Reviews for Gotham Knights have gone live, a new sandbox game set in Batman’s iconic stomping grounds and starring his proteges. With the caped crusader dead and criminals with punchable faces running loose on the streets of Gotham, it’s up to Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood, and Robin to save the city from gangs, supervillains, and ancient secret societies.
So far, most critics haven’t been bowled over by Gotham Knights, which comes seven years after Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy concluded in Batman: Arkham Knight. A generic sandbox design, paper-thin combat mechanics, and a needless loot system have all been criticized, although the co-op gameplay and well-written characters have been praised.
“Gotham Knights takes the Arkham blueprint and reimagines it as a loot-brawler, often feeling similar, but where it’s different, it’s worse,” Mark Delaney wrote in GameSpot’s Gotham Knights review. “Although the new guard fares well from a narrative standpoint, the gameplay systems built to serve their 30-hour campaign to reclaim Gotham let the team down.”