Gotham Knights review

Gotham Knights swoops onto Xbox Series X|S this week, telling the tale of a post-Batman Gotham City. Luke donned cowl and cape to see how the new action-RPG from Warner Bros. Montreal compares to Bats' best.

Who in their right mind would live in Gotham by choice? It's a city that countless villains, shady organisations, and gangs call home, a place where sirens blare and riots rage day and night, where you can't walk two blocks without getting mugged, and where you're basically placing your life in the hands of a very rich dude who dresses up like a bat. Were said Batman ever to cease his dogged pursuit of all things criminal, the city would fall into turmoil, and that's precisely where Gotham Knights picks up. As explained in a wonderfully over-the-top opening cinematic, Batman is dead, leaving his four apprentices — Robin, Batgirl, Red Hood, and Nightwing — to carry on his legacy and protect Gotham. With this fresh cast comes a reworked play style and the opportunity for co-op crime-fighting, and while it's not quite up to the standards of Batman's best under Rocksteady, Gotham Knights offers a rewarding gameplay loop despite its niggling performance issues.

Gotham Knights launch trailer

Just as Assassin's Creed Origins steered the series from stealth action to action-RPG gameplay, Gotham Knights uses its brand new post-Bruce universe to pull the same stunt. Levelling and skill trees are pretty much par for the course in superhero games anyway, but here they're joined by looted and crafted gear, stats, status effects, equipment perks, elemental damage types, and all the usual stuff you'd expect to see in a light RPG. Gear is kept relatively simple with just three slots — armour, melee, and ranged — with better equipment usually having mod slots to help you give it a bit more of a kick. It's a little overwhelming at first as the crafting system is convoluted, offering loads more components than there need to be and to the point that you'll be swimming in all bar the rarest by the end of a playthrough. With overall hero power level stats based on your equipped gear and damage numbers pouring off enemies in combat, it often channels the likes of The Division or Marvel's Avengers, but make no mistake, this is no long-tailed live service game — it's a self-contained action-RPG and unless the team has big plans to deliver long-term endgame content, the systems in place feel needlessly elaborate for this kind of experience.

Out on the streets, it's time to put all those big numbers and fancy perks to use by kicking crime square in the face. Combat feels similar to the Arkham games; somewhat stiffer and with no lock-on function, you simply move to an attack whichever bad guy you're aiming at. This leads to some really awkward animation with some characters as they slide up to enemies, especially Nightwing who gets an upgrade that extends his attack range and sees him skating around on his hands as he flips to attack a goon on the other side of the street. You have a pretty standard suite of light and heavy melee and ranged attacks, with heavy blows each serving a unique purpose — guard breaks for melee, while ranged bursts prevent evasive enemies from dodging for a short while, allowing you to get in on them. It's basic at first but improves as the game goes on and adds new options and enemies, soon introducing powerful Momentum abilities powered by chaining well-timed strikes and dodges, which are often a great way to capitalise on the brief openings you get from guard or evasion breaks with heavy attacks. It doesn't quite have that satisfying Arkham flow, but it's not far off, and each character feels different enough that you're likely to find one that feels good to use.

The four-character split is more than just a gimmick, and each does feel unique both in and out of combat. Batgirl is naturally closest to Batman, a tech expert and melee bruiser; Robin is more geared around stealth and battlefield control; Nightwing is all about agility and speed; Red Hood prioritises ranged attacks with his non-lethal guns, but he's also a big lad and can still pack a punch if the goons get too close. While they share common movement and stealth options (including a handy grappling hook and an instant-summon Batcycle), reaching Knighthood with one of the four unlocks their own special traversal option bound to RT. Batgirl glides with her cape just like the big man himself once did, Nightwing soars around on his Flying Trapeze gadget, Robin's Slideways teleports let him warp short distances (and even allow for unique teleport takedowns), while Red Hood bounds goofily through the sky with his Mystical Leaps. Even before you get these, there's a nice sense of flow to traversal once you get a feel for chaining grapples and leaps, but being able to extend these movement combos further with your character-specific gadgets makes it even smoother.

One thing that isn't smooth, though, is the frame rate. The team already came out and said that Gotham Knights runs at 30fps on Xbox Series X|S, and it isn't hard to see why they had to leave last-gen consoles behind — the game can barely hold a steady 30fps on the new ones. Frame drops are frequent, especially noticeable when moving the camera and in busier areas or encounters, and while it seldom chugs terribly, the choppiness can be enough to make it feel somewhat rough and unpleasant at times. Hopefully we'll get an update to remedy this, as while the game looks good, it certainly doesn't feel like something that should be pushing these consoles so hard that they can't maintain a steady 30fps. Just let us disable ray tracing at least — it's not worth a performance hit like this. It's a long enough game that you'll likely adapt to the performance after some time, but coming into Gotham Knights off the back of a solid 60fps will be incredibly jarring. The team suggested that the untethered co-op functionality was part of the reason for the sacrifice, and I will say that aspect of the game is really neat and seems to work really well from the little time I have managed to get with it — you can be fighting your own battles on opposite sides of the map one moment then decide to fast travel to a tough crime and go in together, which is neat. It's a bit odd that you don't see your co-op buddy's health bar (especially since several characters have abilities that heal allies) but it seems to work well otherwise, which is something.

