Image: Production I.G / Studio Khara / Crunchyroll
At New York Comic Con on October 13, Crunchyroll announced Kaiju No. 8, a popular Shonen Jump sci-fi monster fighter series, will come to the anime streaming service exclusively next spring.
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Kaiju No. 8’s elevator pitch is basically what would happen if an adult Peter Parker was smack-dab in the middle of a Godzilla story. The series follows Kafka Hibino, a 32-year-old who let his dream of fighting on the front lines alongside his childhood friend Mina Ashiro pass him by. Kafka works a thankless blue-collar job as a sanitation worker tasked with cleaning the aftermath of cataclysmic metropolitan kaiju battles. Meanwhile, Mina serves her country as the fearless leader of Japan’s Kaiju Defense Force.
Kafka’s life is one of missed opportunities. That is, until a freak encounter with a monster gives him the ability to transform into a humanoid kaiju. A Kaiju Man, if you will. Now, Kafka must keep his newfound alter ego under wraps while pursuing his childhood dream of becoming a kaiju fighting hero with Mina.
Animation powerhouseProduction I.G (Ghost in the Shell) will produce the anime alongside Studio Khara. Studio Khara’s involvement in Kaiju No. 8 is kind of a big deal (pun intended) in light of its previous work on director Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion rebuild films and his tokusatsu films, Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, and Shin Kamen Rider. Studio Khara will provide kaiju designs for the series as well. Safe to say Kaiju No. 8’s anime adaptation is in good hands with folk who are intimately familiar with the genre.
During Crunchyroll’s NYCC industry panel, Kaiju No. 8’s creator Naoya Matsumoto shared a special note to fans, saying:
[Kaiju No. 8 is] a story about someone struggling in a harsh world without ever giving up, in the hopes of leading people into an even slightly brighter future. To anyone dealing with the complexities of reality that reads this manga, I hope it can help make your future a little brighter, too.
Sony is preparing to sell a Spider-Man 2 PlayStation 5 bundle that will include a digital download for the game, presumably at a discount, as it ramps up plans to try and sell a record-breaking 25 million consoles this year. The company is already giving away free copies of older games to any players who activate a new PS5 in the next few weeks.
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The newSpider-Man 2 PS5 bundle was teased in an October 2 tweet. Sony confirmed to Kotaku it will be $560, the same as last year’s God of War Ragnarök PS5 bundle, saving new owners $10. The Spider-Man 2 version ships on October 20 alongside the launch of the game. Pre-orders aren’t yet live.
The sequel to the 2018 action adventure by Insomniac Games, Spider-Man 2 sees Peter Parker and Miles Morales team up together, complimenting one another’s abilities and trading off on the fly as they take on the hunter Kraven and the alien symbiote Venom. It’s one of the only first-party blockbusters that is a PS5 exclusive so far this console generation.
Sony revealed its intention to sell 25 million new PS5s this fiscal year back in April, telling investors in August it was prepared to take the “necessary measures” to make that happen. So far, that’s included discounting the old God of War Ragnarök bundle by an additional $50, and even giving away free downloads for critically acclaimed games like Horizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us Part 1. This “upgrade” promotion runs until 3:00 a.m. ET on October 21, meaning anyone who buys the Spider-Man 2 bundle could potentially get an additional game at no extra cost.
The new bundle is seperate from the special edition console that includes red and black face plates for the PS5. That went for $600 and is already sold out. Fortunately, Sony won’t be running out of Spider-Man 2 codes when it comes to the regular bundle.
Update 10/2/2023 5:05 p.m. ET: Sony confirmed the price in an email.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is out soon and looking very good, with a ton of hype surrounding the PS5 exclusive open-world superhero game. But now, even years after Sony made clear it would be giving Spidey a new look, fans keep grumbling about the loss of Peter Parker’s old face, last seen in the original PlayStation 4 version of the first Spider-Man game. And Peter Parker actor Yuri Lowenthal has a message to those fans: Get over it.
