Gotham Knights
Review

Gotham Knights (2022) is an action-adventure game where you fight criminals and bring vigilante justice to the streets of Gotham City. Playing as one of the four Knights, you travel the city by land and air, finding criminal gangs and supervillains, using weapons and abilities to defeat them in fast-paced and precise combat. This action, expanding on the Batman Arkham games, plays out alongside a story of grief and loss cleverly echoed in the varied and expansive open world.

The Batman is dead. After an explosion kills billionaire Bruce Wayne, it's up to his family of Gotham Knights - Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, and Red Hood - to take his place as the defenders of justice while also grappling with the loss of their friend. You play each of these Knights in turn as you explore the city's five boroughs using motorcycles, gliders and teleportation devices to get around. You encounter both petty criminals and classic supervillains, including Mr Freeze and the Court of Owls, and defeat them in fast-paced combat using different weapons and each knight's unique abilities and powers.

The gameplay is a mix of traversal and fighting. Each knight has their own way of getting around, be it using a glider to fly, or magical powers to seemingly walk through the air. Each also has a distinct fighting style and selection of weapons, meaning you have to come up with different strategies for using each. Combat is fast-paced and requires quick button presses to use your melee and long-range weapons, and dodging attacks from opponents is also essential. You often find yourself facing multiple enemies at once, meaning you need to keep in mind the locations of all of them to ensure you don't get cornered or surrounded.

The result is a game that expands on the gameplay and world first introduced in the Arkham games to create non-linear exploration and multiple playable characters. The series stood out for the high impact of both combat and story, and this chance to return again to the streets of Gotham continues this substantial story.

Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Gotham Knights 16 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 5 months ago.