One aspect of Gotham Knights that I do really like is its gameplay loop, taking the form of nightly patrols that see you dealing with crimes both premeditated and spontaneous, helping out contacts around the city, and shaking down goons to get more clues about what other crimes might be on the cards for the following night. The more clues you acquire (either from interrogations or from battering baddies at other crime sites), the more premeditated crimes you'll have for the next day, and these are the ones with the best rewards. They come in plenty of varieties as well, from hostage rescues to stolen organ recoveries to classic robberies and loads more, and each is kind enough to list the faction, difficulty, and rewards right on the map so you know what you're getting into. While your performance will to an extent depend on your level and gear, you'll usually find that Very Easy crimes only pit you against a handful of weak enemies but also have scant rewards, while Very Hard ones likely house dozens of powerful Veteran enemies with loads of health but offer top-tier goodies if you can beat them. If you fall behind on your crafting and stick with gear below your level, you'll soon find that enemies can be horribly spongy (another way it feels somewhat The Division-esque), so it's often a good idea to target crimes that reward blueprints, and gathering a bunch of clues will lead to even more chances to find them the following night.

Story beats and missions also play into this patrol system in a way that feels logical and satisfying. Want to know what Harley Quinn's next move might be? Beat up a few of her loyal goons and see if you can get one to squeal. Need to force Mr Freeze out of hiding? Hit his supply chain and make him come to you. All of these systems are neatly tied together and will keep you busy all over Gotham as you work through the story, which actually offers a pretty neat original tale. I won't delve into that too much for fear of spoilers, but I will say that it was incredibly refreshing that Gotham Knights doesn't play the 'it was The Joker all along' card, again. Cutscenes and character performances are pretty darn good for the most part, with one major exception with the latter being the constant mid-stealth smack-talk, much like Sean pointed out in his A Plague Tale: Requiem review. Your profile says you are a "stealth specialist," Robin — the fact that you feel the need to audibly quip at every bad guy you silently knock out in the middle of a room full of armed goons makes me think otherwise. One other story-related weakness would be the bosses, which are pretty much uniformly underwhelming, especially noticeable when previous Batman games have had some steller showdowns (as well as the odd absolute stinker, it must be said). But hey, there isn't a big dude you have to make charge into a wall and stun himself so you can hit him, so that's a bonus.

Moving onto the Gotham Knights achievements, it's not too demanding a list, but it will take a fair bit of time. This is because maximum level is locked behind New Game+ (which raises the cap from 30 to 40... should have done that with the frame rate too, folks), and most of the cumulative ones likely won't unlock until the tail end of NG+ anyway. By the end of that second playthrough (which is actually really quick once you're all geared up, one-shotting goons and skipping cutscenes), I was pretty much only missing some of the collectables ones, and those might be a chore as they're not shown on the map — you need to scan most of the city to find them, with icons on each region showing what collectables remain in the district. Murals are thankfully large and easy to spot, and Batarangs are typically in high places and glow when you're close so they're not too bad either. Landmarks can be a pig as you're only looking for a tiny plaque, while book pages are even worse since they don't show up on a scan and you just have to scour the area once you spot a symbol that indicates one is nearby. Nothing is difficulty-related so you can even drop it to Very Easy if you like. A pretty straightforward if time-consuming completion, then, with a few achievements that will likely need a good bit of patience (and/or a guide).

Summary

Gotham Knights' situation as a game aptly reflects the struggle of its protagonists — the new team has big boots to fill now Bats is gone, and while they can't quite live up to his legacy, they still manage to make an impression by doing things their own way. Combat is decent once it opens up, and traversal and the overarching gameplay loop are both great, but it's a shame that Gotham Knights' performance leaves a lot to be desired. Much of New Game+ feels like you're building a character for an endgame that doesn't exist at this point, so I'm looking forward to seeing what the four-player Heroic Assaults are like when they arrive in November. I'll be combing Gotham for those last few collectables until then, and despite its technical issues, I must say that I was surprised how much I warmed to Gotham Knights after it failed to grab me initially.

* Luke spent around 50 hours cleaning up the mean streets of Gotham on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, picking up 44/48 achievements in the process. A review copy was provided by the publisher.

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Review

Written by Luke Albigés

Luke runs the TA news team, contributing where he can primarily with reviews and other long-form features — crafts he has honed across two decades of print and online gaming media experience, having worked with the likes of gamesTM, Eurogamer, Play, Retro Gamer, Edge, and many more. He loves all things Monster Hunter, enjoys a good D&D session, and has played way too much Destiny.