It’s time to give ‘Gotham Knights’ a second chance, even if Batman is absent

wegotthiscovered.com:

Gotham Knights landed last October with a thud. It’d been seven long years since we last explored the Batverse in Rocksteady Games’ Arkham Knight and now we were being served a title that appeared to be stuffed with games-as-a-service rubbish, was limited to 30fps on next-gen consoles, had noticeably worse graphics than Rocksteady’s games, multiple performance issues, and didn’t even let you play as Batman.

The game was released to a disappointing Metacritic rating of 68, sales were sluggish, and many figured they should just wait for Arkham developers Rocksteady Studios’ Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Well, we’ve now seen Rocksteady’s game in action courtesy of the recent State of Play and it’s left players distinctly underwhelmed. Whether it be the battle pass, samey looking ‘shoot the purple weak point’ gunplay, persistent internet connection requirement, or the general malaise around equipment that promises stuff like “+22% damage to Batman-infused enemies”, excitement is low, to say the least.

So, to paraphrase Thanos, “perhaps we treated Gotham Knights a little too harshly”.

That Suicide Squad reveal practically made us give up on the game, and with a lingering urge for some Bat-related gaming action, we figured we’d give it a try on rental. We set our expectations at rock bottom, steeling ourselves for an onslaught of microtransactions, a disappointing plot, wonky graphics, and combat that’s a shadow of the Arkham trilogy.

Now we’ve rolled credits on it, and — whisper it — we think Gotham Knights is actually pretty great and definitely didn’t deserve the mauling it got at launch.

First and foremost, despite pre-launch paranoia, Gotham Knights is first and foremost a single-player experience. You don’t need an