Developer: WB Games Montréal, QLOC
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Platform: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PS5
Gotham Knights – Review
We’ve played our fair share of superhero games over the last few years, ranging from the intergalactic adventures of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy to Spider-Man’s outing on PlayStation 5 and PC. Now, we go back to the gritty environment of Gotham City, where we get to play with a vigilante squad of four. The Dark Knight makes room for the Gotham Knights in this multiplayer-oriented action RPG.
Story
There’s no way to beat around the bush and so we’ll just say it: Batman is dead. Gotham Knights takes place directly after the death of Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman, who died in a battle with Ra’s al Ghul. Batman’s former pupils are now in charge of keeping Gotham City safe, and thus it’s up to Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood to work together and follow up on one of Batman’s original leads. This brings the team of vigilantes to Kirk Langstrom, but sadly, they find him murdered. This means the so-called Gotham Knights will have to do some good old-fashioned sleuthing, albeit with bashing in a few skulls while doing so.
Overall, the story is quite simple and serves as a mere red thread for the player to press forward. The story content is mainly presented when returning to the central base, the Belfry, or when doing main missions. For a superhero game, the plot is still decent.
Graphics
Graphically, the game left us with mixed feelings. The character designs are nicely made, and Gotham City looks very nice from afar. When you start paying attention to the details, you’ll see that this game isn’t really a next-gen title. During a lot of segments, you’ll have to crawl through air ducts that have loads of cobwebs in them. When running through the ridiculous amount of cobwebs, nothing moves and they just stay intact. This might be a silly example, but this is the case for all ‘little’ things in Gotham Knights. The gritty exterior is taken care of, but nothing else is seemingly handled with love and care. Most items in the world are just static objects, and enemy models are repeated ad nauseam.
Sound
The game’s sound design is great. The voice cast does a formidable job bringing their characters to life, and more than once it felt as if we were watching an old-school ’90s cartoon. The supporting soundtrack is also great, but it does fade to the background when you’re actually in combat or exploring the city. Sound effects are decent, but they are nothing to truly write home about. Sadly, the NPC voice lines are very limited and many enemies just utter the same oneliners over and over again. During interrogations, a lot of NPCs will also repeat word for word what other NPCs said a few moments before that.
Gameplay
Gotham Knights is an Action RPG that is best enjoyed with friends online. The game will have you play with Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, or Red Hood to protect the city now that Batman is no longer in the picture. The game will have you explore Gotham City to investigate crime scenes or crack some skulls. Each of the characters has its own unique quirks and abilities, but you can easily just play the game with the character you enjoy the most. The premise is quite simple, as you’ll just fight crime and level up your character(s) and improve their gear.
The game has you progress the actual story content in the Belfry during the day, while you go out and kick some ass at night. The formula here is very simple. You can just roam around as long as you like, exploring, and stopping crimes, or you can head toward your main objective and progress with the actual story as well. The overall gameplay loop is very basic and it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. To each their own, but as a whole, this is a very generic experience.
The problem with Gotham Knights is not that it’s a bad game per se, it’s that it’s just extremely repetitive. From start to finish, you’ll constantly just do the same things over and over again while traversing a city that just feels dead already. The civilian NPCs feel as if they are directly ported from an early 2000s game because of how dimwitted they react to your actions. You may shoot one of them in the face for them to shrug it off and just randomly blurt out ”I know what that sound means”. You’ll mainly cruise around the city to go from one point to another with your motorcycle and this also feels very tame and bland. You may also call us old-school, but we would have loved it if the game had a local co-op mode.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a run-of-the-mill action game, then Gotham Knights will probably end up being very entertaining for you. If you were expecting something you hadn’t seen before, then you’ll probably end up disappointed. Except for the empty Gotham City and the odd NPC behavior, Gotham Knights is a reasonably entertaining action game in which you can don the mask and cape of a few of your favorite DC vigilantes. The game is the most fun if you have people that join you on your crusade, as the single-player experience falls somewhat flat. Overall the game is decent, but it’s not the game that will define the genre.
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