The newly-revealed Gotham Knights certainly looks promising, although some fans are understandably cautious given the game’s departure from the proven Arkham blueprint. WB Games Montreal have assured fans Gotham Knights won’t be taking a typical “games as a service” approach, but some questions remain – will the game’s version of Gotham City be as fun as varied as ones we’ve tackled in the past? Will the cast of playable characters feel properly unique?
Thankfully, we now have a few more answers courtesy of a new PlayStation Blog article. It sounds like WB Games Montreal’s new version of Gotham will be the biggest and most complex yet, as they’re promising it will include five distinct neighborhoods, lots of landmarks from the comics and movies, and “living citizenry” that follow specific schedules and may force you to change your tactics at times. For instance, during certain times of the day, Gothamites may actually cause traffic jams that will make it harder to get around the city on your Batcycle. This is definitely a major departure from the Arkham open worlds, which were fun playgrounds, but kind of sterile, with no regular citizen NPCs.
Meanwhile, what can we expect from Gotham Knights’ four protagonists – Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, and Red Hood? They don’t have flashy superpowers like the Avengers, but WB Montreal are working hard to make them all feel unique…
Red Hood is a brutal brawler with a focus on gunplay. Nightwing’s acrobatics lead to a more exaggerated style of fighting, while the current Robin favours stealth and is a dab hand at using status effects to disrupt enemies. And Batgirl? She combines a laser-focused, targeted and efficient melee fighter approach with a lot of resilience and the ability to weaponize her environment using hacking.
We also now know a little bit more about how Gotham Knights’ missions will play out. There will be an overarching story about Batman’s allies trying to expose and defeat the Court of Owls, but you’ll also take on other villains, such as Mr. Freeze, in “Villain Crimes” missions. These Villain Crimes will take place over several nights, with players having to do a fair amount of detective work to ultimately bring the baddies to justice. No word on what bad guys we can expect aside from the Owls and Mr. Freeze, but WB Montreal are promising “reinvented villains, old, new and ancient.”
Gotham Knights leaps onto PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS4, and PS5 sometime in 2021.
