“Gotham Knights” takes a whole new perspective on the world of fighting bad guys in the dark streets of what is usually thought of as Batman’s domain.

The game begins with a scene of Batman dying, in which he is killed off in such a creatively cool way — I won’t spoil it and leave it up to you to find out by yourself.

This action role-playing game, released on October 21, allows players to select a variety of good guy characters to confront the secret criminal cult known as the Court of Owls. The playable characters include Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, and Red Hood.

The game has received mixed reviews with some people criticizing the combat, the frame rates, and the grind for reaching certain levels. The next-gen versions of the game also suffer from a framerate limit of 30 frames per second, which is disappointing for PS5 and Xbox Series X owners who are used to 60 frames per second.

Although I agree with many of these criticisms, the game isn’t unenjoyable. The main problem I have experienced is the constant crashes, which could result from my outdated PC. Either way, the game needs better optimization with the frame rates.

To me, “Gotham Knights” is an enjoyable game, but not at the same level of quality as “Batman: Arkham Knight,” the last installment in the Arkham series of games.

The graphics in “Gotham Knights” are not the best, but the lighting in my opinion is excellent. However, the combat can be repetitive sometimes, which could put off some players, and the story of the game is not up to the same level of quality as the RockSteady Arkham games.

So far, I have logged 20 hours on the game without finishing the story yet. However, I can say that the story is okay at best. It’s fun when you encounter the Court Of Owls, play some stealth missions, and complete the side missions, which each have different villains to face.

The game offers lots of unique side missions, which add additional content and gameplay to the overall game. For instance, one of the missions includes the villain Mr. Freeze, who controls the weather, causing you to see storms and lightning hitting the city of Gotham. When I first did this mission I was amazed. It was so cool to see the lightning hitting the ground as I drove the Batcycle. The boss fight with Mr. Freeze is fun, but still not to the level of Batman Arkham City’s type of boss fights.

To unlock the side missions, players must stop a group of criminals and once they are defeated, new missions become available.
The most enjoyable side mission for me was with the Villain, Clayface. It was a blast having to chase him with the Batcycle. The way the developers created the chase sequence was amazing. Overall, my only issue with the missions is having to do the same tasks multiple times.

The Co-Op in “Gotham Knights” is very pleasant. I could stay at one side of Gotham, while my partner was on the other side of the map stopping crimes at different times, with the ability to do a “special takedown” if we were together. The feature to play with four players has been confirmed, although fans are unsure about this feature’s release date. Co-Op is really fun, you can play the entire game with your friend and explore different areas and there’s no restrictions except when you’re doing story missions or side missions. Co-op in Gotham Knights was the best experience I had with this game. My friends and I had a blast, going through Gotham with the Batcycle, and using different heroes’ traversals. I highly recommend playing this with your friend, although you must complete some of the story first before being able to do Co-op.

All the playable heroes have unique movesets and are enjoyable to play as. The character I found the most fun was Robin (Tim Drake), whose playstyle is designed to be more stealthy. Robin’s movesets involve doing action combos with his staff as a weapon, including a powerful finishing move. Redhood is also a highlight among the characters. When I saw gameplay of him at first I thought he was going to be boring and tedious, but I was far from right. You can get very creative with him, especially when using the Batcycle, spamming weapons on the criminals, and going around in a circle at the same time.

Overall, the core gameplay is highly enjoyable. I had a great time playing as the different heroes; I had fun leveling up with each of them and didn’t have any issues with their skill trees.

The game has a loot base gameplay, a system where you can get gear and resistance to make your hero look cool and have better stats. Although I didn’t have a problem with it. I didn’t feel like my level was too low, making the game more difficult than it should be, nor that my level was too high, making the experience too much of a breeze to be enjoyable. Everything was balanced out fine. Grinding to get the best gear is definitely a highlight for me and I was disappointed at the game for giving me bad items.

My score for the game is 8/10, with my biggest complaint being that the game needs better optimization. The game is really amazing to play, and it’s pretty impressive to see Warner Bro Montréal take a huge risk and kill off Batman from the get-go. I think they have done a great job of making a Gotham-themed game without Batman. All the heroes and villains are fun to battle, especially with that comic-book vibe to them. The heroes all have different personalities, and I’m hoping that the developers will expand it and keep this series going.