WB Montreal's Gotham Knights

[Zello]

 

 

They've been teasing stuff the last 3 or 4 days or so all over social media. With a reveal tomorrow. 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Zello

[Jason]

I saw some theory that you'll play as Batwoman/Batgirl (one of them)?

 

Wouldn't shock me, honestly.

[Zello]

Just now, Jason said:

I saw some theory that you'll play as Batwoman/Batgirl (one of them)?

 

Wouldn't shock me, honestly.

Really? That'd be cool. Was looking through some comments and already some people are mad about that. I wouldn't mind tbh.

[Jason]

6 minutes ago, Zello said:

Really? That'd be cool. Was looking through some comments and already some people are mad about that. I wouldn't mind tbh.

Oh it'll tilt a lot of people, but more games based on the second and third tier (and even lesser known) characters would be nice, for both Marvel and DC.

 

It's why I have a soft spot for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, it's not a particularly good game but it showed love to characters MCU fans will never have heard of. Would love a DC game with JL Dark characters, not Constantine cause they'll butcher him but Zatanna, Deadman and Swamp Thing would be cool as hell.

[Commander S]

From what I've gathered from leaks/rumours/cryptic teaser pics from WB, the current assumption is that it's...

 

Spoiler

...an Arkham series reboot/reset (so similar mechanics/aesthetic, perhaps, but without being beholden to the events of the past games - which makes sense, IMO) - you can play as various members of the Bat-Family (Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, possibly others besides), and the antagonists are the Court of Owls from Scott Snyder's run.

 

 

The first part (you get to play as multiple characters) is up my street - I liked being able to swap between Batman and Catwoman in Arkham City, and I've often thought a cool thing Insomniac could do for a Spider-Man sequel would be to let you swap between Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Cindy Moon, etc.. The last part, though? Ehh, really not a fan of 'em, personally - depends how they're handled in the game, but I could think of a dozen alternatives I'd prefer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[DexMacLeod]

The teases from awhile back made it sound like it's sort of a repeat of Origins only instead of a bunch of assassins hunting Batman it's various organisations. Court of Owls, GCPD, League of  Assassins, etc.

 

I really hope the whole Bat-family rumour turns out to be true. I've wanted to free roam as Robin since "City" and more playable characters has been a common request for ages.

[Grichka Bogdanoff]

 

>game as a service

>multiplayer sh*t

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand dropped.

Hopefully Rocksteady delivers with Suicide Squad.

 

a Hideo Kojima post.

[Jason]

Info is vague, but it sounds like a 1-2 player story game rather than a Avengers/Suicide Squad style game.

 

Visually it looks dreadful tbh, the voice acting was also poor.

[Len Lfc]

13 minutes ago, Jason said:

Visually it looks dreadful tbh

In what way? I thought it looked incredible.

[Len Lfc]

6 minutes ago, RenegadeAngel said:

Goddamn, it's incredibly bad. Everything from graphics to voice acting seems average at best. What a shame, I like Arkham Origins a lot. Damn, here's hoping Rocksteady won't let us down.

Having watched the 7 minute gameplay demo, it does look pretty rough. Frame rate seems poor, and the voice acting is... questionable. Graphically, I still think it looks great though. I like the art style.

[Jason]

4 minutes ago, Len Lfc said:

In what way? I thought it looked incredible.

Colours are very bright, giving it a very cartoony look. Costume design is all bad. Then you have damage numbers all over the joint in a game that, seemingly, is not a GaaS style loot game? Nothing about it screamed Gotham or Batfamily to me, it feels like the game has no atmosphere at all. Sterile would be a good way to describe it IMO.

 

Also, I get the strong impression that this started as a Destiny like game but it got reigned back to a co-op story game? I really dig the idea of a co-op open world story game, I REALLY do actually, but from the bare minimum we saw today I'd say that it's got a bit of Avengers about it - they've made a game where they didn't settle on what they wanted the game to be, meaning it's got bits and pieces from various genres that don't really mesh well. The damage numbers, health bars, enemy levels and picking up resources (I assumed that was what that was, on the left side of the screen throughoutt the demo).

[Len Lfc]

1 minute ago, Jason said:

Colours are very bright, giving it a very cartoony look. Costume design is all bad. Then you have damage numbers all over the joint in a game that, seemingly, is not a GaaS style loot game? Nothing about it screamed Gotham or Batfamily to me, it feels like the game has no atmosphere at all. Sterile would be a good way to describe it IMO.

