Gotham Knights (PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S) is a divisive game that released to very mixed reactions from critics and fans. Some love it, some hate it. What went wrong? Let’s talk. Subscribe for more: www.youtube.co...
"Health bar" fights are such a blight on modern games. In the arkham games there were so many ways to immediately put down an enemy in a real and satisfying feeling way. It felt like you were knocking goons' heads together, not just depleting an arbitrary health bar
You can make the health bars go away 🤣 how does knowing how much health an enemy has ruin the game? There is code in all games that registers how much health an enemy has 🤣 and you’re mad because you see it. Nice
@@Sn1pEzTV I get what you're saying, but honestly, there was no reason to make this game more of an action RPG than the Arkham games. Seems like most games are trying to be health bar, numbers flying everywhere RPGs now. The previous system had great progression and avoided the excessive gaminess that so many games suffer from now
One more iconic thing about first batmobile summon was how rocksteady made it seem cinematically awesome by putting dialogue where batman says to alfred that he's "even-ing the odds" and the batmobile call button appears labeled as "even the odds"
I love rock steady but I don't know that I'd call that iconic. It was around the same time that Call Of Duty asked us to press F to pay respects. Love Rock steady and Arkham but I think that's a little cringe even if it is Batman.
I do think that most if not almost all of the criticism against Gotham Knights are completely fair, cause it is in fact a considerably worse game than any of the Arkham series and it shows that it's development didn't have the same level of love or commitment to the game. Having said that, I would also like to play a little bit of devils advocate here, cause I do think that some of the comparisons aren't really fair and some of the criticism are not really giving the game a chance to be it's own thing, there are some elements in gameplay that are different, but not different in a worse way, it's just another way to make a game and progression, but it's receiving criticism just because it's not like in the Arkham series. Part of the Batmobile vs the Batcycle comparisons are a good example of this in my opinion, the Batcycles entrance is clearly less epic, but I don't think that's inherently bad, cause it's not trying to be epic, instead it's about showing how developed their tech is, like you mentioned the Batmobile plays a really important role in the story of Arkham Knight as it's meant to "even the odds" in a moment where the problem is feeling too big even for Batman, it's supposed to be epic and imposing, smashing every car it gets in its way, the Batcycle instead is not trying to be anything like that, it's just their way of moving faster, nothing more nothing less, it's not supposed to be imposing or destroy every car that gets in its way, mostly because this time there are actual people in those cars, but also because it's supposed to be a smaller and more versatile way of moving than the batmobile, again most of the criticism is really fair and deserved (even within that same example, the speed and speed animation of the batcycle is straight up bad), but we all just want to play a good game, and I think it's important to keep in mind these things in order to actually enjoy a game instead of constantly comparing it to others.
We still have Suicide Squad coming from Rocksteady. So let's cross our fingers that we're praising it and talking about how Rocksteady proved they're a bunch of bad motherfuckers again.
@@guybroyles48 I hope so. Not gonna lie the lack of promotional material has me worried. It's getting delayed for sure or it's just gonna be a trainwreck. Here's hoping it's the Arkham game we need.
Health bar and levels? Are you ppl serious? We have these for 40 years and most of the games have it but here is somehow issue? Sometimes i dont know if ppl are sarcastic or just stupid.
@@MC-hn8yy He isn't sarcastic, there are times for it. Just because it has existed for a long time, does not mean that you should go around and put a health bar on every single street crock
People gawk about Arkham Knights graphics (rightfully so they're mental) but the thing that impresses me most is how good the core gameplay loop is. Batman is just so responsive, the gliding feels fast, the combat is absolutely amazing, the fear takedowns make the combat more cinematic as well, the stealth system is damn near flawless. The only thing that puts City over Knight for me is honestly the story
These thugs feel lifeless but in Arkham series the thug were hands down one the best part of the game that I don't think any other game has copied it well , their interaction with each other, their conspiracy theories , their reaction to see Batman coming out of shadows is hilarious.
The thing that made me realize this was a lower effort game was when i cleared a criminal stronghold and saved one guy, waiting the entire time for him to find all 9 of his unconscious buddies and still he went back to his usual path and blurted out generic " I'LL FIND YOU" responses. Where in Arkham, he'd immediately realise that he's the last one and get all frantic and scared as you picked off his buddies. I always loved that.
Stealth in Arkham was like a puzzle. And it was a great feeling. If you planned it out right, the enemies would fall like dominoes. And you'd end the sequence standing in the middle of all it, cape flowing. I miss that. I might have to just replay the Arkham games instead of this.
and what a great puzzle. i often restarted this missions because i wanted to get "All stealth knockouts" or something like this with the fear meter building up and so on... good times, but hard (at least for me) to jump into from time to time
ikr? lately these "expert reviewers" feels like they make reviews based off the feeling of a 2 hours demo gameplay lol, chapeau to Falcon and Gameranx to be real ones.
That’s what I did right after playing Gotham Knights. I purchased all the Arkham games once again for my PS5 just to appreciate the great work Rocksteady did back then and playing Arkham City rn
Never played any of the Batman games, but I LOVED Spider-Man and Miles Morales… Would you recommend them? If so, can I just play Arkham Knight or do you need to play them all in order?
@@wesleyp3579 Play all 4 Arkham games in the order of release (Asylum, City, Origins, then Knight). Go in without expectations based on other games, you wont be disappointed.
I think stealth is the main issue. Arkham games required meticulous planning sometimes and use of every gadget at disposal and real concentration. It made you feel like batman. Here you sneak around from point to point maybe distract a bit and then knock down.
Hey I know this is one year on and people have moved on and forgotten this piece of crap but yeah your absaloutly right what I loved about the Arkham games is you could choose your approach to how you want to take out enemy’s and that gives you the feel of being Batman while sadly this game has none of that it just feels like a grind system with no end or purpose it’s a shame because this could have fitted into the arkhamverse if they’d have made it the sequel to Arkham knight maybe change up the gameplay added new innovations because originaly I thought it was gonna be exactly that an Arkham knight sequel
I find it interesting how both Gotham Knights (developed by a WB owned studio) and the upcoming Suicide Squad game (also developed by a WB owned studio) both got delayed the same month the Avengers game was released which was heavily criticized for the live service aspect. Considering how Gotham Knights appears to have been designed as a live service game originally, it wouldn't surprise me if Suicide Squad was too, hence the delay for both games. What's even more interesting is that right after Gotham Knights is released and the reviews are out, it is announced that the two co-founders of Rocksteady (who is developing Suicide Squad) have decided to leave the company.
