After months of rumors, leaks, and speculation, WB Games Montreal finally revealed its newest game, Gotham Knights, at DC Fandome this past Saturday. The game seems to be an interesting departure from Batman Arkham in that players will take on the role of Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, or Red Hood rather than the typical caped crusader in a co-op multiplayer setting.
Following the cinematic trailer reveal, WB Games Montreal went on to show gameplay for Gotham Knights. In this gameplay trailer, players were shocked to see damage numbers floating off enemies as the Bat-Family dealt damage, implying that the game may be more RPG-like than previous entries. This small detail caused many to wonder if enemies would stay at a static level or would level dynamically alongside the player.
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In an interview with IGN, creative director for Gotham Knights, Patrick Redding, broke down how enemy leveling works in the game. He mentioned that because Gotham Knights is fully open-world from the beginning with “no level gating whatsoever,” that enemies do slide in scale alongside the players’ progression. However, Redding went on to say that enemies will also change in type as well as level to subdue the feeling of ‘grinding.’
Redding continued by saying that players will see a range of enemies in encounters and activities as they continue to level up. “You might see guys that are a little bit weaker than you, and guys that are a little bit stronger than you. And how you approach each of those situations, it presents you with some choices that you’re going to have to make.” There’s currently no word on if a scaled-leveling system will be in place for boss fights like Mr. Freeze or if they will remain static in strength.
Gotham Knights certainly seems to be looking to make a name for itself outside of the Arkham series. Alongside this new enemy scaling system, players will be able to play Gotham Knights in 2 player co-op, with players being able to form any sort of pairing they want, including multiples of the same character.
It will be interesting to see if WB Games Montreal can pull off an engaging game set in Gotham without Batman. Redding explained that the reason for killing Batman was to instill a level of uncertainty in the game’s setting. That being said, often times when major characters are killed off in a story, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to see that character brought back to life in some mysterious, albeit campy, way. Hopefully, WB Games Montreal will be able to pull off this new story when the game releases next year.
Gotham Knights will release in 2021 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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Source: IGN
