider cape. Jason has guns. And a double jump. And Dick is just a great all around jack-of-all-stats character with a focus on supporting allies and debuffing enemies.

To me, it’s ironic that the combat is so similar to Marvel’s Spider-Man: one attack button(tap for light attacks, hold for heavy), a dodge(with similar bullet trajectory lines as well), and instead of a webzip, a ranged attack(although Barbara can unlock a similar grapple-zip). This is kinda funny to me because Spider-Man was widely praised for being similar to the Arkham games, but I digress.

Combat is fun. Tough to be good at, but fun. Your combos have a timing mechanic- tapping the attack button as your attack animation is about to hit boosts your damage and momentum, and you can hold the attack to do a heavy timed attack for similar benefits.

And speaking of Momentum, that’s your resource bar in this game. It’s built through combos and KOs, and with a full bar you can use one of your active skills. Each Robin has eight of these that you unlock by completing challenges(which is great, it’s an incentive to go out and play the game) or progressing the story(which is not so great, as it ties character progression to the narrative instead of letting you advance the character on your own). These skills can range from Nightwing doing a goomba stomp, to Red Hood…. Shooting some dudes. It’s cooler than it sounds, trust me. Your momentum abilities are your active skills, for the most part, while the actual skill trees give you a better dodge, a few character-unique abilities(Nightwing has a “Hunter’s Mark” style ability that lets him deal more damage to one enemy, Batgirl can hack security cameras, Red Hood can grab large enemies, etc), and a lot of passives like increased critical damage or health recovery.

There is one skill tree, Knighthood, that is entirely locked behind a challenge. It’s not a hard challenge, you’re likely to complete it in the first couple hours of playing the game. Unlocking the tree gets you your traversal tool(I’ll get to that) and a bunch of really nice augments to your other combat, stealth, and momentum abilities.

The skill trees are neat, but mostly underwhelming in a similar manner to Marvel’s Avengers, a live-service game. I have a theory as to why that is, so please, bear with me. I cannot prove this, but it’s real to me.

Gotham Knights almost certainly began development as a live-service game. It has a strong focus on character balance that doesn’t need to be there in a story-driven PvE game. There are enough customization options(I actually really like this part of the game) for each character to have their own battle pass. There are a multitude of upgrade currencies materials similar to the different loot boxes found in Avengers. And perhaps most damning: character progression doesn’t necessarily make you more powerful, it just allows you to keep up with the enemy scaling.

So I believe that the developers looked at all the live-service games released around Gotham Knights’ development period and realized they were all contenders, not just for the worst game of their release year, but for the worst game of the last decade or more.

Marvel’s Avengers? Dogshit. Valorant? Awful. Nickelodeon’s Smash Bros ripoff? Disappointing. Warner Bros’ Smash Bros ripoff? Even more disappointing, if only because it had a lot of potential.

So yeah, the folks over at WB Games Montreal saw all that and thought, "Why don’t we just make a real video game instead?”

Unfortunately, you can still see that live-service influence: they’re generally the worst parts of Knights.

But again, it’s not a bad game, and though it has its faults, we shouldn’t blame the devs for pivoting away from the worst style of video game presentation ever conceived.

Now I can pivot into the menus:

The skill tree menu is weirdly difficult to navigate with a controller and it’s not all that clear on how many points you have, only how many each skill costs.

The first menu you’ll see is when you press the Select Button or your control scheme’s equivalent. This does not pause the game, but it does darken the screen a little, show you your case files in the top left, and give you a prompt to hold the same button to open the batcomputer. Holding it brings up the map, where you can fast travel or select waypoints and all the normal things you can do with a map in video games.

If you tab over, you get to the case files screen, which is way better than seeing them on an unpaused, darkened screen. This will show you your active missions and it’s from here you can launch the story sections for Mr Freeze, Harley, and Clayface once you unlock them. You can also see what your challenges are, such as crafting challenges for Lucius Fox or rescuing cops for Renee Montoya(ACAB except for Montoya and Gordon, RIP to a real one).

