Gotham Knights Gamescom Trailers Reaction
Article by Kieran Burt.
Gotham Knights is the latest DC game from WB Games Montréal and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and at Gamescom it received an updated release date and a new trailer showcasing some of the story players will experience.
The trailer mainly focuses on three different villains from the DC comics, Clayface, Harley Quinn and Mr Freeze, though many others will be part of the game from Penguin and The Court of Owls. It’s going to be extremely fun going up against all of these, as all of them have varied attacks and abilities. Hopefully the same is true with the heroes, though It has been confirmed that players can swap their knight at will, and that it’s possible to stay with the same knight across the game’s story.
This is a great way to go about it, as players aren’t forced to play a knight they don’t like just to get through a specific section. It could also be used to create choices in playstyle, Batgirl might be more suited to a stealthier approach but Red Hood might be better in a fight for example.
The most unique villain in the trailer that will surely be the hardest to fight is Clayface. As seen in the trailer Red Hood, he can melt through bars and other material at will, and create clay zombies to frustrate the player. Mechanically, this provides a lot of opportunities for him to transform into different forms with their own abilities, varying up the fight.
At the end, the trailer releases a surprising update for fans. The release date is being moved again, but instead of a delay players can expect the game four days earlier. The new release date is October 21, 2022, instead of October 25.
IGN also released gameplay from the Harley Quinn boss fight, with Nightwing fighting Harley in hospital. Nightwing has a lot of varied attacks that he can use against Harley and her goons, demonstrating a display of acrobatics, weaponry and the Arkham inspired combat. Though the violence doesn’t snap to goons as much as Arkham, making the combat less fluid. However, that could be the context for the situation, as there are a few goons. The goons do look as though they’re waiting their turn to be knocked out, making the combat slightly easier.
The fight has multiple stages to it, making use of different rooms, which should keep players engaged. The length of this boss fight is quite long, and players can expect fights like this to be a large part of the experience due to the sheer amount of villains present in the game.
An issue that should be sorted out by the time of the game’s release but is noticeable in the trailer is that the dialogue isn’t quite synced to Harley’s and Nightwing’s characters. Hopefully this isn’t indicative of the rest of the game, as players will definitely pick up on it.
Despite the similar art direction and combat, Gotham Knights isn’t a continuation of the beloved Arkham games, it instead will tell an original story, following Batgirl, Nightwing, Red Hood and Robin after the death of Batman as they protect Gotham from a collection of villains.
Gotham Knights will release on October 21 2022 for PC, Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
