Gotham Knights: Four Heroes, One Belfry, and a World That Runs Out of Ideas

Gotham Knights opens with a dead man. Bruce Wayne is gone before the first mission begins, ambushed in the Batcave by Ra’s al Ghul and mortally wounded. Batman seals himself and Ra’s inside and triggers the self-destruct, killing them both. That death sets off a “Code Black” contingency, summoning Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood and Robin to a backup base called the Belfry in the Union Station Clock Tower. It is a strong premise for a game about inheriting a legacy you did not ask for.

Trailer, via Gotham Knights.

Four Heroes, One Belfry

WB Games Montréal built Gotham Knights around four playable characters: Dick Grayson as Nightwing, Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, Tim Drake as Robin and Jason Todd as Red Hood. Each has a distinct playstyle. Robin can teleport using the Justice League’s satellite. Players level up their heroes, but enemies scale up automatically alongside them, which keeps the challenge steady across the campaign.

The Belfry is the team’s base of operations. During the daytime, players occupy it, switch characters and manage progression before the next mission. Leaving the Belfry fast-forwards the game to nighttime. The Batcycle handles traversal across Gotham’s five boroughs.

Solo play works fine, and so does the cooperative mode. A second player can drop in and out at any time without disrupting the other’s progress. That flexibility is the game’s best structural idea. It respects your time and your friends’ schedules.

A City That Never Quite Wakes Up

The open-world pitch is the part that sags. Gotham is described as dynamic and interactive, with five distinct boroughs to patrol and criminal activity to drop in on wherever you find it. In practice, the loop is repetitive. You move from one crime scene to the next, clear out enemies, gain experience, and repeat. The mysteries connecting the city’s darkest chapters sound compelling on paper, but the moment-to-moment work rarely rises above routine.

The story does have real momentum. While investigating what killed their mentor, the Knights get caught between two secret organizations fighting for control of Gotham: the Court of Owls, a secret society with a legion of assassins called Talons, and the League of Shadows, now led by Talia al Ghul after the death of her father, Ra’s al Ghul. That conflict gives the campaign a spine.

The supporting cast is deep. Alfred Pennyworth provides technical assistance and moral support. Police captain Renee Montoya is one of the few honest cops left. Lucius Fox, Jacob Kane and Catherine Kane all factor in. The voice cast includes America Young as Batgirl, Christopher Sean as Nightwing, Sloane Morgan Siegel as Robin and Stephen Oyoung as Red Hood. Michael Antonakos plays Bruce Wayne.

Villains show up throughout: Mr. Freeze, Harley Quinn, Clayface, the Man-Bat Commandos and the Penguin. Starro appears in the “Heroic Assault” mode.

Heroic Assault and the Content Calendar

A separate four-player cooperative mode called “Heroic Assault” arrived in November 2022. Players battle enemies across 30 levels in an arena-like environment while completing various objectives. Here is how the game’s content rolled out:

Versions for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were also planned. They were not released.

The four-player mode is the most interesting thing Gotham Knights added after launch, because it changes what the game is. The campaign is a two-player story about four people carrying a dead man’s work. Heroic Assault turns that into a squad-based arena grind. Both can exist, but only one of them feels like it understands why the Belfry matters.

What Actually Works

The character work is the strongest element. Four heroes with four movesets and four reasons to exist is a harder design problem than it looks. Robin’s satellite teleport is a genuinely useful traversal tool, not a gimmick. The Batcycle makes the five boroughs navigable without turning every trip into a chore.

The enemy scaling is a double-edged decision. It keeps every mission relevant no matter which hero you bring, but it also flattens the satisfaction of leveling up. You never outgrow Gotham. You just keep pace with it.

The co-op drop-in structure deserves credit. Letting a second player join and leave without affecting the host’s save is the kind of thing more games should copy. It makes the campaign feel less like a solo obligation.

What does not work is the repetition. The open world offers patrols and side missions, but the activities blur together. The Court of Owls and the League of Shadows are strong antagonists on paper. The game rarely gives them the room to feel like a genuine threat rather than a mission queue.

The four heroes rank like this, from strongest to weakest execution:

1. Batgirl — the most complete kit, and the most natural fit for the Belfry’s tech-forward setup.
2. Nightwing — traversal and combat flow well together.
3. Red Hood — hits hard, but the playstyle narrows what you can do in a fight.
4. Robin — the satellite teleport is clever, but the rest of the kit lags behind.

That ranking is not a knock on the cast. It is a knock on how unevenly the four were developed.

What the Belfry Gets Right

Gotham Knights is a game with a good premise and a thin middle. The death of Batman, the Belfry, the Court of Owls, the League of Shadows, the four-protagonist structure — all of it sets up something that could have been sharp. What shipped is a competent action RPG that leans on co-op and character variety to cover for a world that runs out of ideas faster than it runs out of boroughs.

The “Heroic Assault” mode, added in November 2022, is the clearest sign the developers knew the campaign needed more. Thirty arena levels is not a fix for a repetitive open world. It is a second, separate thing to do.

None of this makes Gotham Knights bad. It makes it uneven. The four heroes carry it further than the missions do. If you have a co-op partner, the drop-in structure alone justifies a look. If you are playing solo, expect the loop to wear thin somewhere around the second borough.

It is a game about four people trying to become Batman. The irony is that the best parts are the ones where they are allowed to be themselves.

action RPG · Batman · co-op games · game review · Gotham Knights · WB Games Montreal