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WhenMarvel’s Spider-Man, originally released on PS4 in 2018, made its leap to the next-gen PS5 in 2020, it came with a bunch of changes and graphical improvements. One of the changes that got the most headlines didn’t involve ray-traced reflections or 4K textures. Instead, a lot of people got very upset that developer Insomniac Games decided to change the face of Peter Parker, making the character look younger and more like Tom Holland in the process. Since then fans have been talking about it a lot. And Lowenthal is “tired of talking about it after all this time” and just wants fans to move on.
In an interview with ComicBook.com published Thursday, Lowenthal said that he got over the change as soon as Insomniac explained to him it would help improve Parker’s facial animation, telling the studio “I’m all in” after learning about why the change was being made.
PlayStation / Insomniac Games
“The performance was the same for me,” said Lowenthal. “I don’t care if he looks like a goblin, if my performance is better, then I’m in. I’m kind of tired of talking about it, to be honest, because I think everything that needs to be said has been said.”
The Spider-Man actor acknowledged that it will take longer for some fans and players to get comfortable with the face swap. And he also admitted that he understands some people will likely “never” reach that point. However, he does see one positive to all the backlash and continued demands for the original face to return.
“People connected emotionally so hard and so deeply in the first game that they’re mad when they feel that person changes,” said Lowenthal. “I can only be so mad about that because it worked—not the [face change]—but you connected with the character which is great.”
But the actor did have a final message for those still struggling with the new face of Peter Parker: “Now, get over it!”
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches on PS5 on October 20.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the creative director on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 revealed that he was nervous about finding the right person to play the sequel’s notorious big bad, Venom. That is, until he heard the unmistakably awesome voice of Candyman actor Tony Todd.
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Speaking with EW, Insomniac Games’ Bryan Intihaar disclosed that deciding on the right voice actor for Venom was “one of the things I was avoiding for as long as possible because I was so scared of who we were going to get to do the voice.” Although Insomniac’s previous Spider-Games, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, garnered high praise from critics as some of the best iterations of the web-slingers, Intihaar said pressure was on to cast the perfect Venom because “people would have a lot of opinions on it.” But Todd, he says, was up to the task.
“Everything we talked about [with] Venom — that sense of strength, that sense of fear, that sense of overwhelming, so different from Peter — Tony embraces that completely in the performance,” Intihar told EW.
After hearing the booming voice of Tony Todd in the trailer for 2021’s Candyman (in which Todd reprises his role as the title character of the 1992 original), all Intihar’s fears went away. Luckily for Insomniac, Todd had already submitted an audition for the role of Venom.
Spider-Man 2 PS5 director says Todd is the perfect Venom
As Intihar has noted in previous interviews, the tone of Insomniac Games’ take on the iconic Spider-Man villain will be darker than some other depictions, treating Peter’s struggles with the symbiote as akin to battling an addiction.
“We wanted to try something very different, and I don’t think you can get much more different from Doc Ock than you do Venom,” Intihar said. “It’s about power, it’s about strength, it’s about being slighted, it’s about Peter being involved much more in the creation of Venom. I think that’s what attracted us.”
Narrative director Jon Paquette echoed Intihar’s sentiments, saying Parker’s internal struggle with Venom impacts those closest to him, adding that “there’s a lot of juicy drama that we can get from that.”
“For us, Venom is the host plus the symbiote,” Intihar said. “You don’t get Venom without both of them being bonded together. What Tony represents is that bond. I think, if anything, casting Tony made us feel more confident in the visual design of the character.”
Yes, Insomniac Games’ Venom has a grotesque mouth just like in the movies
Insomniac Games gave fans an exclusive look at Venom’s design in EW’s article, revealing the space-faring symbiote’s numerous teeth and imposing ink-black physique as he roars in the center of a city block surrounded by Humvees. While drafting early concept art for Venom, senior art director Jacinda Chew revealed that the trickiest design components involved his freakish monster mouth.
