So, months later, is the game worth it?

[Alan Wake]

Hey!

I've been planning to buy that game to co-op it with my GF when it was released, but I remember it was a damn mess.

Was it improved since then?
What's the current game's state?
Quite okay? Still meh? Playable from start to end in co-op? Easy to connect together?

Interested in any feedback, thanks!

[startrekmike]

Can't really speak about the co-op aspect since I don't have any personal friends who own the game (and I honestly don't feel like it is a good enough experience to suggest to others).

On a technical level, the game seems okay. The framerate doesn't exactly feel rock solid but on my setup (a i7 10700k, 32 gigs of RAM, and a RTX 3070) it doesn't really have any notable performance or technical issues as far as I can tell. Having gotten it with the recent Humble charity bundle (the only reason I own the game at all), I can't say how much it has improved since initial release but it does seem to work fine.

While the technical issues seem to be largely resolved, the larger core design issues are not going to go anywhere. The game was very clearly designed to be someone like Ubisoft's recent open world titles like Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. Like the Ubisoft titles, it puts too much emphasis on a set of fairly generic open-world activities that you do in order to acquire crafting resources and blueprints for various pieces of gear and outfits. There is a grind attached to this but the grind feels badly tuned since you level up pretty quickly and it is a constant inconvenience to keep the various "Bat-Family" characters fully equipped with level appropriate gear.

Another design issue is traversal. This is often discussed but in general, the various methods of traversal are simply not very fun or very satisfying. You can zip around with the grapnel line but that feels slow and isn't as controllable as it really should be. Likewise. You can use the Batcycle but that not only is also absurdly slow but also very mechanically boring. Finally. You have the various special traversal abilities that each character has and all of these feel half-baked and poorly thought out. In a sub-genre where competitors like Spider-Man, and even the Arkham series pretty much mastered satisfying open-world traversal, Gotham Knights stands out in a bad way.

The next issue is the combat. The basic melee and even the foundations of the stealth system are not too bad (not exactly great but not too bad) but like the traversal issues, it suffers badly by not learning or applying the lessons learned from other successful super-hero titles. For example. In Marvel's Spider-Man. You have various abilities you can activate during combat and stealth but since it is a Spider-Man game, they are all put into a context that fits the Spider-Man style. You might have elemental damage capability but it will come in the form of a electro-shock mine or electrically charged webbing. It isn't treated like magic or just some generic, by the numbers video game thing. It is carefully blended into the whole "play as the Spider-Man you know from the comics/films" fantasy.

While this might make some folks grumpy, comparisons with the Arkham series are not only inevitable but also necessary. In the Arkham titles, Batman has a full range of gadgets (some with standard video game elemental powers attached) but like the Spider-Man titles, they are not treated like magic. They are integrated into the core experience in a way that feels authentic to the general Batman vibe.

One last example. In Gotham Knights, it feels like the developers took a lot of the core Arkham series ideas and split them awkwardly between all the characters. This does make them each feel different (at least in very specific contexts) but it also breaks the whole idea that all of these characters were essentially trained by Batman and should all have a similar core group of skills/abilities. This results in situations where you can't do something that you know that character should be able to do just because the developers were sloppy and wanted the game to feel very "class based" (for lack of a better term). This is fine in a generic video game kinda way but it stands out as a negative in a game that is supposed to be about the "Bat-family".

Going back to the likely unpopular comparison to the Arkham series. When you play those older Arkham titles, they may not look quite as technically polished as Gotham Knights but they are absolutely superior when it comes to really sucking you into the setting, story, and (especially) the Batman character. Everything about those games was carefully tuned to make the player "feel like Batman" and while that might be a "meme" nowadays, it is the reason why those games still endure as modern classics and why they have since become the standard that all other super-hero games are measured against. They got it right. They found the right formula to really sell the Batman fantasy in a satisfying way. Gotham Knights doesn't do that. It just feels like a generic open world pseudo-RPG with a thin coat of Batman/Bat-Family paint on the top.

If you don't care about how much the game immerses you and if you don't really care about a good story or good writing, Gotham Knights will feel alright. As a generic game it could be worse but as a Batman related title, it isn't what it really should have been.

[Punkface]

Gotham Knights has a great story and great writing.

Highly recommended, yes. Product is very worth it's sale price.

[Delta]

startrekmike set it out perfectly. It's not terrible, if you want a ubisoft sandbox-ified version of the Arkham games where everything (combat, stealth, traversal, visual design) is a bit worse. I had a good time despite some grindy elements getting in the way but it's very flawed.

[Alan Wake]

Great, thank you :)

[Eternal Return]

Game is fun for that "Hero on Patrol" type thing to fight crime. I switch characters every few missions to keep it fresh since each character has different dialogue for missions and interactions which I think is cool. they did do a good job on voice acting and story and making Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, and Redhood all feel like they exist in this world.

[GoodComrade]

stay the f away

[Щіссаи🌀]

I do really enjoy it but if you played every single one of the arkham games consistently and are used to those movement controls, I wouldn't even tbh. I saw someone call them "boat controls" and that hits the nail on the head. Everything just feels floaty and moving around tight corridors to take down enemies is just simply challenging to do with those controls. If this game had precise movements like arkham, I guarantee you a lot more people would stick around. Everything other than movement is nice though. The story is thought out and overall interesting to watch unfold and the interactions between characters is so darn quirky, but in a good way, almost like the comic versions of these characters.

[Homeless.]

crap gameplay, enjoyable story in a nutshell

[startrekmike]

Originally posted by Wizard_of_Nozs:

I'm just glad they delayed the suicide squad. Would've been exactly like this crap. They better do something better.

From all indications, Suicide Squad is actually going to be worse.

[Wizard_of_Nozs]

At least I'm getting a solid 90fps outside with RT on now.

[Alan Wake]

So I guess I will just wait a bit more for a bigger sale.
Thank you everyone for the feedback!

[Texnoz]

Loving every moment of it, deffo recommended to play coop! Very fun experience

[Ikaru]

No problem at all(framerate etc...) .i play with ultra graphics 4k .60 IPS is stable.
My set up:Amd rysen 9 7950x ,35 gigs of ram and a sapphire 7900xtx 24 gigs.
the story is great and coop is funny .Heroic assault is the best place for play online.

[iztrumental]

I personally enjoyed the game a ton and this was before the last major patch. At it's current sale price, definitely worth picking it up. I have over 80+ hours on the game and had a ton of fun using all the heroes.

[flipmode]

It´s a bit odd. The game has so many little things I think they should be done better.
But I am still enjoying it a lot. Worth the current sale price for me.
Tbh. I like it better than the previous Batman games, it´s just a better fit for me.

Performance totally surprised me, it runs perfectly fine for me.