Gotham Knights Review: Bat-Tastic

Batman is dead. Long live Batman. It's a difficult pill to swallow for longtime fans of the Dark Knight, but that's the reality set out before players in Gotham Knights. With Batman and Commissioner Gordon seemingly out of the picture and the Batcave destroyed, Gotham City could fall at any moment without the Caped Crusader around to clean up after the crazed villains running amok.

Luckily, the Gotham Knights are around to pick up where Batman left off: Red Hood, Nightwing, Robin and Batgirl take up their individual cowls to solve one of Batman's final cases as they sift through the ashes of a hero that once was. That's where you come in. Gotham Knights is a self-contained adventure that follows the Bat-Family as they work to uncover the truth behind a shadowy organization that seems to be pulling the strings on several goings-on around the city.

With Batman out of the way, this organization feels free to envelop Gotham in darkness while moving to attain its nefarious goals. That's where Gotham Knights begins, and players can move behind the curtain to see how an intrepid team of four heroes must work together to do the work of one legendary bat and save a broken city in the process.

Gotham Knights is a gritty narrative-based adventure with roots in the Arkham series that treats its characters and material with respect. It's an engaging tale that Bat-fans will be thrilled with from start to finish, with familiar villains and gameplay evocative of some of the Arkham games' finest moments. Plus, you can enjoy the game with a friend if you so choose. While there are certain areas that do need a bit more polish, as it stands Gotham Knights is a satisfying stint with some of the heroes that we could really stand to see a bit more of.

Gotham Knights Review: Gameplay

With Batman just a distant memory, the Gotham Knights are empowered to become the guardians of one of the most infamous cities of any piece of fiction. You can choose to swap between any of the heroes whenever you're ready at any point in-game. Each character comes with their own set of abilities, attacks and unique skill trees, so if you want to play half of the game as Red Hood and fine-tune his assault-heavy skills and then switch to Batgirl for a completely different experience in combat, you can do that.

The character-swapping feels natural in a way that you never miss out on any one playstyle. All the characters, from Nightwing to Robin and everyone in between, come with their own unique styles that complement the others. You don't ever have to force yourself to learn one character over another, which lends a degree of freedom some games with similar systems are lacking.

I chose to play as Red Hood for nearly the entirety of my playthrough as he came with the attitude and guns-blazing offensive I needed for how I wanted to approach the game. But when I wanted to try out Nightwing or Batgirl, it was as simple as heading to the Belfry, the game's central hub, and heading out with my new character in tow, ready to do some damage with familiar controls and no real learning curve. That makes it accessible without dumbing things down, and the game is stronger for it.

And speaking of being stronger, your detective skills will be put to the test more than you may be used to with prior games. You can scan your environments for important clues and ideas on how to proceed, but this time around, you'll come up with multiple solutions for a single issue. The game will allow you to try each solution and plug it in to find a code you need to progress or a way out of a situation. It's a refreshing take on the regular way these games do things.

Exploring Gotham City is a major part of Gotham Knights as well, and there's a massive world you can zip around to your heart's content. It doesn't matter where you are in the story—the moment you set foot out of the Belfry, you can go anywhere you see fit.

Riding the Batcycle can feel clunky at times, and unfortunately zipping around can often lead you to areas you don't quite want to go to as the targets you need to head to don't always appear when you need them. But when you unlock the fast travel system, there's much less of a need for this, and you can get from point A to point B much more quickly—if you tire of traversing Gotham, anyway. There's so much to see that it'll take some time for that, especially for hardcore Bat-fans.

Gotham Knights Review: Combat

If you've ever played an Arkham game as Batman, you'll feel at home in Gotham Knights. Combat is an exciting and frenetic part of the game, and it fits in perfectly with the hero-swapping mechanic. It blends street brawling with gunplay (if you're Red Hood, anyway) as well as plenty of stealth-optional moves if that's what you're into. It's fairly standard fare, with some enemies requiring you to break through shields, knock them back for maximum effectiveness, and other gimmicks that the Gotham goons throw into battle for good measure. But it works well here.

Perfect dodges are your friend and will let you land some supremely powerful punches and kicks or shots at a range, or even blows from a well-timed Escrima Stick. You can keep your distance and pick off foes from the shadows, or get up close and personal and completely slaughter baddies by the dozen. Whatever you choose, there's fun to be had.

You'll get your fill of mowing down the bad guys, too, as there are plenty of dark alleyways, street battles, and other encounters you'll have to play through if you want to proceed. You'll need to head out on patrols to obtain information, resolve hostage situations, stop robberies, or just shake down goons for a name or some sort of access they can provide you with.

This may begin to feel a little rote for some who want to just stick to the main story, but it does a great job of adding context and personality to the Gotham that fans have always wanted time and the ability to explore. The city feels like a living, breathing entity all its own, and you want to go out and see what it has to offer—and beat down on the bad guys roaming around in the process.

Gotham Knights Review: Verdict

Gotham Knights is a fun ride from start to finish. It's rife with content to explore, an intriguing storyline that will grip Bat-fans from the very beginning, and plenty of reasons to jump in and explore with friends.

Each character feels unique and accessible without forcing players to learn completely new styles and abilities, and the detective mechanics work well with the storyline. Gotham City is a massive playground, and there's always something to investigate.

It is important to note that for the purposes of this review, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment provided a review copy that I played on PC. I did not experience glitches or frame rate issues on my playthrough, but as I did not test console versions of the game, I cannot speak to any potential problems those players may be having.

With that said, however, I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Gotham City, especially as Red Hood, and I'm eagerly hoping for more games in this vein featuring some of Gotham's finest coming down the pipeline soon enough—especially when they have so much in store for longtime fans.

Score: 8/10