 

Also, I get the strong impression that this started as a Destiny like game but it got reigned back to a co-op story game? I really dig the idea of a co-op open world story game, I REALLY do actually, but from the bare minimum we saw today I'd say that it's got a bit of Avengers about it - they've made a game where they didn't settle on what they wanted the game to be, meaning it's got bits and pieces from various genres that don't really mesh well. The damage numbers, health bars, enemy levels and picking up resources (I assumed that was what that was, on the left side of the screen throughoutt the demo).

Okay, fair enough. I agree with most of that, but just graphically, I think it looks great. Like I said, I like the art style. But yeah, the GaaS style RPG like enemy levels I hate. From what I remember reading Jason Schriers articles about the game over the years, I don't ever remember it being Destiny styled.

We were expecting a game like Origins. Not this, so ultimately it's pretty disappointing.

[Jason]

I aint really a DC fan and have never touched the Arkham games out side of a demo yonks ago, so it wasn't really something I was keeping an eye out on outside of curiosity but yea. Co-op open world story peaks my interest but the rest of what I saw not so much.

 

With Suicide Squad being a fully fledged live game by all accounts, this might not be a hot weekend for DC games.

[Len Lfc]

Someone said it best on a comment. It looks like a Ubisoft game, like a modern Assassin's Creed

Less so GaaS, moreso action RPG like Assassin's Creed. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But... eh.

 

 

Just now, Jason said:

I aint really a DC fan and have never touched the Arkham games out side of a demo yonks ago, so it wasn't really something I was keeping an eye out on outside of curiosity but yea. Co-op open world story peaks my interest but the rest of what I saw not so much.

 

With Suicide Squad being a fully fledged live game by all accounts, this might not be a hot weekend for DC games.

Yeah, I'm not a DC fan either. Not even a Marvel fan. I just like the MCU, Spider-Man games/movies, the Nolan Batman movies and the Arkham games. And the Arkham games were brilliant. Never actually played Origins, though.

[Jason]

I can sum up my thoughts on the costume/visual design using those four screenshots pretty easily:

 

If you told me those were screenshorts from a DC themed Fortnite event I wouldn't have any reason to doubt you. They just look off.

[Jason]

Just now, RenegadeAngel said:

I also don't like the overall design of the location they decided to show. It really is cartoonish, not only color-wise, but just in general. Looks like something out of a comic book which wasn't the case with the Arkham games. That's what really bought me back in the day. The games looked gritty, dark and pretty realistic. This one looks like it's made of plastic.

I think it's a style that works fantastic with Marvel in general, but not Gotham/Batman. Gotham's gotta be moody, it's literally a character trait of the city. Like I said in another post, this just looked devoid of any sort of atmosphere and that is not a good thing for Gotham of all cities.

 

It doesn't help that the gameplay section we see the most of Gotham, the bike scene, is running at about 15 FPS either.

[Dryspace]

• If this is a 'Role-Playing Game', then we've officially reached the point at which anything and everything is an RPG.
• I don't see how this can not be a dead-common Always Online, Games-As-a-Service, Lootery, Ultra Monetized affair. From the description I'm getting an "MMO" vibe, without the "MM". But I know nothing, and it would be great if I'm wrong.
• This is conceived and designed for (upon release) 8-year-old console hardware.
• One would assume any gameplay demos were running on a PS4 Pro or One X, no? Because if so, the poor performance people have noted makes one wonder what it will be like on the PS4 and One.
• I admit that I'm a new comics fan, but I don't get Nightwing. I don't like him and I don't get him. I know who he is/was, but Nightwing seems like a new character was "needed", and someone working with zero inspiration tried hard to whip up something non-generic and more or less failed completely. I just find him 100% visually blah-inspiring.

[Jason]

I don't think it's been confirmed officially but this doesn't seem like an always online game, or a service game. As Shinobi's tweets earlier suggested, it sounds like it might be more like a modern AC. It's got single player and optional co-op, but it's a story game that'll probably have some type of post launch support like modern AC games do?

 

As for Nightwing/Grayson, he's the original Robin and in many fans eyes the heir to the cape, basically. Nightwing is a persona to get him out from under Batman's wing and do his own thing as he was popular enough to do that.

