Gotham Knights: Deluxe Edition (PS5)

Product Information

Our caped crusading is made more difficult with the appearance of enemies like Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze and the Penguin. Since our ally Commissioner Jim Gordon (Barbara’s father) is also dead, the police are openly hostile to us. Still, if we’re tough and determined enough, we can foil the Court’s dastardly plans for Gotham. Insert strigiformophobia here. Our co-op player, ZensPath, proves that Nightwing's glider is overpowered, right before he flies away to Star City. Jeremy Powers/ZensPath Travel around the city is primarily by Bat-grapnel. Unfortunately, it’s extremely twitchy, and the grapnel gun that allows us to latch onto buildings and catapult us across Gotham doesn’t always go where you aim the camera. Instead, it seems to grab onto the nearest anchor point — even if it’s off-screen, sometimes behind or below you. Our ability to crimefight using stealth was thwarted more than once when, rather than propel ourselves away from criminal activity, we sailed straight into it. Multiple times. Open-world traversal, where the launch release suffered most, is also very stable. Long stretches run at a perfect 30fps, even when speeding through Gotham City on the Batcycle. I can't say it's completely perfect - one-off dropped frames can pop up, though not more often than every few minutes or so. For all practical purposes, open world gameplay just hugs that 30fps update. The opening bike chase, which is possibly the most consistently demanding scene in the entire game, provides a helpful illustration. The updated PS5 code is almost a flat line here, with just a handful of dropped frames through the entire sequence, while the launch version goes on a bit of a frame-time rollercoaster ride. There are extended dips, sharp stutters, and plenty of 16 millisecond frames sprinkled in for good measure on that original code. The new version brings a night-and-day improvement, and is ultimately a much more enjoyable experience. We first investigate the demise of Dr. Kirk Langstrom. Thanks to help from our augmented reality (AR) tech, we uncover clues that ultimately lead us to our shadowy nemeses, the Court of Owls. Insert warning music here.

Gotham Knights also suffers from performance issues that range from amusing bugs to annoying hindrances, the most grave of which is that the framerate. On the Xbox Series X, a stable 30fps was a rarity, especially when out in Gotham’s open world or during cutscenes – and God forbid I ride on my motorcycle for any amount of time. I’m not one to turn up my nose at a 30fps game versus 60 (which isn’t available here) and generally don’t need a game to be God’s gift to Digital Foundry to enjoy it, but Gotham Knights is pretty rough in this regard. That’s another disappointment when so many other aspects, like graphics, animations, and more, look quite good. It really feels like the open world gameplay was designed around a different set of technical constraints, with a streaming system that would permit much faster traversal, a denser placement of in-game NPCs, and proper large-scale world events. You get the sense that there's some underlying hangup here - perhaps the game assets were designed with a lot of unique elements that made them difficult to stream, for instance, or possibly UE4 itself is throwing up some obstacles. According to Warner Bros. Montreal, you’re automatically placed at the same level as the instance owner. We couldn’t test this. Due to time constraints, we could only play together twice, and both times, we were coincidentally the same level. Most of the game involves doling out justice with our fists, and leveling our heroes isn’t just a way to become more powerful: It’s part of our emotional arc, to become a hero who can fill Batman’s bat-boots. Additionally, each character in Gotham Knights has an individual journey of self-discovery they take to learn about how they deal with death and life. These scenes bring out the best that the world of gaming and comic books has to offer.

Visual Downgrade and Boring Combat

The open world - and travelling through it - also caused big problems for Xbox consoles. Although not perfect, it's still a vast improvement. You and your buddy can choose to play different characters, or hey, even two Nightwings at the same time. Expect a four-player co-op mode called “Heroic Assault” on Nov. 29, 2022, available as a free update. Play as a New Guard of DC Super Heroes – Step into the roles of Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood and Robin and shape Gotham’s newest protector to create your own version of the Dark Knight.

Gotham Knights lets you play co-op with a buddy, if you have a compatible system. In our case, because we were using PS5 consoles, we both needed a PlayStation Plus account. It worked seamlessly.Better yet, it allowed us to get extra dialogue. On a mission with our co-op partner, Robin tumbled down a hole and said something like, “I’m glad no one was here to see that.” But because Red Hood was standing right there, he responded, “I didn’t see anything.” The world then shifts to daytime whenever we chillax in the Belfry. Finally, a Batman game that has daylight — even if we only see it through the Belfry’s windows. Gotham Knights is a good game, and we had a lot of fun playing it. It isn’t, however, a great game, and its shortcomings are disappointing. Its engaging story is marred by issues that other games have solved for years. But despite a myriad of problems, ultimately it did more right than wrong. So, buy it if you’re a fan of the Bat Family. Otherwise, wait for it on sale.