@@Roman_Perez7 Yeah obviously Rocksteady are working on it, that's the point. Both teams had their games delayed the same month the Avengers game released and two co-founders of Rocksteady departed after the monumental bad reception of Gotham Knights which implies Rocksteady's Suicde Squad game is following a similar model which is not a good sign.
@@ezzahhh On the bright side, at least GAAS is slowly getting thrown away by game developers. Hopefully, Rocksteady can fix Suicide Squad before it comes out.
@@ezzahhh I woudn´t doubt the Suicide Squad game may follow the same multiplayer mechanics as Gotham Knights but I hope they keep the free flow combat system and stealth mechanics from the Arkham games.
Arkham Origins is actually a really good indicator of the design philosophy at WB Montreal. Half the map was designed by Rocksteady for Arkham Coty and just kinda dressed up to match the aesthetic of Arkham Origins. So the steel mill, the church, etc looked really good. Then they make you cross a reaaaaaaally long bridge to get to the other side of town, and its generic tall buildings and fast travel points. I haven't played Arkham City in years and I could still tell you where the GCPD building is relative to the Museum and the Iceberg Lounge. But I literally can't name any landmark from Origins besides the one big building and I don't even remember where in the map it is.
They basically just rehash what rocksteady does with arkham series. They just add twists of their own and release it to make money. The only good thing they did was the detective mode if im not mistaken.
Exactly! Don't forget the empty lazy outside textures covered in snow. Everyone seems to gloss over those points when they nostalgically talk about Origins
@@mgiebus1869 Outside textures for snow? They modelled actual snow and had snow deformation. Definitely not textures. It was actually pretty "revolutionary" to have snow deformation in that game, along with HBAO+.
I don't massively disagree with your point about design philosophy, and I do feel that the gameplay is a bit "iffy" for Origins, but the best boss battles (bar Freeze in City) are in Origins, and it has (in my opinion, at least) the best story of the 4 games. Without City, it wouldn't be what it is, but entirely on its' own merits, ignoring City, the game is fine. It's a sequel like most are, not revolutionary like City was to Asylum. But given the foundation *is* City, it's still a damn good game, and a far sight better than Gotham Knights and most other games.
@@GrammarNaziAUSwhat's hbao+? Also they clearly used the snow to avoid having to actually draw in detailed street and flooring textures like those in City and Knight. It only becomes more obvious as you traverse the city (which was clumsily designed). Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it last Christmas, the boss fights were awesome. But their laziness in game design is prevalent all throughout
I believe the game had two very dramatic shifts in development. The first was that this Gotham Knights was originally a direct sequel to Arkham Knight and took place in the same continuity, because a lot of its gameplay and story decisions give it that "Copy my homework but change it just enough to not be obvious" vibe, before it was turned from the action-adventure genre of the Arkham series into a full-on live service RPG game (probably) very early in development, and in doing so, it was also changed to take place in its own separate universe, partly for creative freedom and partly to separate it further from the Arkham series. The second shift was when Avengers came out and was total shit, so WB tried to strip out as much of that aspect of the game as they could without requiring the devs to basically start over from scratch on the gameplay side of things, leading to it feeling like a bastard child between Avengers and the Arkham games.
This game is nothing like any of the arkham games. WB montreal wouldn't just make a game and then claim 'well its an arkham game' because that is actually stupid as all hell. They only developed arkham origins so rocksteady could have more time working on knight so there is no chance that the sequel to one of the most beloved video game franchises wouldnt be worked on by the company responsible for those amazing games. The more i think about it, the stories dont even line up and its just as unlikely that they scrapped the sequel idea and then came up with an entirely new storyline
@@funkychunk1343 Search up the canceled Damian Wayne game. You’ll get ur answers. They canceled an Arkham sequel to knight for this dumpster fire mediocre knights
I feel like it could’ve work if they had stories of each characters based on a trait of Batman/villains. With the final level forcing each character work together with there skills to defeat the Court Of The Owls as a team. Bat-Girl - Is the one going around to hack computers and collect information. (Penguin/Riddlers) Nightwing - Focuses on combat stealth and break-in. (Black Mask/Harley Quinn) Red Hood - Be the fire power. Doing take down mission and junk. (Killer Croc/Clay-Face) Robin - Is the detective, trying uncover a certain villains secretly supporting Court. Working hard to find their whereabouts of these enemies. (Two-face/Hush)
You make a good point. However, personally I would switch Batgirl and Robin (since he specializes in tech while her time as Oracle has made her the best in forensics and information networks), along with Nightwing and Red Hood (NW has a lot of experience with large and stronger enemies from his Titans experience and RH is completely reliant on handguns and the occasional sucker punch).
@@lukeskywalker987 I think he had it right. When it comes to the hacker stuff, Babs has an edge over Robin. Tim is known as the best detective in family, even surpassing Batman
@@Strategic_Mover True. I just thought it would be more interesting if Tim focused on tech and rooting through code (since Tynion's run really emphasized his affinity for computers) while Barbara would just happen to use hacking in her information gathering and more traditional detective work, especially since they could tie it in with her dad's work as the police chief.
The big thing about the Arkham combat that I think is easily missed is how Batman would "lock on" to enemies-- like if I push up on my left stick with the punch button, and there's an enemy in front he'll "jump" over to that enemy to hit them. That's what gave it that flow I can tell just by the videos for Gotham Knights that this part was gutted. The combat instead looks more like superhero games prior to Arkham Asylum, where you really have to aim at them on your own to do any damage. So if you're going to make 90% of your game just combat, at least build off of the best combat system and make it the best part??