[NightmanCometh96]

I'm going to have to wait and see on the Assassin's Creed-esque elements (I can't make a fair judgement having not played Origins or Odyssey yet), but I find it alarming that the free-flow combat system seems to be gone. That alone made me go from cautiously optimistic to skeptical at best. The combat was one of my favorite things about the Arkham series and it's a shame that WB Montreal aren't keeping it, at least going by the gameplay trailer. To be fair, I'm not exactly sure how it would have worked out now that all enemies have health bars (not just bosses like the previous games). The voice acting seems poor (especially for Batgirl) and the unstable framerate isn't a good sign either. I'm really hoping the PC version doesn't end up like Arkham Knight did at launch.

 

Honestly, I'm torn; as a fan of the previous games and Batman in general, I plan to get Gotham Knights at some point, but what was shown today wasn't the most encouraging thing. Being the first AAA Batman title since 2015 (let alone one that was the sendoff to a critically acclaimed series), this game has some massive shoes to fill. I'm going to have to constantly remind myself not to expect a 100% Arkham experience, that's the only way I think I can be fair to it.

 

Incidentally, I'm still holding out for my pipe dream of Rocksteady making an Arkham-styled Batman Beyond game (with Kevin Conroy and Will Friedle reprising their roles from the show) at some point after Suicide Squad: KTJL is released.

Edited August 22, 2020 by NightmanCometh96

[DexMacLeod]

I'm still hyped. It looks like the same familiar gameplay with more of an emphasis on those brief moments from past games where we teamed up with an ally and a slightly more in-depth progression system. I'll likely be playing it solo but the option to bring a friend in is kinda cool.

 

It's hard to get a sense of what Gotham actually looks like from what little we saw of it but it looked to me like we're finally getting a Gotham that's actually inhabited by normal citizens. We've gotten drab and lifeless versions in the past and this looks like a nice change of pace. Same goes for the color pallete. The city having working lights and the Bat-family's costume designs also provide a nice contrast, not just on the screen but also compared to previous games.

 

I think I'm not as anti-level systems as a lot of people. I wish they could make the onscreen representation of that a little more subtle but I like a progression system that goes a little deeper than health upgrades and drip fed combat moves. I like that we have some freedom as to how we build out our bat-family. Time will tell how detailed that is.

 

I'm curious how freeroaming as Nightwing and Red Hood is gonna work without capes. I could see Nightwing getting around like Catwoman but with a grapple gun or using the glider he sometimes has in comics but I imagine Red Hood is gonna have to depend pretty heavily on a vehicle.

 

All in all though, I'm excited for it. I don't think it's going to be a radical departure from past past games. Wish it were coming sooner and a little curious as to why they didn't announce what systems it's releasing on. Also hoping all those costumes we saw are actually in the game and not locked behind DLC and pre-order paywalls like previous games.

 

[NightmanCometh96]

16 minutes ago, DexMacLeod said:

Wish it were coming sooner and a little curious as to why they didn't announce what systems it's releasing on.

I'm not sure why it wasn't shown at the end the trailer, but multiple websites and the press release state that it will be released for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X.

Edited August 22, 2020 by NightmanCometh96

[Zello]

This looks terrible smh...

[Len Lfc]

11 hours ago, Jason said:

I think it's a style that works fantastic with Marvel in general, but not Gotham/Batman

I think that nails it. In isolation, I still like the visuals and art style. But if you compare them to their counterparts from Arkham Knight... they're quite different. 

Thing is, I'd be quite contradictory if I criticised them for being different when wanting other games to be different too.

I don't care enough to be too upset, though. But, it's not getting me excited, either. I imagine it'll end up being a pretty fun and cool game. Just not one that is rated as highly as Arkham City, for example. But then, I loved Arkham Knight when many criticised it, so...

[Commander S]

Looks like a cross between Arkham Knight and the 'live service' Avengers game* - on the one hand, I imagine that'd be more fun to play than the Avengers game, but on the other, it still feels like there's a whole lot of videogame-y artifice slathered on top, when I'd actually like to see an Arkham-style game move away from that.