Another tab over gets you to the gear screen where you can switch out costumes and your weapons. You can craft here(though if you craft on patrol the items won’t be available until you return to your base), and apply mods and cosmetic changes. There are again some confusing navigation issues, especially with the mods screen, where it always sets you to the top-right-most block.

There’s not a lot more to say about the menus. They could be a lot better, but they could also be a lot worse. As of right now, they suffice. But seriously, the skills menu needs work.

To finish off the menus, we have the emails tab! Here, you do get updates about some of your missions, it’s true, but mostly this is where you get to read the Robins’ correspondences with each other and their friends. There’s some good character-building here, such as Dick accusing everyone in his email group of stealing the last slice of pizza and all the others(including Alfred!)’ reactions, or him and Superman brainstorming Owl puns to torment Barbara. It really helps to establish the Robins as a family, not just a team.

Now you may be thinking, “that’s nice, but why can’t they put that in cutscenes so I don’t have to read?” Well, they do. The relationships and characterizations in this game are phenomenal, as I’ve mentioned. The developers did their homework with how the Robins interact with their setting and how they each approach their newfound responsibility in the wake of Bruce’s death.

And speaking of, Batman is notably the only character who isn’t cracking jokes. This may be because he’s dead, but it’s funnier to think that he was the eternal straight man to a bunch of orphaned comedians.

I won’t spoil the story beyond the Court of Owls’ presence, but I will say it’s extremely well-written, and if it’s awkwardly implemented at times, that’s alright. It’s almost definitely an artifact from its live-service roots. If it sounds like I’m being too forgiving, I probably am. I love the Batfamily.

Now on to the worst part of the game, at least for me: overworld traversal.

Gotham Knights is an open-world game. In an open-world game, traversal needs to be engaging. You can accomplish this in a couple different ways: in Spider-Man, you’re constantly swinging and parkouring around Manhattan, and it’s a blast! It sets the tone for a Spider-Man story and lets you know you’re in for a great time. In The Witcher 3, on the other hand, you have the option of riding your horse, Roach, around the world. This is slower than swinging, but no less interesting because of the visuals, music, and weather effects that work to immerse you in the game world.

Gotham Knights took the bold approach of making overworld traversal boring. In the short term, like crossing a few streets and buildings, it’s fine. I suppose. You have a mix of grapple-gun and parkour, but I mostly use it to get the drop on enemies rather than to get around the city. It can be fun, but it’s mostly just not fast enough to use in the long term.

You have two longer-range traversal options: The Bat-Cycle and the “glide”. The Bat-Cycle is dull. Driving it is boring. So boring that I have literally only used it when I’m forced to by a story mission.

The “gliders” are a little better than the bike, but not by much. They’re faster(barely), but not really any more fun. Honestly the developers should have cut the bike and focused more on the glides. As it is, all traversal options in this game feel like they’re missing… something. Like they’re only here to check off from a list of features an open-world game is supposed to have.

But speaking of that world, yeah, they did a good job building it. Gotham is big, but not too big. It’s not perfect by any means but it is very detailed, and feels more like a real, lived-in city than a video game set piece.

Which is again ironic because this game reuses its set pieces almost constantly. While there are a few unique and fun mission settings, you’re only going to get to visit them once or twice. Places like Blackgate, STAR Labs, or the Orchard Hotel are all very well-designed, but you won’t be spending much time at any of them.

I fully believe Gotham Knights would have been better if it were not open-world, but I guess they had to boost their SEO somehow.

Anyway, there you have it. Gotham Knights is a fun game with an engaging story and characters, but it’s wrapped up in mediocre open-world or live-service(esque) mechanics and awkward menu navigation. I’d rate it at about a 30-35 out of 60, with Marvel’s Avengers rating a 3.5/60 and Bloodborne a solid 55/60. Have fun, but get it on sale.