From many videos i watch, the lack of gadget hurt me the most actually. One of the most fun aspect in Arkham freeflow combat is the puzzle element to maximize the effect of the gadget on the combat. And its gone in Gotham Knight
I have to agree with you @Nick Lanny. Seeing Batgirl fight, there are literally no longer any transition animations when she switches from focusing on one enemy to another. She just slide-rotates from one to another now.
Why should they bother making anything better? The previous game was a blast, ppl will buy this one jsut for the franchise. Typical corporate milk it till its buried policy...
@Shawn Rasmussen Sadly, these non-players will proceed to complain about a game they never actually play and discourage other players that might've been interested.
My personal take on the matter simply goes down to the passion of the developer. Rocksteady's Arkham Trilogy is a masterpiece, through and through. Yes, the last game had some hiccups, particularly to do with its PC launch and the overreliance on the batmobile, but it was still a fantastic bloody game, and one of the few games I actually went out of my way to platinum. Graphically, all the batman games always felt way ahead of their time when they came out. I remember playing Arkham Asylum for the first time on my Xbox 360 and thinking how amazing everything looked. Arkham Knight set that standard so much higher. If you go back to that game on a PS5 or Series X, it still holds up perfectly when it comes to in-game visuals. This goes without mentioning the overall story of these games which was incredible. But like I said before, it all goes back to passion. Everyone at Rocksteady LOVED batman. You can see it and hear it in their interviews, marketing, trailers every single member of that team was passionate about the story they were creating, and determined to make it as good as physically possible. I just did not see the same from WB Montreal. I cannot disprove or disregard of the fact they put hard work into the game, as I am sure they did. But I'm just not sure if they approached this title with as much passion and ambition as Rocksteady had.
@@patrickarraes4422 Yes, Arkham Origins was made by WB Montreal. However, you must remember that they created that game with a fully constructed and mastercrafted blueprint made my Rocksteady. Everything inside that game was essentially already made by Rocksteady. From textures to combat to props to even some voice actors. WB already had all the foundations set for making that game, and when you really think about it, creating the foundations of any video game is basically the hardest part. The incredible freeflow combat which Rocksteady designed, a gameplay feature which is still talked about to this day, was already in place for WB to freely use in their game. All they really added themselves was the OST, costume design and story. Yes, they added a couple of their own features like the shock gloves and the multiplayer (which no longer exists) but overall the game wasn't built from the ground up because all the hard work was already done for them. This is exactly how Activision allows for different developers to make COD games. They already have the engine and all physics ready to be used from the previous COD titles. Yes, there is still a lot of work to be done until the game is ready to play. But the most important part is essentially finished. Although over the years a lot these features can be reworked and remastered, the original blueprint for the game will always be there to layout the foundations of the game itself. The same thing applies to Origins. WB took something Rocksteady had already done, and gave it their own spin. The main and only true reason why Origins exists in the first place is because during that year, Rocksteady told WB Games they need more time to work on Arkham Knight for next-gen, and because WB didn't want to lose out on potential money, they got WB Montreal to make Origins. And if you take a look at overall ranking of the game, it is sadly considered the weakest Arkham game in the series, simply because it was not made by the same people, and not with the same purpose. It didn't come from passion, it just came from greed essentially. However, I must add, that I love Arkham Origins, I do think it's underrated, and I love replaying it every few years, but at the end of the day, it didn't live up to the other Arkham games.
@@kam2840 I've been saying it for a while that what makes games good and so rich is passion Probably the most important thing when making a video game You gotta love what you're making When you have that you put your heart and soul into it and the end result is beautiful and amazing.
I really liked the counter system in the arkham series....it was broken enough to make you feel godly and satisfying enough to find skilled martial artist who you needed to be careful how you counter or you would fail...and when you found such enemies it was exhilarating because you were used to easy counter from goons so a challenge from a martial artist was a good change of pace
The martial artists from Arkham origins switched it up by making you have to counter twice when they attack or they could counter you and you have to counter that counter it shows that WB had potential to make good mechanics for this game
@@alpacawithouthat987 am not judging your skills...but I've never been stuck in animation while trying to counter...for example if you were attacking someone and got attacked...counter would always be prioritised and cancel that animation....infact for every fight there is a challenge score for not getting hit...maybe unless you weren't good at timing counters
I get the feeling some 'genius' lead for this game said "hey, if we have four times the playable characters, we'd only need to make 1/4th the content to keep people happy" cuz this game really feels like 1/4th of an Arkham game.
I pre ordered avengers because I mean it was avengers game was so broken I couldnt even boot it up it would crash every single time got refunded day 1 and dropped it in the garbage right after was nit gonna make the same mistake for this game seen the gameplay and everything and immediately knew it was gonna be a pass I never miss judge a game I did it once with avengers because I let my fandom blind me that will never happen again i cant be fooled twice that being said yes it is heart breaking to see 2 games based on characters we love fail so hard it really is 🤦
Oh and honestly I dont think we are getting a truly good next gen super hero game till suicide squad or Spiderman 2 comes out until then the closest thing to good games releasing right now is god of war Ragnarok and Callisto protocol theres some jrpgs coming out as well but there not as popular god of war and Callisto protocol are gonna be the heavy hitters to close out the year thats clear as day 🤷
@@Assassin-ys5vw game sucked but playing with iron man and thor wasn't so bad , definitely doesn't justify buying it , i pirated it just cause the last iron man game was from saga and i just wanted a new iron man game
Arkham Knight's progression system: "Mr Wayne, i have developed a new suit that will give you faster and more dynamic movement" Gotham Knight's progression system: "And if you craft this green thingy you can get an additional 12 strength points"
Stealth in Arkham series is one of the most satisfying aspects of Batman gameplay. Gotham Knights is nothing but just a brawling game instead. One of the crucial details of Arkham's stealth is how the enemies react to a fallen enemy that has been taken out upon discovery : They raise the alarm and every enemy in the area starts moving differently. They start grouping up. They react to other enemies that can be 'heard' engaging Batman. In Gotham Knights, you try to stealth takedown an enemy, and the other patrolling npc walks past the K.O-ed unit like it was nothing(scripted patrols). It looks so dumb that what's even the point of having a stealth takedown in Gotham Knights? I remember the Two-Face bank heist stealth puzzles in Arkham Knight. It was so engaging to plan, execute, demolished your enemies in them. While the successors of the Caped Crusader may not adopt the way how they deal with enemies, the least Gotham Knights could do is show how they inherit some of his traits after being mentored by him.
