Gotham Knights review: Can a Gotham game thrive without Batman?

Gotham Knights begins with the death of Batman. An interesting choice for a studio that made some of the best Batman games over the last decade. The 12-minute cutscene shows his demise, how his closest confidants are alerted and the funeral for Bruce Wayne that follow.

Gotham Knights is the first game in the Batman universe since the popular Arkham series that concluded with Batman: Arkham Knights in 2015. With the vigilante of Gotham being killed off in the opening, you play as one of four of his trusted confidants. Nightwing is the original Robin Dick Grayson. Jason Todd, who followed Grayson as Robin is now Red Hood. Tim Drake is the current Robin, while Barbara Gordon is Batgirl, the daughter of former police commissioner Jim Gordon. Together, along with Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred, you start the game following up on a case Batman was working on before his demise, while keeping the citizens of Gotham safe.

But as the criminal masterminds of Gotham learn that Batman is no longer there to protect the city, things get interesting.

A week before the game’s launch, Gotham Knights publisher Warner Brothers Games announced the game would run at 30 frames-per-second (FPS) on consoles, compared to the industry standard 60 FPS. Even with that downgrade, there were reported issues that the game did not run smoothly on PlayStation 5 or Xbox.

Our PC copy of Gotham Knights challenged a new, higher end computer as well. Turning on ray tracing and changing environment density from low to medium caused serious stutter. Frame rate dropped from 60 FPS to high 30’s. Changing these settings back to their original resets made the game playable, but there was another issue - screen tearing. One third of the screen during gameplay would look off, as though it was a second behind the rest. Turning on VSYNC rectified this issue.

With the technical issues managed, it was time to play.

In Gotham Knights, you play as Nightwing, Batgirl, Robin or Red Hood. Each provides slight differences in play styles and skills, but overall, they are very similar. The characters all have a grappling hook to fly through the sky and reach the top of tall buildings, and access to the Batcycle.

Playing through each of the four main characters provides an achievement and a feel for how each operates. One gameplay aspect Gotham Knights does well is that experiences and levels are shared among all characters. If you get Batgirl to level five and decide to switch to Nightwing, he will have the same skill points to update.

Once you choose a character, you start a night of patrol. The criminals of Gotham are everywhere, and terrorizing residents. Take them down and earn experience. Interrogate small time crooks to find out about bigger premeditated crimes happening within the city. You also run into some of Gotham’s more notorious criminals throughout your night. Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze and others are on alert with Batman gone.

Early in the game, you need to explore the city using your grappling hook and motorcycle. In a big open world like Gotham, this can quickly become annoying when you have to travel to the opposite side of the map. Eventually you can unlock fast travel, which makes navigating the city much easier.

As your character levels up, you unlock new perks to battle the bad guys. For example, Robin can create an exploding decoy that can take out the enemies. Each character initially has three skill trees they can add experience points into, but can unlock a fourth by completing the Knighthood challenge mission. Whie skill points are earned by each character, the Knighthood challenge needs to be done separately by each, even though the missions are the same.

Enemy fights throughout the city that are initially fun quickly become repetitive. While the enemies become more difficult as you level up, the premeditated crimes are often the same crime at the same place night after night. After a few patrols, you can almost create a checkbox of where you will need to go in a night.

Despite the performance issues, the developers of Gotham Knights create a beautiful world and rich main story for players. Eventually. The main story revolves around a secret society called the Court of Owls that has ruled Gotham from the shadows for a century. Beautiful cutscenes merge effortlessly into game play as you maneuver around an exquisitely rendered Gotham.

Initially, the story is convoluted, moving completely away from its initial premise, to the point where it is hard to tell side quests from the main story.  Gotham Knights’ writers also assume you know a lot about the Banman universe. If you are unfamiliar with characters or storylines from the comics, you might find yourself doing a quick Google search.

While the main story is interesting, most of the activities on a patrol quickly become annoying and monotonous. Gotham Knights offers many side quests that require you to maneuver the city to find items. Finding these later in the game proves annoying and frustrating, as it requires you to re-investigate the entire city.

Gotham Knights provides an intriguing story in a beautiful world, wrapped in monotony. If you are a big DC Comics or Batman fan, you likely will enjoy the game. If not, this might be a game to pick up once it is discounted.

The game developers will likely fix the technical issues over time, so on a scale of buy, wait for a sale or skip, I recommend waiting. Given the choice between platforms, PC is hands down the best way to play this game.

Performance and technical issues weigh this game down, as does repetitiveness in combat and quests. Still, a strong story keeps the main quest interesting. I give Gotham Knights 2.75 out of 5 stars.

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Gotham Knights is available on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 for $70, and PC via Steam for $60.

Check out images from Gotham Knights