“One of the challenges we had throughout production was, how much does [Venom] talk?” she says. “I remember we did some concepts early on [of] does Venom have lips? Does he laugh? Does he smile? Does he frown? It’s a fine line between making this creature scary and intimidating, but then also, I guess, relatable.”
For all the monster-fuckers out there who fell to their collective knees at Tom Hardy’s Venom having a gaping maw, I hope Spider-Man 2 throws them a bone. Perhaps it could offer up a tiny crumb of the anti-hero’s silly side by having him give Parker and Miles Morales a shit-eating grin before their inevitable two-on-one brawl.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 releases on October 20 for PlayStation 5.
The developers of the upcoming PlayStation 5 sequel Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 say that the game will try to strike a balance between humor and heart while respectfully depicting the darker tones of Peter Parker when he is using his Venom symbiote suit.
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During Sony’s hour-long PlayStation Showcase last week, we saw over 12 minutes of new gameplay footage of Peter Parker and Miles Morales in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 to close out the show. The upcoming PlayStation 5-exclusive action game looked to be going for a similar mix of web-slinging traversal, kinetic fight scenes, and palatable humor as its predecessor, but with the added bonus of Parker being pretty aggressive while wearing his new Venom symbiote suit.
Peter’s internal battle with Venom will be like battling an addiction
While one side of the internet churned out memes comparing the edginess of the Spider-Man 2 game’s Parker to Tobey Maguire’s “Bully Macguire” performance in 2007’s Spider-Man 3 movie (which was a camp masterpiece), another group of fans was in awe of Peter Parker voice actor Yuri Lowenthal’s Sasuke Uchiha-esque performance as a newly jaded web-head under the Venom symbiote’s alien influence.
Speaking with Eurogamer, Spider-Man 2 creative director Bryan Intihar revealed that Parker’s internal battle with the black parasitic space goop that’s making him so aggro in the game will be akin to a person battling addiction. Unlike the more camp depiction of director Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 Venom, Intihar said Peter getting bonded to the symbiote suit is “not something we want to make fun of.”
“The theme of addiction is prevalent, especially because of the symbiote. We did a lot of research, not only on previous stories with the symbiote, but also just looking at when [Peter] is bonded, what can that feel like? Not to go into too many things about how it plays in the narrative, but we want to treat it very seriously,” Intihar said. “So, it’s about really playing into those themes of addiction, how that can impact someone’s personality, impact the people around them, and you’re going to see that it’s not just how it’s impacting Peter on his own, but also those close to him. You’re going to see that play out throughout the game.”
Miles Morales will give Spider-Man 2 players a symbiote-angst break
While in the PlayStation Showcase footage it is definitely jarring to see Lowenthal’s Parker go from wise-cracking about being New York’s “Spider-Cop” and meekly goading the stoic Silver Sable into giving him a high five to dumping rescued civilians to the ground and doing whatever this is to Kraven’s goons, Intihar and game director Ryan Smith told Eurogamer that Spider-Man 2 won’t be entirely about Peter being an asshole because playing as Miles Morales will offset the game’s darker moments with a bit of levity.
“I think you saw that in the gameplay reveal,” Smith said. “We have the moments with Ganke and Miles and the Falcon that he’s trailing behind—the Talon drone—and then at the very end, you get that line about Peter changing and Miles saying, ‘You know, he’s never like that,’ right? So we have those human elements, both on the serious side of where we see the symbiote affecting Peter, but also on the lighter-hearted side.”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been pretty hit or miss with serious scenes, with a tendency for humor to abruptly rob them of their weight. Time will tell whether or not Spider-Man 2 will succeed in balancing its heart and humor with its darker moments, but Intihar is confident that the game landed on the right ratio of wit and drama.
“What we’ve talked a lot about is—whether it was Marvel’s Spider-Man or Miles Morales—our games are all about still having heart and humor,” Intihar said. “It’s really finding that balance between those darker themes and characters, but also delivering that very human story where there’s a lot of heart and humor… I think that’s what was tricky. But I do think we found that nice balance at the end of the day.”