Everyone says stealth, but it wasn’t the stealth, it’s the small intimate details that brought the game together with a sorta cohesiveness. Being in a room with 10 enemies and trying to figure out the puzzle to get through, identifying the leader and saving him till last so you could interrogate him, finding clues and solving a plethora of cases, other than the main mission, opening up doors to side missions that revolved around all the Batman foes, each having a different storyline, within the confines of the overall story. Defeating each criminal syndicate, and gaining access to information which lead to the main storyline unfolding, that’s what made the experience Batman.
I’ve beaten Arkham knight like 8 times to 100%. 4 first run play throughs and 4 new game+’s, including the dlc missions. That’s how much I love that game.
@@akaricodane401 Everytime I see that assholes face it encourages me to beat them again and again for the sole purpose of punching his face. I really thought I was gonna have the chance to do it in City but this one was well worth it. Cheating in a game and calling himself better than Batman? That I can’t let that slide.
Arkham Knight was soooo good. The Riddler's riddles were sometimes pretty annoying but so rewarding when I completed all of them. The random hilarious conversations had by the bad guys was a great addition as well. I was hoping to get more of the same with better graphics with Gotham Knights but alas, it was not meant to be.
Actual question. did you see batman in a videogame and just assume 'must be an arkham game' despite the developers constantly telling people the contrary? why would you expect the same type of game when its not the same type of game?
@@jarvaewray453 but they aren't it's predecessors. The only comparison you can make is that they're both set in the DC universe. They're 2 completely different styles of games. You wouldn't compare a batman puzzle game to Arkham knight
@@TheCheekiestOfBreeks well it is a question. If you turn it into an argument, it just shows how arrogant you are. The game is great, even the steam reviews agreesl
If the Arkham games never came out, this game would be awesome. That trilogy set the bar in a very high position. If they just copy and paste Arkham Knight, the overall reception would be better.
I kind of hate playing Superhero games with looting and crafting and gear loadouts. I think the Arkham Games and last 2 Spider-man games were the perfect way to let you feel powerful and also have fun without tedeious loot and mobile game levels of currencies. Even going back to games like Infamous and Prototye I think they worked really well without a loot and gear system.
To me it does seem like the game was full-on as-a-service but halfway through it was made single player as you said. Because it had all of these different elements from that time, it doesn’t know what it is or what it wants to be, existing in a limbo between the two.
People keep using this excuse and it doesn’t really make any sense, how could they have changed the game last minute if avengers has been out for years now, no these idiots didn’t factor in competing against god of war and dropped the ball.
@@thebatmane2220 It makes perfect sense because it’s not a last minute change. Imagine you’re WB Montreal, you’ve spent the last 3 years working on Gotham Knights and its being imagined as a live service game, and then Avengers comes out and is a disaster and scares you into a design pivot. You can’t just throw away 3 years of work, so they spent the next two years to release pivoting around the work that was already done. Game dev takes a long time, and if you’re having to undergo a major shift in design halfway through production that change is going to take a lot of time. (Source for time periods is the game director himself tweeting they’ve been working on the game for around 5 and a half years)
@@kmann7253 none of what you said has to do with the game looking and playing the way it does, even avengers doesn’t look like a damn ps2 game, the game is lazy and they only released it cuz they think die hard Batman fans can carry the sales which seems to be working unfortunately
If there was no Arkham this game wouldn't get half the amount of hate it does but since Arkham set such a high standard people will not accept a subpar game compared to that standard. It's a decent game but plagued with technical issues.
@@juliendimattia8871 If people didn't know Free flow that would've loved this combat, it's nearly not as bad as people are making it out to be. It's much more deliberate and I'd argue Nightwing genuinely feels better to play in GK than he did in AK.
@@doctorsam5771 Exactly. People for get that this is not an Arkham game. It’s in its own universe and has to adapt gameplay for coop. Imagine this game with arkhams controls. You’d just blow through everything easily with no challenge.
The Batmobile was apart of Arkham knight and it had a place in the story whereas the bat cycle just felt like the horse from assassins creed and even that had more utility in Valhalla
@@philithegamer8265 Even the lack of loading screens in most parts of the game makes it feel really recent. Overall, very impressive for something that is on UE3.
like there's something I never understood is how they made you feel the weight of batman whenever you glide through the city, the controller would actually feel heavy gliding for some reason maybe that's just me whenever I play Arkham Knight. Hopefully I'm not alone on this😅🤣
Never felt that tbh. i think more are on about the weight in combat, but that over the top feel of combat was a batman thing and not a bat-family thing, even tho you get some kind of weight in GK, just not as much as in arkham games, but Arkham games are a complete different genre and made by other devs. comparing them isn't possible to be honest
I know exactly what you're saying, gliding felt well designed and natural , like Spiderman web swinging in the recent games, they made it feel natural and fluid
@@Sn1pEzTV How is it not a Batfamily thing? Red Hood and Nightwing are probably near the strength of Bruce. Their hits should feel like there is some weight behind it. Stop defending a crap game.
I’m confused on why they didn’t add the same fluent combat, where each press of the button feels heavy and u punch as fast as u press it. That innovation was amazing(don’t know if rocksteady created it)
They did, but this game isn’t rocksteady. However this studio did make the arkham origins game which also had that smooth freeflow combat from the rocksteady game
@@bruhelbruh6293 I actually liked their take and thought that game was underrated. Only reason why I was willing to look past some of the early criticisms and pick up GK. I should have waited. It's a 5 or 6 out of 10 game for me. With some patching and DLC I will be curious to see where it goes.
