Announced earlier this year at August's major DC FanDome event, Gotham Knights is a new Batman game set in a fresh universe. Instead of players taking on the famed caped crusader, they instead will assume the role of the Bat Family, seeing Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, and Red Hood team up to fight back against some of Gotham's most notorious villains.
While the footage showed off at DC FanDome mostly highlighted the game's high-octane combat set-pieces and blockbuster battles, it seems there will be more to WB's long-awaited Batman game. Speaking in an interview on the PlayStation Blog back in September, Gotham Knights creative director Patrick Redding highlighted how investigations will work in the game, claiming that players won't be annihilating all of Gotham's biggest foes overnight this time around.
"Villain Crimes will play out over multiple nights," Sony Senior Specialist Gillen McAllister summarizes during his recap of his interview with Redding, revealing that the director stated there will be "a series of encounters where the player has to do a certain amount of legwork and detective work to hunt down the villain." That alone completely separates Gotham Knights' pacing from that of the Arkham trilogy, providing players with a detective-focused gameplay loop that culminates with a final confrontation akin to the Mr. Freeze showdown highlighted in the title's gameplay reveal.
As for why the team decided to focus on this, Redding claimed: "We want to make you feel all that work you’re investing into protecting Gotham City." It seems to be a direct response to the criticism of the Arkham games (particularly Arkham Knight), with fans claiming that the game's overnight focus was incredibly limiting to the experience.
Many also complained that it was an unrealistic format, especially considering each game in the franchise began to grow longer and expanded its roster of side content as a result. Hearing that Gotham Knights will be trying a different approach will be sure to appeal to those who weren't a fan of Arkham's single-night setting.
As for Gotham Knights itself, the game has been somewhat divisive online so far. Many are happy to be getting a new game set in the Batman universe, especially considering it will feature the Bat Family and cast the long-requested Court of Owls as the central antagonists. However, others were quick to air their concerns over the game's seemingly RPG-esque mechanics and decision to ditch the classic free-flow combat system first pioneered by Rocksteady in Arkham Asylum. It seems Batman aficionados will get to find out how successful Gotham Knights is when it debuts next year.
Gotham Knights will be coming in 2021, for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Source: PlayStation Blog