 

I mean, it's a bit of a swizz to consider that as much as I enjoyed the heck out of Arkham City back in the day, it's still less like a GTA-style open-world game than ...Lego Batman 2. I'd love a game set in Gotham where it's not just some city-ish-looking obstacle course, but a proper open-world city - literally, just do a GTA-like, but with Arkham-style stealth/combat, and that'd be perfect! But nah, gotta have loot, skill trees, etc. - all the things that make the thing not just feel all the more artificial, but also risk making the game feel/play less like the source material. Which is frustratingly ironic, because what I liked about the older Arkham games (Asylum and City in particular) was that they largely did a great job of fitting the gameplay to the source material, rather than compromising the 'Batman-ness' of it all to conform to bog-standard gameplay.

 

As for the designs, they look a bit more action figure-y than the Arkham games (which, to be fair, looked like 'Batman as designed by McFarlane Toys', IMO... ), but not as overwrought as the Injustice games. They're close enough that I can work with 'em - I'm more amused by the light-up weapons leaving trails, which means even Red Hood's bullets have to glow red...
 

 

12 hours ago, Dryspace said:

• If this is a 'Role-Playing Game', then we've officially reached the point at which anything and everything is an RPG.

 

Aaargh - don't get me started... I despair when something like Monster Hunter (a game where your character is a remote-controlled mannequin who simply exists to wear armour, hold weapons and beat up dragons) is described as an "RPG", because you can min/max skills like "critical chance".  It's like the whole "role-playing" part stopped counting for anything - IMO, "role-playing game" means 'defining your character as a person through game systems', not 'spend skill points on stuff to unlock more gameplay options, or have bigger numbers than the enemies' numbers'.

 

 

 

*okay, so looking at this, it's actually coming across more like the last city-based Assassin's Creed games, particularly Syndicate - which is funny, because that game felt almost like an Arkham game (and I quite liked Syndicate because of that!), where the newer games feel more like 'AC-meets-Far Cry' (and with Odyssey, a whole lot of MGSV and The Witcher III, to boot). And as someone who wished that AC Syndicate got a follow-up with actual cars in it, making it more like 'Arkham-meets-GTA', I can see myself getting behind something that (clumsily!) brings the whole thing full-circle, and does 'what if Syndicate, but with Batman branding?'.

 

 

Edited August 23, 2020 by Commander S

[Dbzk1999]

9 hours ago, Dryspace said:

• I admit that I'm a new comics fan, but I don't get Nightwing. I don't like him and I don't get him. I know who he is/was, but Nightwing seems like a new character was "needed", and someone working with zero inspiration tried hard to whip up something non-generic and more or less failed completely. I just find him 100% visually blah-inspiring.

Since Nightwing is one of, Zif not my favorite DC character. I feel like I gotta represent him. Nightwing as a character is one of the best examples of character development that superhero comics has given. He’s someone that the audience had followed as a child back when he was a Flying Grayson and watched as he grew, not just from a child to an adult, but also from being a sidekick that was in his mentor’s shadow to becoming his own man, seen by Bruce himself as an equal. Before the reboot known as the New 52 occurred, he could’ve been described as the center of the DC Universe. He had connections to and was respected by practically everybody, from villains to heroes (both old and new). I feel like the best way to describe him would be as taking the best parts of Batman and the best parts of Superman and mixing them together. He’s pretty much Batman without the brooding and emotional disconnect, and could be described as Bruce’s greatest achievement (and also being one of the best leaders in DC) 

 

Sorry, for the lengthy response, just wanted to explain him to someone that doesn’t “get” him

[Dryspace]

16 hours ago, Jason said:

As for Nightwing/Grayson, he's the original Robin and in many fans eyes the heir to the cape, basically. Nightwing is a persona to get him out from under Batman's wing and do his own thing as he was popular enough to do that.

Right. Like I said, I know who Nightwing is--I learned that while playing Batman: Arkham Knight. I'm not talking about Robin, I'm talking about the character of Nightwing--the concept and design.

 

When I first encountered Nightwing in Batman: Arkham Knight, my immediate reaction was scorn. His entire generi-clean costume design, his little shock sticks and molded plastic shock stick slots...just seemed so ridiculous next to Batman, and presented nothing of interest to me.

 

I intended the Nightwing bullet point as a facetious non sequitur. Everything I say is true, but it's not like I've actually given Nightwing a thought since Arkham Knight. I didn't mean to come off all Comic Book Guy: Worst. Character. Ever.