@@bruhelbruh6293 They clearly didn’t add the same combat what r u on about. Arkham origins was actually good cause it had the Arkham combat, Gotham knights is just mediocre on every level especially combat and traversal and graphics
Your review was the one that changed the tide for me... I don't have money to waste on what looks like (and probably felt like) "Batman 3.5 - the abridged story"
Without playing it, one thing that immediately annoys me is the numbers all over the screen. The Arkham games had nothing covering your screen and maybe 1 quest marker. Gotham Knights has numbers, health bars, and all kinds of stuff
@@BreakerX42 I respect you comment but it’s not fair to compare this to an Arkham game. These are different games with highs and lows in each game. It’s like if you compare battlefield to call of duty they are both military/ shooting games but are separate games and are good in their own right. That’s my take on it
The fact that a game from 7 YEARS AGO blows this game out of the water tells you everything you need to know. It's honestly shameful and the creators deserve every bit of criticism they receive.
no they dont. Have you even played the game, or are you a mindless sheep who just agrees with everything someone else says. If you actually played the game you'd realise that not only is the story actually good unlike arkham (totally not jason todd) knight, the gameplay is also rediculously fun and doesnt involve completing tedious and repetitative missions over again (cough cough, every single riddle based quest). All the arkham games legit just relied primarily on 2 characters to keep people entertained (batman and joker) and even afetr they killed him off, they refused to stop adding joker to the game. You must not have done your research because you would also know how terrible arkham knight was for quite a while after launch, especially on pc
The one scene at the end made me want to throw up. It's like something straight out of "Friends" as all the Bat Kids adjust to having a new Batman, etc. and cracking jokes, etc. like nothing happened. I predicted this game would be trash. And it is. AND - if you look at that scene, it just looks, graphically, of poor quality vs. the earlier games in the series.
People are missing the point of this question of "What went wrong?", they're asking what went wrong because A GAME THAT CAME OUT 7 YEARS AGO SHOULD NOT LOOK, PLAY, AND HAVE A BETTER STORY THAN SOMETHING THAT COMES OUT IN 2022. If you enjoy it, great, amazing, happy for you, but don't take it personally. This game was a supreme disappointment, and after 2 years of waiting, they let us down HARD. It sucks.
@@anthonyfernandez82 oh you're right! Arkham knight had a huge shitstorm around it for the terrible PC poet and the performance issues. Maybe they will be patched out like arkham was
I’m actually really happy about Gotham Knights. It prompted me to start replaying the Arkham games and boy, am I sure having a good time instead of buying Gotham Knights
It was INR 301 in my country during the sale which is $3.65 , I couldn't believe Arkham Trilogy was these dirt cheap on steam with all dlc included of each game.
Check out the new video from Digital Foundry, the game is pretty much CPU limited and Ray Tracing has a negative effect on performance but turning that off would not have made it much better. It's CPU limited even on an RTX 4090. Definitely worth watching Alex's video on this.
@@kordellgreen9794 feels like this was developed as live service game but then they did a hard pivot to single player only, probably didn't have time to optimize. Or they just didn't feel like it.
My game runs well except in certain open world sections, but with ray tracing on, it is basically unplayable to an extreme degree. I9-9900k and 2080 Ti OC.
This reminds me of how for Arkham Knight Rocksteady went out of their way to say "Oh we made a new character for our game called 'The Arkham Knight'! It will be interesting to find out who he is and where he came from!" but then he was just Jason Todd and nobody was surprised... they even put out Arkham Knight Red Hood merch before the game even came out. So when the "twist" finally happened I was kinda like "well yeah...of course"
I think it was more of a surprise for people who are not well versed with the batverse. Though even in the game that redhood aspect is spoiled pretty soon because of the repeated flashbacks Bruce keeps getting.
That was disappointing considering how much thought and foreshadowing they put into each game. If Jason was in a hidden chamber under Arkham Asylum for years being tortured by Joker, then there should have been hints of that back in the first game, or even the Return to Arkham remaster. Jason isn't even mentioned until Knight, which makes the reveal really underwhelming.
This is what happens when developers say they need more time but sales team won't give them more time. You get a half finished game that they were clearly redoing it after some bad decisions when they had to tape it together and just release it
Definitely right this is most likely what happened. That or the developers just don’t have normal human brains. Maybe the second thing tbh. Most boring game I’ve ever played.
@@johnames6430 Batgirl is cool, what do you mean? And you also get Nightwing and Red hood, which are very cool. Robin has always been boring to me but it's not a game only about Batgirl
Your living in denial my dear Augustus. This game flopped not just because it only ran on 30 and a few bugs. But the story was dull. The leauge and the court of owls didnt have enough charm to carry the game. The main story was calling out for someone crazy to keep us bouncing and entertained. The combat was more frustrating then fun. And there was not enough love put into the game its that simple. But I will say the boss fights (which arkham knight lacked) in the game especially the three side missions with Clayface Freeze and Harley are some of the best I have played. Also voice cast was decent. But besides that it was an extremely lackluster game. And had nothing going for it. The thing is buddy if you make excuses for them they will keep making crap and sell crappie because they know people are blinded by loyalty.
DigitalFoundry investigated the performance issues and their conclusion is that the game is CPU bound rather than GPU bound. So, removing graphics options like ray tracing wouldn't help the game hit 60fps on console. It's just very poorly optimized.
From what I've seen, it looks like they struggled to figure out their vision for the game and by the time they finally decided what game they wanted to make, the publisher wanted them to meet a deadline instead of delaying it one more time.
I feel the same but the reason what I came up with is that they wanted it to be a live service game like marvel avengers but mid way saw the backlash of that game and decided to strip away the live service which ended up having a short story which seemed rushed. I don't know the game feels like that. The game is clearly made for live service the repetitive crimes and all and individual level ups make me think so.
@@CFLaughs It felt like they wanted to do the Arkham Series but with RPG mechanics it could work because look at Spider Man ps4 you can level up and get new moves or enhance them but i said MECHANICS this game went full on Avengers and we all know how that game went.
@@TheManWhoErasedHisNane I didn't even play Avengers because it looks like a game not worth my time. This game looks like a downgrade from Arkham Knight and I know they wanted to separate it from the Arkham games but it's impossible not to have the urge to compare the games.
