Gotham Knights has been handed out to influencers and previewers alike with the intention of having positive and negative receptions addressed. This may be an effort to catch any meddling bugs that WB Games Montreal overlooked, especially when it comes to Gotham Knights’ untethered two-player co-op. But seeing these previews, it is notable that bonus objectives within each encounter may be paramount to how dynamic Gotham Knights’ gameplay can become.

It seems most fans have acknowledged that Gotham Knights’ combat is unique to its action-RPG design. In this case, Gotham Knights’ combat relies upon light and heavy attacks as a basic means of generating a Momentum bar, which players can then exhaust to perform unique abilities for their character. These abilities are unlocked in skill tree branches, and therefore combat may seem basic at the beginning of the game. However, bonus objectives may even that experience out with an incentive to diversify each encounter.

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Gotham Knights’ Bonus Objectives Are Akin to Those from Marvel’s Spider-Man

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Gotham Knights’ bonus objectives appear beneath the player’s primary objective, tasking them to navigate whatever encounter they are in while also achieving a particular goal. If a primary goal is to reach a certain destination, for example, a bonus objective may task players with getting there while avoiding damage.

If a primary goal is to save hostages and disarm bombs that are strapped to them, bonus objectives may task players with defeating all enemies and remaining undetected while doing so. These already seem comparable to Marvel’s Spider-Man’s bonus objectives, where players could be awarded more XP if they air-launched four enemies, webbed five enemies to walls, or successfully stopped a carjacking without taking damage.

Players are not obligated to achieve these bonus objectives in either game, but they do make for a wonderful incentive with extra XP that players can indulge in if they want to challenge themselves in an encounter, or simply earn more XP than they would have without them. If nothing else, bonus objectives are a fun, idle reminder of what gameplay mechanics the player has access to.

Gotham Knights’ Open World Needs a Lot of Gameplay Diversity

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One of the worries fans have about Gotham Knights is that its combat will become stale throughout the open world. Especially given the fact that Gotham Knights has confirmed its only four villains already, it can be inferred that fans have already seen all the enemies that they will encounter as well.

If true, this does not bode well for enemy type diversity, and open-world combat could become routinely banal after multiple random crime events are completed. This is where bonus objectives could be incredibly useful and rewarding. Gameplay always has the potential to be unsatisfactory if fans are repeating the same mechanics and neglect to branch out into new playstyles. That makes Gotham Knights’ four playable protagonists more interesting; the intrinsic, dynamic experience that multiple characters have to offer.

With bonus objectives as an optional incentive for more XP, there will be many considerations players can make when deciding how they want to approach each encounter, whether they prefer silent stealth tactics or an unabashed combat assault. Fortunately, fans only need to wait a few more days to learn for themselves how they would like to tackle these encounters in Gotham Knights.

Gotham Knights is scheduled to release on October 21, 2022, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

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