[Dryspace]

2 hours ago, Dbzk1999 said:

Since Nightwing is one of, Zif not my favorite DC character. I feel like I gotta represent him...

Though I do prefer a Batman without Robin, I too enjoyed reading about Bruce Wayne's adoption of Dick, reading many of the first Batman and Robin stories, and then on to A Death in the Family.

 

I just want to make clear that I am only talking about what resulted when the character called Nightwing was created--mostly the visual design of the character and his gadgets. I know that coming up with new characters isn't easy--especially after decades and decades of new superheroes--but my point was just that I find Nightwing as a character to be visually lame-as-heck.

 

 

2 hours ago, RenegadeAngel said:

...because otherwise, judging by my experience, they will basically take the skill element of the combat out of the equation and turn the game into a two-button levels grinding fest.

I know there is uncertainty on this point, but removing the skill from the equation in that manner is one of the key designs that are used to facilitate monetization and grind-based gameplay. Skill is traded for time, so that time can be traded for cash.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Dryspace
Readability

[Mister Pink]

What can I say. This looks very camp compared to the Arkham games. I don't know, the costumes look silly. It kind of looks like this game is marketed for kids into superhero stuff. Doesn't seem like a game marketed towards adults anyway. 

 

I'm huge fan of the Arkham games. And they had a dark humour and grittiness about it them that looks to be not present at all in this. I'm still curious about it though. If there is co-op, I'm really happy to hear that. And the city looks interesting. 

 

Not a fan of the damage numbers. Why even include them in a game where the fighting is button mashing button combos and counter attacks? Makes sense in Destiny to see the damage going down as your using weapons but the fighting style of these games, it makes zero sense.  

Edited August 23, 2020 by Mister Pink

[Mister Pink]

1 minute ago, RenegadeAngel said:

I think there will be some sort of loot system incorporated. She's fighitng with melee weapons that I assume there will be plenty of in the game. So by showing numbers they help you figure out the best one to pick. Assassin games operate the same way at least.

OK, makes sense on the surface. I think even with that logic, there is a better way to represent the best one to pick. Because, assuming there is one best one thing for any given weapon or a best overall weapon, that stays absolute and consistent, yet the numbers will show every time. Am I understanding correctly? Like, I think I would prefer to feel a weapon out to see how it plays out. But I'm sure you can switch off the numbers.

[Commander S]

The more I see, the more I'm tempted - the melee combat looks fine, even though it's not Arkham-style Freeflow anymore. Looks like there's a bit of Freeflow-style magnetic lock-on, but you're not chaining moves like a choreographed fight scene anymore - that could mean something that feels more like a proper brawl (like Sleeping Dogs), which'd be a decent way of moving away from Freeflow, or it could just be 'Freeflow-lite' (like AC Syndicate), which'd be fine, if not anything to write home about.

 

I'm more worried that going more like Assassin's Creed, and also having a 'play it your way' approach to combat/stealth means that the more modal Arkham approach, where "combat" and "predator" sections were almost always kept as separate things. Sure, I get how it's a bit artificial to have it very obvious when a scenario is a straight-up punch-up, and when it's a case of picking people off from the shadows (and never the twain shall meet!), compared to being able to swoop in, take down a few goons by surprise, and then finish off the rest when they've figured out what's going on. But it does come at the cost of those really satisfying 'puzzle box' moments with the predator sections, even though I do get the need to make this stand apart from just being another Arkham game, and maybe do so in a more naturally-flowing way.

 

Overall, it all depends on how things pan out: if it makes combat/stealth feel like fluid things that let you move naturally from one state to another (bit like going quiet, then loud, then maybe quiet again in Metal Gear Solid V), then fine. But that presumes a conscious decision to make things feel more free and organic, and not just 'let's homogenise the gameplay to try to appeal to as many people as possible, at the cost of specificity' - and if it's the latter, then that's when things risk feeling generic and perfunctory. We'll see, I guess... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

What I do like, though, is how this is probably the most 'normal'-looking open-world Gotham so far - as much as I enjoyed Arkham City, it's not an open-world city in the GTA/Assassin's Creed sense, whereas New York in something like Insomniac's Spider-Man is. So having a version of Gotham that looks and plays more like that is definitely up my alley - and I already like the look of it (particularly since they're using cubemap shaders for window interiors - yaaay! ).