Much like its Arkham predecessors, Gotham Knights will have a fully fledged open world for players to explore and get lost in. With proper cooperative multiplayer that can host two players in a given session, however, it's clear that the game needed a bigger overworld than was available in any of the old Batman titles.
Players worried about Gotham Knights' iteration of the titular metropolis shouldn't be overly concerned, however, according to recent interview with the developers. Speaking with Game Informer, the game's Executive Producer Fleur Marty and Game Director Geoff Ellenor went into some length on how the team is making this game's Gotham the best version of the city yet.
According to Marty, the specific version of Gotham that's being featured in Gotham Knights is going to be the city's biggest, most comprehensive edition yet. Compounding on that, Marty also explained that Gotham is a very dense and vertical city that allows for extremely layered locations. This, in turn, means that Gotham Knights echoes Marvel's Spiderman in regard to its overworld, allowing for an interesting gameplay loop no matter what the player might be doing.
Marty also explained that Gotham is big enough to necessitate the use of the Batcycle on a regular basis, even though the four featured heroes can effectively fly around the city, if they so desire. As she put it, the cycle itself is designed as a "long-range mode of transportation," which implies that the rest of the characters' formidable gadgets in Gotham Knights will be used for vertical traversal and slower-paced exploration.
In the same interview, Marty and Geoff also went into some detail on Gotham Knights' character suit designs. With more than 40 unique suits spread across each of the four playable characters, players should have plenty of options for differentiation and customization, especially when taking into account unique armor pieces and different colorways. These colorways or shaders, too, will be usable on the characters' Batcycles, though it remains to be seen how much variety could be present when each character is closely associated with a specific set of colors.
Somewhat disappointingly, Fleur did say that the Batcycle is not upgradeable and that most of the skills and abilities relating to the vehicle are, in fact, combat related. Gotham Knights' criticized gear menu did imply that the Batcycle itself wasn't part of the combat loop, with the new interview underlining this fact further still. That particular aspect of Arkham Knight won't be getting translated to the new title after all, it would seem.
Gotham Knights releases October 25 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Game Informer