This is why I’m subscribed to gameranx, gives an honest critique without being afraid of what devs might say. Saves me money everytime a new hyped game comes out. I loved the original Arkham games but after seeing this review I can skip this one.
I believe you're 100% correct about it being a live service title in the beginning. I also believe that the game started out as an Arkham game and they change the story when they realized that they couldn't measure up. The story lines are just too similar especially if you play the Jason Todd parts. They probably realized that they didn't want to be Shackled by the Arkham narrative and just went with a lazier knock off
@@animezilla4486 You can't blame them for comparing. Same source city and characters, different interpretations. Open world traversal with grappling, gliding (Batgirl only) and summoning a vehicle from anywhere in the city. Stealth mechanics. Combat involving martial arts, gadgets and clearing a whole room full of enemies. An experience centered on the story. You can totally see why comparisons are made, even when the games differ in continuity, art direction and certain mechanics. Gotham Knights and Arkham is a way fairer comparison than something like Gotham Knights and God of War.
@@-Teague- when you are making a Batman project of course you expect it to be dark and gritty when the devs was probably taking inspiration from the Arkham series to incorporate into Gotham knights
As I said before when it comes to Gotham Knights even though I want to play it even after the rough first impression it's main problem is it built itself up & pandered to individuals like myself who enjoy the Arkham games & so far what we got has been a shell of that.
"Built itself up & pandered to individuals like myself who enjoy the arkham games" Where was it ever mentioned to be the case? They said from day 1 its not part of the arkham universe and its not even the same dev team, they only worked on 1 arkham game which was origins, stop making false statements.
@@shimik11 That's been my issue with all of these reviews on the game. Everyone wants it to be like the Arkham series when the entire point of the game is to _not_ be Batman lol.
@@shimik11 My statement is not false b/c while I will concede that from day one WB games Montreal said that Gotham Knights wasn't going to be a part of the Arkham universe & WB games Montreal did only work on Arkham Origins many people myself included could see that they were not only going to be relying on the success of Arkham games but also a lot of the things in the games themselves.
@@CHRISK51497 I would say that's your fault then not the studio. You're basically saying yes they said it's not part of the Arkham universe from day 1. They also mentioned the combat system would be completely different. Then you say well I don't care what they said I'm still comparing it to the Arkham games so if it's not the same I'm going to be upset lol. Like if you bought Arkham Knight and it was completely different that would make sense to be upset because it was in the same series. But truthfully by that game they really could've used something different. It was by far the worse game in the series. I still liked it but it was like the final season of Game of Thrones lol
Part of the reason Gotham Knights looks so dumb is because they probably wanted to make fortnite. But then when they saw that the Avengers mmo flopped they converted it to co-op/single player. The greed of companies…
It still doesn't make sense that they abandoned the gadget/freeflow combat system from the Arkham games. Literally all four of the Gotham Knights playable characters are playable in AK, all they had to do is flesh them out.
@@RtistiqSkubie you’re correct. It’s more like misleading into thinking that they’re playable in Arkham but they’re not. They just dlc materials and most people try having them playable by either glitching or mods. Isn’t that right?
On top of everything that was wrong with the game on a mechanical level, it also didn't help that WB Montreal went out of their way to deviate from the Arkham-Verse. Arkham Knight leaves us with no Batman, potentially. It kind of implies Bruce is being even more shadowy than before, but he can never be a public superhero again. This sets up for one of his proteges to take over. Enter Gotham Knights as non-Batman follow-up to the Arkham series, with 4 of his proteges rising to fill his very large shoes, would have been dope and given us a better story element than Batman died, twice, in bullshit swan song style. But nope. WB wanted their own thing, even though Arkham was their thing (kind of, WBM only did Origins, but still). I don't know why Developers are so afraid to make MCU style universes with their games. Marvel did it too, failing to build a universe that is. Spider-Man mentions the Avengers, but the Avengers game and the Midnight Suns game and the Deadpool game and the Guardians game are all separate universes.
Licensing for video games is very much different from licensing for movies. Actors are given contracts and most of those contracts don't include "Make yourself available for a possible video game if this shit takes off". Nextly, video games take a long time to develop. If you're using the same engine and templates then you can get away with a sequel the following year. EA does this with their sports games. However, AAA titles typically have a lot of ground to cover. They go big or go home and sometimes when they're testing the waters, they make a safer play and see what happens. Gotham Knights was a "safe" play. They didn't break the bank. They licensed an older engine. There's also the prerogative of "Executive Meddling". A staggering percentage of complaints gamers have are usually driven not by Developer Choices, but by either Investor or Publisher incompetence. It very well could be that some Muckity Muck told the developers "under no uncertain terms will this game be set before, after, during or in any way reference Arkham". In turn the Developers HAVE to cover for the management remarks "We decided to steer away from Arkham and make something unique to itself! :) " No, you didn't decide, you were voluntold. People seem to forget there's more than just developers involved and more often than not - the people with the money make the rules. Just take a look at the development history behind DESTINY. That's all the evidence you need to know how wallet-holders can absolutely fuck a game before it's even made.
@@awi1316 the DCEU didn't immitate the MCU at all. They never established their heroes in solo films with the exception of Superman and Wonder Woman. BvS and JL were direct sequels to MoS, there was no universe-spanning cohesiveness or storybuilding. They completely failed to learn the lesson that the infinity war saga taught film making.
I really don't like seeing those health bar in this game, in earlier demo they didn't show it and it was looking and feeling better, but right now it's not that good seeing health bars of enemies.
I don't think anything went wrong. Yes sure it could use some updates and fixings here and there but if you give it enough time gotham knights is such a blast. I'm enjoying it so far.
I agree man! Mainstream channels are really rinsing the outrage, making out as though the game is irredeemable. Definitely could use some patches but it doesn’t deserve even half the hate it’s receiving from the big channels (and people who haven’t played it)
@UCxaso8kuDcPxdhh2_IZkxlg I couldn’t even get past the first few sections of avengers! This game held my interest surprisingly, considering I was one of the most sceptical of that potentially being the case lol
Why should it stay the same when its not an Arkham game? Man it's like yall didn't see the reveals or anything, it's suddenly an issue once it comes out?
