Gotham Knights: How Drastically It Is Different from Arkham Games

Half a decade after Batman: Arkham Knight, WB Games Montreal plans to release Gotham Knights, its next game in the Batman universe, this year. But there should be decisive differences to the Arkham titles.

What Gotham Knights will do differently

Executive Producer Fleur Marty has now revealed some new details about how much the upcoming title will differ from the Arkham games. Here are the three main points:

New combat system due to the co-op option

Most people are familiar with the freeflow combat system of the Arkham series: hitting, countering, dodging – it’s easy to do, but depending on the type of opponent you need to do special tactics. Paramedics should be eliminated first, armed opponents want to be disarmed and particularly thick enemies must first be stunned before they can be finally knocked down.

The Gotham Knights story campaign can be played through completely in co-op, with the four young heroes Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, and Red Hood available. Due to this new co-op option, the combat system is now being completely revised, as the executive producer now reveals:

“We completely redesigned the combat system to work well in co-op. Of course we’re still brawling, and some of the mechanics won’t feel completely alien to people who have played and enjoyed the Arkham series, but it is very different in many ways. “

Common progress for all heroes

As already mentioned, you can choose between four different characters, each with their own strengths, gadgets, and techniques. Between the missions, you can switch back and forth between the heroes in your base at any time.

Unlike, for example, in Marvel’s Avengers, you don’t have to be afraid that one of your heroes will be totally underdeveloped: Characters that are not currently played are quasi-NPCs in the world and rise without your intervention. Producer Marty explains:

“The game allows you to switch to another character pretty much any time, as long as you return to the clock tower to do so. Since story progress is shared between all characters, it makes sense that you don’t have to level them all up again. as soon as you switch. This also makes sense in relation to our story: while you are active in the world fighting crimes or uncovering mysteries, the other members of the Batman family are always present in the background. They are not inactive, so it makes sense that they also progress and get stronger. “

Scaling enemies against the grind

Also new in Gotham Knights is the level and experience point system, with which new talents and skills can be unlocked like in a role-playing game. However, at no time should you be forced to grind XP in order to progress through the story.

The enemies in Gotham City scale at any time, so you should be able to explore the entire open world freely at the beginning of the game – so you can switch between the different heroes at any time and try out their unique skills, weapons, and play styles.

This should especially please our author Dimi. In his column on the announcement of Gotham Knights, our Batman expert suspected that an imposed time-gating mechanism could be hidden behind the level system:

Gotham Knights was announced in August 2020, with new gameplay and open-world details to follow in September. The game is to be released in 2021 for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X / S as well as PS4 and Xbox One, a release date is not yet known.