Can Gotham Knights Follow In Batman Arkham’s Footsteps To Deliver One of 2022’s Best Games?

There’s a good amount of hype for Warner Bros’ upcoming Gotham Knights, as it looks to take after Batman Arkham City - which is widely regarded as one of the best open world superhero games to date.

It’s the same formula; after all, and Gotham Knights’ developer (WB Games Montreal) is also responsible for Batman Arkham Origins. The 2013 Batman title, while criticized for lack of technical polish, was widely praised for its narrative.

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Rise of the Gotham Knights

1) Redeeming the Dark Knight

Gotham Knights also seems to be narrative heavy, especially with a focus on multiple villain storylines. To top it off, the cinematic trailers revolving around the mysterious agenda of the antagonistic Court of Owls reflect that serious tone. The story follows the deaths of Batman and G.C.P.D. Commissioner James Gordon, leading to the remaining vigilantes of Gotham City teaming up to battle crime.

The heroes find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place with the Owls’ brainwashed assassins Talons on one end, while the usual cast of baddies on another. In a nutshell, it’s promising.

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2) Beat 'Em Up Gotham Style

But what about the gameplay? It’s an action RPG; Batman Arkham style combat and exploration paired with RPG progression and mechanics that are reminiscent of the Marvel’s Avengers game. Assuming the developers don’t mess it up (like super grindy gameplay or shallow skills/loot), this formula certainly has potential.

So far the team behind Gotham Knights has promised that each of the 4 characters will feel and play differently from one another. Batgirl, for example, takes many cues from Batman himself, including the signature bat swarm; while Robin has been shown to teleport around using the Justice League satellite, specializing in stealth. Red Hood is said to be focused around "brutal melee" and gunplay and Nightwing seems to have an acrobatic skillset.

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3) Magnifying the possible design elements of Gotham Knight

Delving a little deeper into the gameplay element, the design must be scrutinized to reach a conclusion. For example, each hero possesses unique skills, like Batgitls’s hacking. How will this play into the mission structure? Will each character offer fresh ways to progress through the same session? Since there’s melee and long range weapons, will different builds be viable in the game? The developers also tout replayability as one of the game’s main selling points, so that does look to be the case.

There are also some neat additions to enrich the experience however. For example, when using a Knight, other characters will level up on their own - the way this is explained is that all other characters will be engaging with foes on their own in the background so they can keep up with the main Knight. This is a great way to respect the player's time, since progress is shared across characters.

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4) Successor to Batman Arkham

It all beginsa nd ends with Batman (Screenshot from Gotham Knights)

As mentioned before, the game does seem to share a lot in common with the Arkham series, just with its own RPG twist. There are also similar kinds of traveling methods, (with Batgirl’s hookshot and Batcycle to travel across Gotham City). Even the level design seems to retain the same sense of verticality. So it wouldn’t be absurd to expect the open world to be designed in the same way - collectibles scattered around, fights to engage in and non-combat sequences like puzzles to solve.

In fact, the game has been designed with 2 player co-op in mind, so there’s a whole lot of room for possibilities. Since two players can fight together through the same campaign, how will progression be handled? Can each player go off and do their own thing or missions simultaneously? Now that would be a great way to really embolden the superhero vibe the game is going for.

Speculation aside, there’s not much to suggest that Gotham Knights will turn out bad - but stranger things have happened in the industry, so it’s best to remain cautious. Gotham Knights launches sometime later this year for PC, PS4, PS5, XB1 and XSX|S.