I was eager to play this but when I saw the reviews of final build, I am passing this one from Batman series. Please bring Arkham Knight for next-gen with RT and what not. :)
Just wanna say driving the batmobile feels like you are going really fast in Arkham Knight. Gotham knights feel like fortnite cars, comic effects while the feel of 15 mph in a motorcycle.
The map in gotham knights is simply too damn big for the bat cycle to be going that slow. In arkham knight the map was more compact and dense and you could run over almost everything so you can get across the map within 30-40 seconds with no loading screens breaking up the gameplay.
That character you had to fight numerous times was Man Bat. Totally legit Batman comic villain. I remember first seeing him in Batman The Animated Series when I was kid. I haven't played this game yet but I really hope the fight isn't the only screen time they gave him, but I'm assuming if you didn't know his name, it probably was... That just makes him seem like some random monster when he's far more interesting in all other media.
You're right in a way, but the game purposefully ruins it, it's specifically not manbat and Langstrom is a set piece elsewhere. Funny though they do have the exact same whiteboard in his office that existed in his office in Knight, the one required for the riddler mystery.
The Live Service Avengers comparison is very interesting. Especially when looking at the UIs for both games, they're almost identical to other Live Servicer titles like Destiny and Anthem.
I was working at WB Montreal when this game was greenlit. Before that, the game had been scrapped and started over a bunch of times. Each time a new team of people took over. The pitch that ended up going somewhere enough for them to have built a small demo and pitch video was an idea that combined aspects from the Shadow of Mordor games with Batman. Except there was no Batman. The video they showed at a town hall meeting was interesting. Areas of the city were taken over by villains that were built using a Nemesis like system. It was Shadow of Mordor, but in the Batman universe and with Co-op. Batgirl also had a really nice butt, which the start of the video focused on a lot (the initial camera pan and scene of her walking showed she had a bugger, rounder butt than in the final product). That was the pitch they were taking to Burbank to get it greenlit, and they did get it. This seemed to be the course they were going down when I left WB Games Montreal. I don't know what happened. Could they not get the Nemesis system working? Maybe they couldn't get the rights to it from Monolith. Did COVID have an effect on any of it? The pitch they originally had was a lot better than what we got in the end. I really wonder what happened.
The sad thing about this IP is that if they didn't try too hard to "not be arkham" they would have had an easier time. Now I think the Suicide Squad game is gonna get the same treatment.
I have to disagree with the Riddler trophies, those were the best puzzle solving side quest from the whole series and each game bringing in new ways and versions to test you using Batman's abilities and skills was the cherry on top. Some were really frustrating because even after trying everything I could think of and going 360 camera mode to figure out the puzzle before I started, that still wasn't enough or at times didn't allow you to do so and had to go through it at least once to grasp how it'll work. That's where becoming really proficient in scanning the whole room and observing what exactly to look out for became such a really good skill to pick and made me love it even more.
I liked the Riddler trophies for the most part, but City and Knight had way more than they needed. It was to the point where it felt more like padding than challenge for a lot of them. Knight made it even worse by making you dependent on the batmobile for so many of them as well (don't even get me started on the damn races), to the point where you almost had to spend more time playing as the batmobile than batman. Asylum had the best balance for the trophies. You could get most of them just playing through the story with some minimal backtracking at the end after you get the last gadgets. Origins did a lot better with them as well
@@SomewhatSlightlyBored For me they were fun but I didn't stumble upon them right and by the time I completed almost everything I realized I had to go hunting down each and every location even if I already took it to go through a list and make sure I don't miss anything. It sucked. Not the trophies itself, but the fact that they started to make the gameplay a bit agitating.
I feel this is what is lacking with coop games nowadays, its almost always a singleplayer experience where another person or two gets to tag along, I want people to usher in a coop game renaissance where the coop character is integrated to the game, where you can do more things together. A good example would be the recent It Takes Two, hell even Dead Space 3 your coop character was integrated to the story!
Adding your coop character into the actualy story would take way more effort though. It takes 2 had coop story intergration because your meant to play it in coop. Adding coop story integration to a game like this would mean that so much of the game, especially all the cutscenes would have to be remade just incase someone decides to play coop
I feel like as games get better with technology and graphics they get much worse in style,execution and story and gameplay, people play games to have fun. It’s hard to play games today cause they are not fun anymore and over priced
It was meant to be live service but when they saw Avengers flop, they tried to pull that back. It's in the games DNA and sadly it's hurt the "final" product
I still have fun with it, just performance issues that can be fix with future updates. I already knew from trailers that everything looks off but combat and coop was probably only fun I had with it. Arkham is like a decade of Rocksteady’s best work it’s sad to see the top directors leaving. Gotham Knights story and scenery is like A Batman TellTale which I thought it kinda looks like from intro. If WB Montreal continue to update with more Villains arcs and hopefully new characters like Catwoman with Story line dlc for her. Then I can recommend this on wait one sale kind of game
This game as you said was suppose to be live service, the writing is on the wall. All of the mechanics you point out as lackluster work FAR BETTER in a single player capacity because the player needs overall control of the space, multiple autonomous players working together is far more chaotic in nature. The game was made with the thought of giving as much freedom to multiple players at once WITHOUT having thier individual actions reduce the quality of play for another. Example: if the suit upgrade system was built around aquiring specific pieces scattered across the map how do you implement that for multiple people if some are locked by level or ability without spoiling finds? This should have been at most a 2 player old school split screen. Every knight should have been the focus of a specific story advancing arc as well as side mission focus. Even if you could switch characters that would have been great. They tried so hard to be DIFFERENT then the original series they became the misfit! You had the formula you didnt need to change much, you introduced 4 characters instead of 1, that automatically through story telling, character advancement and potential combo capability creates distingushed elements!