PlayStation expanded beyond the console in 2022.Illustration: Angelica Alzona
The decision-makers behind Sony’s console juggernaut spent a lot of 2022 putting down railway for 2023 and beyond, dumping money and time into growing the PlayStation brand beyond the funky-looking device in your entertainment center. The company wants the PlayStation name to be ubiquitous, and that has meant expanding not just in the form of video game acquisitions and new services, but bringing the PlayStation line into new mediums and markets. So, while Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarök bookended the PlayStation 5’s 2022 on the video game side, the brand was busy throughout the year.
Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg brought Nathan Drake and Sully (or people going by those names) to the big screen in 2022.Photo: Sony Pictures
PlayStation becomes a movie and TV brand
PlayStation Productions, Sony’s film and television subsidiary dedicated to putting out adaptations based on the company’s video games, released its first project this year in the form of the Uncharted movie. Featuring Spider-Man star Tom Holland as a vague amalgamation of Nolan North’s original interpretation of Nathan Drake and his own version of Peter Parker if he was slightly more stoic, the film also has Mark Wahlberg as a character who shares his name (and little else) with Nate’s father figure, Victor “Sully” Sullivan. The movie is, at best, aggressively fine. It took a critical beating, but did rake in over $401 million globally at the box office. Sony has plans to make Naughty Dog’s cinematic action game series into a full-blown movie franchise.
Whether any of the above will be any good remains to be seen, but Sony is making deals to put PlayStation characters on more screens and subscription services. The company has clearly decided that PlayStation games aren’t enough, and that they can instead be the origin point for an expanded universe that ties into the games its first-party studios are putting out. Speaking of…
Sony and Naughty Dog released The Last of Us a third time with its PS5 remake.Screenshot: Naughty Dog / Kotaku
PlayStation movies and TV get re-released tie-ins
Putting an Uncharted movie in theaters and a Last of Us show on TVs is one piece of Sony’s new business model, but the company is also pairing these live-action adaptations with re-releases of the source material. Just a week before the Uncharted film launched, Sony released the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which brought both Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy to PlayStation 5, a console they were readily playable on through backward compatibility. Oddly enough, this only included the last two games in the series, rather than the three games that preceded them. But it was an Uncharted product that people could buy after seeing the movie, or even before, as it included a free ticket to the film.
The Last of Us Part I, a remake of the 2013 original, launched in September to both praise for the source material and the technical upgrade the release brought to it, as well as a slew of criticism surrounding its $70 price point. The remake carried a cloud over it after a Bloomberg report exposed internal politics at Sony surrounding the project, which began under a PlayStation support studio before gradually becoming a Naughty Dog product. The whole situation stinks to high heaven, but it did conveniently fit into Sony’s business model of making its games into an extended universe. Now, there will be a (near) full-price Last of Us game on store shelves when the HBO show premieres on January 15.
God of War came to PC this year, but its sequel only came to consoles.Screenshot: Sony Santa Monica / Kotaku
PlayStation continues to expand beyond consoles and to PC
Both of these re-releases were part of a PlayStation initiative to get more of its games on PC. Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves brought the series (again, just the last two games, rather than any of the foundational ones that came before) to PC for the first time in October, and The Last of Us Part I will bring Joel and Ellie’s story to a computer near you in March. But it wasn’t just Naughty Dog’s games that got PC love, as God of War, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and Marvel’s Spider-Man and its Miles Morales spin-off also launched on PC in 2022.
All that being said, we still have yet to see PlayStation release its first-party games on both its consoles and PC simultaneously. God of War launched four years late on PC this year, but its sequel, Ragnarök, only came to PS4 and PS5 in 2022. It’s been heartening to see Sony make more strides in the space, but hopefully in 2023 we see a more immediate commitment to bringing its games to those who play on PC.
