As Gotham Knights’ launch draws closer, more details on the game continue to emerge, giving us a clearer picture of what to expect from the upcoming open world action RPG. We’ve spoken quite a bit about the game of late, but there’s plenty more left to discuss- to that end, here, we’ll be going over a few key more details Gotham Knights that you should know about heading into the game.
ENCOURAGES MULTIPLE PLAYTHROUGHS
Gotham Knights has four playable heroes and is a pretty story-focused game- put those two together, and you get a game with plenty of replayability. At least, that’s what the developers say. Speaking in a recent interview with PLAY magazing, game director Geoff Ellenor revealed that players won’t be able to see all the story content in the game in a single playthrough, because “there’s so much content that is unique to the hero’s perception of what’s going on and what’s happened.”
Speaking about how that affects the game’s cutscenes, cinematics director Wilson Mui said: “Structurally, we’re gonna have a very similar scene that overall falls in the flow for each character, but each character has their own version of that. So because they move differently, they speak differently, they have different histories with all the different characters, it allows us to make a scene that would be their version of that. If you were to look and play Batgirl, you’re gonna get Batgirl’s version, but if you play Robin, you’re gonna get Robin’s version of that same scene. Some of them are very similar in how they do it, but they’re gonna have little subtle differences.”
COURT OF OWLS’ UNDERGROUND
The Court of Owls is the primary antagonist in Gotham Knights, and the way the game is implementing them from a design perspective sounds quite intriguing. The Court is, essentially, a shadowy organization that has secretly ruled Gotham for centuries and has continued doing so through many historical shifts and events. As part of that, the Court has apparently also built a whole underground network beneath the city that takes the form of both, separate dungeons and areas, as well as areas that are connected seamlessly with the open world itself. Speaking to IGN, open world level design director Kristofor McMahan said: “What the underground allows us to do is kind of reveal that cross-section of the city. So we have areas like that where you drop in, you keep going and you see things that you didn’t know were there, that you didn’t know the city was built on top of.”
GOTHAM CITY DETAILS
In building Gotham Knights’ massive open world version of the titular city, developer WB Games Montreal has also ensured to inject plenty of variety- which it has done by tying different parts of the city’s history to specific districts. The five districts of Gotham City in the game are tied to the city’s five founding families, and each has its own distinct visual style, architecture, and level design. The oldest borough, called Old Gotham, was established by the Kanes; the industrial Lower Gotham by the Cobblepots; Downtown Gotham, an art deco district, by the Elliots; North Gotham by the Arkhams; and the newest, richest, and most modern district, New Gotham, by the Waynes. Every borough also has a signature building of its own that was built by their respective families- and yes, North Gotham’s signature building is the infamous Arkham Asylum.
SKILL TREES
Progression is going to be a key system in Gotham Knights, what with its being an RPG, and it does seem like, no matter which character you’re playing as, you won’t be short on options on that front. Each character will have four skill trees, offering unique upgrades and allowing players to tailor their playstyle in different ways. Three out of those four skill trees will be unique to each character, while the fourth, called Knighthood, will be common across all four and will be unlocked at a certain point in the story. In total, that gives us thirteen unique skill trees across the four characters.
MOMENTUM ABILITIES
Another crucial aspect of progression and variation in combat seems to be Momentum abilities, which are special attacks tied to different button combo presses. Momentum abilities, unlike the skill trees we spoke of just now, are unlocked by completing challenges, which will entail doing certain things a certain number of times. Meanwhile, Momentum abilities can also be powered up by investing in the appropriate skills, granting advantages that those abilities might not have out the gate.
CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATIONS
The four superheroes who have stepped up to fill the void left behind by Batman are, of course, detectives as well (just like their mentor), and using those detective skills will also play a part when it comes to the actual gameplay. Gotham Knights players will often run into crime scene investigations, where players will investigate their surroundings and look for clues to get past obstacles. From what little we’ve seen of this so far, it seems like investigations will be more about interacting with the right objects and following the game’s instructions rather than actually having to do some deducing, so hopefully the mechanic will add more depth as the game progresses.
VILLAIN ENCOUNTERS
WB Games Montreal has stressed on multiple occasions now that Gotham Knights isn’t going to suffer from the pitfalls that so many open world RPGs do these days- like level gating. With that in mind, how does the game approach boss fights? You’ll be coming across a number of famous villains in the game, and interesting, fights against them will be different based on your level. Their base stats and health pool will vary, across, but the kinds of attacks and moves they use during the fight will also change.
