Gotham Knights has been doing a good job of gradually revealing new information about how its open-world action-RPG works through intermittent gameplay showcases. Gameplay videos have provided close looks at each Knight in the Bat Family, with arguably the most having been showcased for Gotham Knights’ Batgirl. But WB Games Montreal has also given brief glimpses at what blueprint crafting will look like at the Belfry’s workbench, a number of suit selections, and how a couple different criminal activities can be tackled in Gotham City.

Gotham Knights recently shared its first 16 minutes of gameplay. This includes a look at what character selection will look like, with players able to tab around to whichever Knight they wish to play as, and a tutorial mission that covers a lot of the core features Gotham Knights will offer players in gameplay. General combat and traversal are not unfamiliar now to fans who have seen previous previews from Gotham Knights, but the first 16 minutes of gameplay does also feature a dedicated crime scene investigation that raises some concerns due to how elementary it is.

RELATED: Gotham Knights Character Spotlight Shares New Batgirl Gameplay

Gotham Knights’ Crime Scenes May Hold the Player’s Hand Too Much

Screenshot (699)

Gotham Knights’ introductory crime scene investigation has the player search for clues on how to enter behind a secret door hidden in a nearby wall. Bloody hand prints and pools of blood stain the floor and nearby surfaces in Doctor Kirk Langstrom’s office, and a table seemingly holds the key to accessing the hidden door.

Players are shown a keypad terminal next to a microwave with its own numbered buttons. Further, multiple interactibles on the table seem to hint at potential code combinations that would be fun to decipher and attempt manually on either of the provided keypads, finding more clues on which keypad is the one players need to use.

However, that is not how these crime scenes are interacted with. Instead, players hover their cursor over points of interest, which are obvious as they are highlighted with a microscope icon, and their necessary context and clues are instantly revealed to the player in terms of how relevant they are to the crime scene’s solution.

Objective descriptions in the top-left of the screen change to depict this information when players hover over it, meaning that the player does not necessarily have to contemplate what the solution is themselves. Therefore, Gotham Knights only truly asks players to interact with each item in a crime scene, and it will then explicitly tell them the solution they were supposed to be searching for, as well as where to connect that solution for the sake of completion.

This is unfortunate because they lack any authentic player involvement; of course, it is possible that only the first crime scene is this easy to solve, and future ones may be more difficult with less interpolation on behalf of Gotham Knights’ UI. But that is not the only concern that is raised when it comes to solving puzzles or navigating an area.

RELATED: Gotham Knights Confirms Joker Won't Make An Appearance, Teases Another Villain

Gotham Knights’ AR is Paired with Chatty Protagonists

Screenshot (700)

Introduced in the gameplay showcase concentrating on Nightwing and Red Hood, players use Augmented Reality to scan environments, track scratches and footprints, and locate any enemy auras or hidden interactibles. Augmented Reality is essentially the Arkhamverse’s Detective Mode, Horizon Zero Dawn’s Focus, or any other environmental scanning mechanic that open-world games have derivatively introduced.

That does not mean its implementation in Gotham Knights will necessarily be bad, but it looks as uninvolved as any of the similar scanning mechanics that have come before it. Players idly scan the area and follow a trail if one appears, but Gotham Knights already seems to suffer from its protagonists overstating information in verbose dialogue that negates the player from having to comprehend or consider the solution themselves.

This is seen within Gotham Knights’ first crime scene analysis as well, where Batgirl continues to remark upon each point of interest that the player scrolls over. It is in this dialogue, as well as the written text for points of interest and objective markers, that players can mindlessly tab around or click interactibles in order to progress. This may be preferable to some players who are more concerned with Gotham Knights’ open-world combat, for example.

But it is still unfortunate that players may not have to actually think about how to manually solve crime scene investigations themselves. Instead, players can either listen to the protagonist spoon-feeding clues and answers to them, or quickly interact with everything in order for the answers to be highlighted for them. It will also be interesting to see how these crime scene investigations will play out while fans play Gotham Knights in dedicated co-op.

Gotham Knights is scheduled to release on October 25 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

MORE: Why the Hogwarts Legacy Release Date Leak Might Be the Real Deal