It’s been a few years since we’ve had a Batman game, and while it’s not quite the same thing, Gotham Knights is about to release, with plenty of familiar faces. In order to help you decide if it’s time to return to face crime after putting on your tights, we give you all the known information on the important elements of the game.
Release date and platforms
Gotham Knights is coming to all affected media i.e. PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), Playstation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series, the October 21, 2022. The exact release time is not yet known.
The game is no longer planned on the previous generation of consoles, because it is probably too greedy. It was announced that even on newer consoles, Gotham Knights is limited to 30 frames per second, and there is no performance mode. There is more room for maneuver on PC, but plan a competition machine to run it in “Ultra” and achieve the much desired 60 FPS.
Available on October 21, 2022 on PC and consoles, Gotham Knights offers a new adventure in the city of Batman’s adventures in the company of 4 new heroes. It’s a really beautiful massive open-world, and it comes at a cost: frames per second.
We take a look at the essential information to know before the release of Gotham Knights on October 21 on PS5, Xbox and PC. When can you preload it? How big is the game? We answer all these questions here.
Gameplay compared to the Arkham series
Gotham Knights is a third-person action RPG open-world game featuring the Batman family and players taking on the role of Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood and Robin. Each has different powers and abilities, which will influence how they are played. Managing their gear, talent tree, and special abilities is an important part of the game.
In broad outline, the gameplay is similar to Batham Arkham City. You will find trips by vehicle in town, the use of the grappling hook to reach the heights, a little infiltration, small phases of investigation, and above all, a lot of fighting. The fights rely mainly on combos of melee and ranged attacks, as well as dodging. Timing is pretty important, whether it’s unleashing more powerful rhythmic attacks, or performing perfect dodges and counterattacks. Add to that some powerful special abilities that consume the character’s charge bar, and you have Gotham Knights. Of course, gameplay elements have also been changed for co-op, with combo attacks and the like.
The four knights of Gotham all have their own personality and skills. They are all capable of finishing the adventure solo, so there is no real exclusive area for one or the other. You are not going to miss important elements by playing Redhood, which does not know how to hack and which is not an expert in infiltration, for example. On the other hand, he has a more brutal fighting style, which relies more on ranged attacks, which can be useful in certain fights.
2 or 4 player cooperative?
Initially, Gotham Knights was planned for 4 players simultaneously, which seems rather logical, given its initial concept. But the game had to scale back its ambitions, and in the end, you can only do the game only alone, or with two players in cooperative, at least at the start of the game. We find a system quite similar to some old titles, which offers to change the character controlled on demand, depending on the one you prefer, or to respond to a specific situation. Co-op is on the drop-in/drop-out system, which allows you to join a friend’s game, or be joined, at any time, regardless of progress.
The good news is that the Heroic Assault mode has just been announced, it is the famous 4 player cooperative mode. Details are still hazy, though it’s assumed to involve big fights and far more dangerous bosses. The problem is that it only arrives on November 29, 2022, a date by which a lot of the first hour players may have already moved on.
Cross-play and local co-op play
Unfortunately, there is no cross-play in Gotham Knights. If your friends are playing on a different platform than you, it will be impossible to fight crime together.
If you play on a PS5 or Xbox Series console, don’t expect to get around the problem either by organizing evenings on the sofa with your teammate, there is no local game mode, you have to go through an online connection. The seriously limited performance of the game on next-gen consoles, at 30 FPS for a single player, is probably the reason for this. Under these conditions, it is not realistic to expect the console to manage a separate screen.
Gotham City: The Open World
As is customary in Batman games, the dark, damp and foggy city of Gotham will serve as the main theater for the group’s exploits. Map exploration only happens at nightwhile the group meets in its base of the belfry, during the day, in order to discuss, investigate, train, and prepare his equipment. Due to the new wave of crime hitting the city and the late hour, the streets are relatively deserted. At least you won’t have traffic jams! The atmosphere of Gotham seems absolutely fantastic, and from what we have seen, the game offers an almost cinematic experience as one pursues criminals on the bat cyclethe game’s official vehicle. The batmobile is in the garage after having exploded with the rest of Wayne’s villa.
Gotham City is made up of different neighborhoods, with distinct vibes, buildings, and criminals. Unlike most open-world games, the city map is not covered with question marks to explore methodically. The approach is more faithful to the spirit of the Batman license, with one-off crimes to stop everywhere, which gives the opportunity to question the criminals in order to investigate, and to discover more serious premeditated crimes, which form specific missions on the map. There’s no end to the fight against crime, but there are still secrets and collectibles to be found everywhere. The city’s rooftops and the famous batman’s perches are also significant.
History and Villains
It starts badly, since Batman is dead. Jumping on the occasion, new criminal networks are spreading in the streets. So it’s up to the Batman family – Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood and Robin – to defend Gotham. They will have to fight on two fronts, with the daily fight against crime, and the investigation into the events that led to the death of Bruce Wayne. The Belfry in the center of town serves as their base of operations, as they concentrate their efforts, and prepare to pursue some of the toughest adversaries, such as the Penguin, Mister Freeze, Harley Quinn, Clayface and the mysterious Court of Owls, a secret society made up of Gotham City’s wealthiest families.