Completely agreed. The worst part is the frauds on copium being like “Reeeeee don’t compare with Arkham games”. Bunch of clowns who have got their standards so low that we just have to accept this as it is even when a game 7 years ago pretty much destroys this in nearly every regard. Edit: Funky Chunk13 is a baby who has got his feelings hurt after I called out his low standards.
my brother in christ, THIS GAME IS NOTHING LIKE THE ARKHAM GAMES AND SINCE WHEN DID GRAPHICAL FIDELITY COUNT AS NEAR EVERY REGARD. Gotham knights has a better cast of characters, isnt relying on mark hamill and kevin conroy to carry the performance, ACTUALLY HAS A GOOD STORY and doesnt ruin what was meant to be such a massive moment with the arkham knight reveal by showing like 5 different jason todd scenes in a series that hadn't even mentioned him before. Maybe play the game before you just blindly agree with what someone else is saying. Sheep goes baa
@@funkychunk1343 “NOTHING LIKE THE ARKHAM GAMES…” Completely false but keep coping if it makes you feel better about playing the game. “SINCE WHEN DID GRAPHIC FIDELITY COUNT AS NEAR EVERY REGARD” Never said it did, nice false assumption. “Gotham knights has a better cast of characters…” Cute, all subjective and I disagree just as you disagree with me. Difference being I ain’t mad like a kid typing in caps like you did. “ACTUALLY HAS A GOOD STORY…” Cute. Ending was disappointing and they couldn’t even take advantage of the cowls. “Maybe play the game before you just blindly agree with what someone else is saying. Sheep goes baa”. What makes you think I didn’t LOOOOOOOL. So mad that you see someone disliking the game and falsely assume they haven’t played it.
@@HazzyDevil you're so bias. There's literally no point arguing with you because of that massive 'i love Arkham knight' dildo up your ass. Your opinion is completely invalid if you haven't played the game
@@funkychunk1343 “you’re so bias” LOOOOL - and you aren’t? Kid doesn’t know what opinions are. Doesn’t matter which game you prefer, you’ll always see the opposite opinion as biased. Still falsely assuming that I haven’t played the game to fit your flawed agenda huh. Your opinion is invalid. Just a sad fanboy who got hurt after seeing someone dislike their favourite game. Don’t cry baby 🤣
I haven't played Gotham Knights, but I think a big missed opportunity was not using the Nemesis System. I don't think NS is a great mechanic, but it might have added something a bit more to this game?
The stutters on PC piss me off, traversing through the open world is really hit or miss but I have fun overall. I like the combat system. Very rewarding and satisfying once you get it
I am about 15 hours+ into this game and I have no idea what people are talking about. This game is WAY better than people make it out to be! Solo or multiplayer have been amazing.
nice review 👍🏻 Maybe this is only my preference but if you really enjoyed the creative direction for Clay face in this game, how about their direction for Clay face in Arkham city? I feel like that was better in terms of looks and story wise
Honestly the game is ok but my main problem is we didn’t really see much of anything, like for a game on PS5 AND the fact both the talons feral and hunters are pretty cool to fight it would’ve been awsome seeing them go at the league at times in mission maybe even some hunters underground HUNTING the manbat like come on, Use Your enemies, make it feel like a warzone, And for crying out loud, the freaks look and feel like a threat even if a little maybe we can see a scene where the court was caught off guard and we see an army of Freaks even if weak gang up against them to show us everyone wants the power. honestly my only complaint is they have a lot of missed opportunities on enemies, making them come at You OR each other like make it feel like a war on all fronts don’t just say random things and we see bodies, let us see some groups battling one another.
As I watch this video, this game is currently in my mailbox waiting for me to get home and play it. Now I'm considering trading it in for something else.....
Honestly try it. You gotta form your own opinion of the game because this game is fairly split in terms of people saying bad vs good. I think the bad is drowning it out because a lot of the reviewers keep comparing it to arkham as opposed to being its own game
@@sk8erman773 your last statement is basically saying we consumers SHOULD accept sub par games when we've already had better... in the EXACT same field.
I really like GK. This is a new game and isn't an Arkham game. Yes you can make comparisons but it isn't the same. I like the rpg aspect of the bat family game. It isn't as dumbed down as quests given by characters. there is the largest scale version of Gotham to explore. I like it and look forward to more.
I like that somebody actually has a honest opinion. People should play games cuz they like em. Not cuz review told em it's bad. Talking to the other guy who commented below lol
What would have been cool is if you team up with another person, it would unlock a special move set (think Wolverine's Fastball Special, but for the Batfam).
The pushback from people saying it's unfair to compare it to the arkham series is in itself unfair. I don't feel bad expecting a publisher to maintain standards at least as high, preferably higher, than a decade old game. This game has a feel like if the Spiderman developers were like "no we're not allowed to have good swinging so we don't look too close to Spiderman2, make utter shyte swinging".
While this game doesn't really compare to anything in the Arkham series, I still enjoyed playing it. There are definitely alot of things they could've done better and I hope this gets a shot at a sequel for them to improve
You know what I'd be in board for? Batman beyond Arkham series. The Gotham landscape but in the future. Make it a little mix of blade runner and cyberpunk. Also lay into the horror that you experienced at times in the originals.
I so wished for an Arkham: Beyond game. In comparison to this, Spiderman Shattered Dimensions with the Spiderman 2099 missions was very amazing. And Terry McGinnis with an older Bruce, I'd be so pumped.
My PC exceeds the recommended requirements for this game, so I SHOULD have no issue playing on high-max settings. But when I'm out grappling on the streets of Gotham, or on the batcycle, the fps drops to below 50, even on mid-low settings.
Poor cpu utilisation.. Sometimes I get this, then other times the game is smooth as it should be. Hasn’t affected my enjoyment, but Definitely wouldn’t say no to a patch 😅 (My pc is way above recommended too)
On my setup asw. The visuals aren’t even that great either. I actually get slightly smoother performance in spiderman, which actually looks really good
it so sad I have to humbly agree with this review. I was so excited about this game, and some of the visuals rock but the combat system, the crafting , the invesitgations just isnt up to snuff for the cost of the high end edition.
Like with every other game that has come out recently, the problem is usually not lazy devs, it’s higher than that. Greedy executives and poor project management. Shove things out the door, make money, rinse and repeat