CO-OP TAKEDOWNS
Though you can play all of Gotham Knights is a single player game, the game is emphasizing co-op heavily, which means there will be some mechanics that you’ll be locked out of if you’re playing solo. One of them is co-op takedowns, which will see both player characters working together and combining their abilities to defeat enemies. Apparently, the synergy between both players during combat is going to be an important factor. Speaking to Game Informer, game director Geoff Ellenor said: “We have co-op takedowns designed to showcase the physicality of the characters working together. Really there’s a lot of synergy in how one hero’s ability influences the fight versus another. Nightwing is the strongest indicator of this; a lot of his abilities are about having buffs for his friends and protecting others.”
ALFRED
Bruce Wayne may no longer be around in Gotham Knights, but his loyal butler Alfred is still very much part of the equation and will have a role to play in the story. Voiced by Gildart Jackson, Alfred will continue to provide behind-the-scenes support to the four heroes, and every time you go back to the Belfry Tower, the game’s hub, he’ll be there, too. It should be interesting to see how he is dealing with Bruce’s death, and how he’s helping the others deal with it.
SUITS
Collecting blueprints will allow you to craft new suits for your heroes in Gotham Knights, and apparently, there’s going to be quite a few of them. As per WB Games Montreal, the game features eleven unique suit styles, with each style offering their own stats and visual style. Across all styles, there are 44 suits in total, while customization will entail logos, cowls, gauntlets, boots, and colourways (while transmog will also be included). Players will be able to mix and match with different pieces within a suit style, but with each style pertaining to specific skills, being able to mix and match across styles will not be possible.
CAPABLE HEROES
Batman is (supposedly) dead in Gotham Knights, and his four young protegees are stepping in to take up his mantle- but even though they’re all less experienced than the Dark Knights, they’re not exactly green kids. Speaking with IGN, creative director Patrick Redding said that Robin, Nightwing, Red Hood, and Batgirl are going to be very strong and capable even when the game begins. Redding said: “It was very important for us that these heroes, our Knights are already awesome at the start of the game, It’s not a function of them being ineffective as crime fighters, quite the opposite. They are all effectively graduates of the Batman School of Crime Fighting.
“So when they start, they are at their most similar, in the sense that they have a lot of these basic tools of combat and stealth, and moving around in the world and using their grapple. And then it’s really over the course of the game that they fully diverge into their own flavor of what a Dark Knight of Gotham City should be.”
HARLEY QUINN
One of several rogues that have been confirmed to be appearing in Gotham Knights is Harley Quinn (even though Joker apparently won’t, as per the developers), though WB Games Montreal’s take on the character is going to be a little different. Gotham Knights’ Harley Quinn is a slightly older and more experienced version of the character, which means she’s much more dangerous, confident, and imposing as a supervillain. That will impact everything from her character design to how she behaves to how she decides to take you on in combat.
NO MICROTRANSACTIONS
Warner Bros. as a publisher has a spotty history with microtransactions in its games, with Middle-earth: Shadow of War and Mortal Kombat 11 being just a couple of examples of major releases with shifty monetization methods (and one of those was an entirely single player game). Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like that’s going to be an issue with Gotham Knights. WB Games Montreal has confirmed that there are no microtransactions in the game, which means every cosmetic, every piece of gear, and every unlockable will be earned in-game rather than having to be paid for.
PC FEATURES
Gotham Knights recently received a trailer specifically for its PC version, which confirmed some interesting details. The game will feature support for 4K resolution, Ultra-Wide, ray-traced reflections, and multi-monitor set-ups on PC, while other features include AI-enhanced upscaling via Intel XeSS, unlocked frame rates, and a range of customizable graphics options for minimum and maximum render resolution, TAA upsampling, FoV, ambient occlusion, and more.
CANCELLED LAST-GEN VERSIONS
Gotham Knights is launching for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, but of course, originally, it was supposed to be a cross-gen titles, with the cancellation of PS4 and Xbox One versions only being officially announced earlier this year. So why exactly did WB Games make that decision? According to executive producer Fleur Marty, the game’s “scope and scale” meant that the development team ended up prioritizing and focusing on the current-gen consoles rather than trying to make the game work on last-gen machines and sacrificing important elements of the experience in the process. Whether or not that was the right call is a question we’ll only be able to answer once we’ve actually played the game, but thankfully, it won’t be too long before that happens.
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