Gotham Knights Tips For New Players

Gotham Knights is now swooping into stores and hard drives, and if you're looking to protect the world's least livable city, you ought to keep a few strategies in mind. Those goons won't pummel themselves, after all. Following many dozens of combined playing hours across the team, we've compiled a list of nine tips that we feel will help you quickly step out from Batman's shadow and show Gotham why it can trust in your guardianship.

Tips for Gotham Knights

1. Prioritize Knighthood challenges

Each of the four playable heroes must complete Knighthood challenges to unlock their fourth skill trees, as well as their unique gliding ability. Your list of tasks to complete is messaged well, but it's not so clear how vital these will be, and the sooner you do them, the sooner you'll unlock all these extra goodies for the heroes. It can be a slog, but you should try to complete these challenges for at least your preferred character as soon as you can, which should only take a few in-game nights.

2. Apply and fuse mods often

Mods are found all across the game, though they're never really put in front of your face so you don't miss them. Allow us to say so: Don't miss them! Mods can improve gear to a remarkable degree, sometimes raising a suit or weapons power level by triple-digits. Make sure you're always applying mods when you've equipped a gear item that contains one or more mod slots. And if you find yourself with too many mods, you can fuse them to craft better mods. This always requires four mods be fused together and usually results in a single higher-rarity mod being crafted from the fusion.

3. Check your gear before starting patrol

You'll find resources and new gear so often while patrolling the mean streets of Gotham that you sometimes might forget to even check it out. But you should make a habit of doing exactly that whenever you visit the Belfry. Though you can change your gear while out and about, you can't craft new gear unless you're in your base of operations. Therefore, each stop at the Belfry isn't just to catch up on case files or seeing another character cutscene; it's also a great time to get stronger.

4. Skills to prioritize

Each hero ultimately has four skill trees to use once you've finished their Knighthood questline, and due to their different fighting styles, you may want to look in different spots for each of them. However, a few skills stand out as especially useful to grab as soon as possible. This includes taking down the game's bigger, more brutish heroes, which you can do with Robin's exclusive stealth attack or Red Hood's exclusive grab attack--Batgirl and Nightwing must handle these brutes in the usual way of front-facing combo attacks. However, Batgirl's first Momentum ability unleashes a flurry of punches on a single target, which works well on brutes, too. It's just not always available.

If you get that one, also be sure to grab Batgirl's related ability which makes the move unable to be interrupted. Nightwing, meanwhile, has a unique dodge ability where he chains several acrobatic flips and spins into one long evasive maneuver. It's quite handy and, eventually, you can make it end in an AoE attack that clears your immediate area.

5. Refer to AR mode to find easter eggs

It's Gotham, so naturally, it's going to be full of references to the 80+ year history of the iconic fictional city. In AR mode, sort of this game's Detective Vision, you'll often see objects highlighted in blue. These are world-building objects you can interact with, and in many cases, they're easter eggs. You'll read about villains you may know but won't see in the game, character backgrounds you recall from the comics, and even more obscure stuff, like subtle nods on movie posters in rooms you might not even enter in the first place. For a big Bat-fan, there's a lot to uncover.

6. Save caches for later in the game

Forever the forward thinker, Batman left several high-tier gear caches around the city, and unlocking them can be done by any hero at any time. However, because this loot seems to level alongside your hero, you're best to hold off and save claiming these caches for the later stages. Grabbing some legendary gear a level 4 is nice, but grabbing it at level 28 is better.

7. End patrol to refill health kits

There are many suits to wear in Gotham Knights, and many reasons to consider one over another. One consideration is how many health kits a suit comes with. Ranging from just a few to more than a half-dozen, your health kits only refill once you've ended a night's patrol--daytime segments always happen in the Belfry--or when they're randomly (and rarely) dropped by defeated enemeis. Therefore, if you've had a long night of definitely-not-killing thugs left bleeding in alleyways, it may be better to call it a night rather than move onto anything else really important or taxing. A co-op partner can negate this need somewhat, since they can revive you, but even then, someone's going to need to stay on their feet.

8. In co-op, split up and multi-task

When you are in co-op, and when you're both feeling healthy and ready for the night ahead, it can be beneficial to split up and tackle different objectives. If you think you've got a street crime handled well on your own, your sidekick might best use their time rounding up caches, unlocking fast travel stations, or handing in challenges to quest givers. You'll automatically reconvene for major story beats so long as the host is the player initiating them--the guest player can only request a story mission be played, not start it--so there's reason to approach the city with an action plan with your partner.

9. Optional objectives scale with your level

Virtually every mission in the game includes optional objectives, sometimes multiple as you work through a big quest. These usually demand you do things like stay undetected, perform a specific combat move, or avoid taking damage. Initially, the rewards for these are quite low--80 XP? In this economy?? However, they scale with your hero, so in time their usefulness is more obvious. Later in the game when you're pulling in four-digit sums of XP for merely playing stealthily--something you might like doing anyway--it'll feel more worthwhile, even as, of course, your level demands more XP to increase by then, too. Still, these bonuses add up over time and rarely ask too much of you.

For more on WB Montreal's loot-brawler, read our Gotham Knights review.