The next Batman game has recently been revealed to be Gotham Knights from Warner Bros. Montreal. While many gamers had been hoping for a continuation of the Batman Arkham game in the series, Gotham Knights looks to be going in a different direction with its own canon universe that is separate from that of the Arkham games (it is worth adding that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League follows Arkham continuity). Gotham Knights follows four playable Bat Family characters: Robin, Nightwing, Red Hood, and Batgirl, who are taking up the mantle from a now reportedly deceased Batman.
Superhero games have ranged in quality over the years, but one of the top hits in recent years was Marvel’s Spider-Man. While Batman and Spider-Man may come from rival comic universes, it looks like Gotham Knights is taking a leaf out of the book of Marvel’s Spider-Man game in one way.
One of the main reasons Marvel’s Spider-Man on PS4 felt so immersive was thanks to its fully interactive world of New York City. Spider-Man’s Manhattan was created beautifully, featuring well-known locations such as the Empire State Building and Central Park. But what really made the city feel lifelike was the level of interactivity Spider-Man had with everyday citizens. The city basically became another character in the game thanks to the crowds of people roaming the streets of New York, along with Spider-Man’s ability to interact with these citizens at any time during the game.
On the flip side, Gotham City in Arkham games was always free of normal citizens due to plot reasons. This meant the city was free of any innocent bystanders who might get in the way, but left Gotham feeling isolated and menacing, particularly as it was only thugs and enemies left on the streets. It looks like Gotham Knights is moving away from this approach by utilizing a more interactive Gotham City. In the first gameplay footage from Gotham Knights, it can definitely be seen that Gotham is very much alive with cars on the road and citizens on the streets. The gameplay clip also shows that the people of Gotham are reactive to the events of the game’s narrative, meaning player’s have that extra motivation to stop crimes before innocent citizens are harmed.
Where the Arkham games always took place over one very long night in Batman’s career, Gotham Knights’ timeline is going to span a bit longer. WB Montreal seem to be focused on allowing players to evolve their different characters from start to finish. To make this more realistic, the game will occur over the course of several nights, possibly even weeks or months, of night patrols and crime fighting. Marvel’s Spider-Man is a good example of this as time can be shown passing in both the environmental systems and the narrative of the game.
Giving a broader timeline for players to upgrade and grow their characters should help to encourage more exploration in Gotham Knights as players won’t feel the pressure to complete story events until they are ready. Some more good news is that Gotham Knights will be following Spider-Man’s lead by not level-gating any of the missions in the game.
Along with a longer timeline is the introduction of a home hub system, which in Gotham Knights is confirmed to be the Belfry. The Arkham games introduced some safe house areas for Batman, such as the Clock Tower, Batcave, or GCPD. But these areas were never anything but places for cutscenes or locations to retrieve gadgets and they never offered players any interactivity. Marvel’s Spider-Man has a number of home bases that players can return to such as Peter Parker’s apartment, the F.E.A.S.T building or Octavius Laboratory which gives players interactive clues to find and mini-puzzles to complete.
The Belfry in Gotham Knights is an opportunity for players to return to a safe house at the end of their night of crime fighting, and it may potentially provide a place to interact with or swap playable characters. Hopefully, the Belfry will also provide the same level of interactivity as Marvel’s Spider-Man and give players extra influence over the Bat Family’s progression via upgrades, costumes, and gadgets.
Gotham Knights will be released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X in 2021.
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