Sony paid a lot of money for Bungie, but Destiny 2 will remain multiplatform.Image: Bungie
Outside of the AAA space, Sony also acquired Savage Game Studios, whose founders previously worked on mobile hits like Angry Birds and Clash of Clans, in an attempt to kickstart a new mobile gaming division. The studio is apparently at work on a new project for phones and tablets based on an established PlayStation IP.
The PlayStation VR2 will launch next year, but won’t be usable with old PSVR games.Image: Sony
PlayStation VR2 seems like an upgrade, but with caveats
Sony kicked off 2022 by announcing its second virtual reality headset, aptly named the PlayStation VR2. It sounds like a meaningful upgrade from the original PlayStation VR headset Sony released in 2016, with an impressive-sounding OLED, 4K resolution display, dedicated controllers so you won’t have to use your old PlayStation Move wands anymore, and a single-cord setup that will make using the whole thing more manageable. However, as news has come out about the device, things have gotten a bit more troubling.
The most egregious drawback Sony has confirmed is that original PlayStation VR games won’t be compatible with the PSVR2 headset. Senior Vice President of Platform Experience Hideaki Nishino said on the PlayStation Podcast that this is because “PSVR2 is designed to deliver a truly next generation VR experience,” citing much of the new headset’s tech as being incompatible with old PSVR games. Regardless of whatever explanation Sony has to offer, it’s a bummer that the PlayStation 5 seemed to be developed with more future-proofing in mind and now we’re dealing with backward compatibility issues again. So if you want to keep playing your old PSVR games, don’t throw your old headset out.
PlayStation Plus now has tiers, and whether you’ll get much value on them depends on where you live.Image: Sony
PlayStation Plus launches new tiers with new problems
PlayStation Plus, Sony’s long-running subscription service for playing games online and collecting a vast array of “free” games, saw a revamp this year that put it more in-line with Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass. It doesn’t seem like it’s gotten the same resounding love as its direct competitor, though. PlayStation Plus now has multiple tiers, which each have different included features and perks.
The cheapest is Essential, which is basically just what PlayStation Plus has been for years: online play, sales, cloud storage, and a few free games each month. The second tier is called PlayStation Plus Extra, which includes all of the above, as well as an on-demand library of PlayStation 4 and 5 games. The most expensive tier is PlayStation Plus Premium, which adds a streaming library of classic games from across all the PlayStation consoles, and even the PlayStation Portable.
The PlayStation 5 is two years old now, but the console is still relatively difficult to find due to supply chain issues that are expected to last well into 2023, if not longer. But as we get further away from the original launch and demand starts to calm down, it’s become marginally easier to track down and buy a PS5 of your own. Brick-and-mortar stores are still hit or miss, but Kotaku had a bit more luck finding the box on digital storefronts. So hopefully by the time Spider-Man 2 launches next year, those still looking for a PlayStation 5 won’t face a massive ordeal.
The PlayStation 4 is nine years old and still got most of Sony’s big games in 2022.Image: Sony
The PlayStation 4 hangs on a little bit longer
That being said, Sony still wasn’t quite ready to let go of the PlayStation 4 in 2023. The company’s biggest games this year, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, and God of War Ragnarök, all launched simultaneously on the PS4 and PS5 and were pretty alright experiences on the last-gen console. You know, if you’re cool with your PS4 sounding like it’s ready to take off on a flight across the Atlantic.
But looking forward, it seems 2023 will be the year Sony really starts to leave the old system behind. That’s a respectable ten years of service since its original 2013 launch, and PlayStation Studios now seem squarely focused on the PS5. Spider-Man 2, the VR spinoff Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Insomniac’s take on Wolverine were all announced as PS5 exclusive, so hopefully as this transition takes root, the PS5 becomes more readily available next year.
Gotham Knights came out a week ago and I’ve found it exceedingly difficult to find anything to love about the open-world loot brawler. Red Hood’s snickerdoodle recipe, maybe? The latest Batman game borrows from a ton of other, mostly better rivals, and struggles to craft a clear identity in the process. Kotaku’s Levi Winslow also spent the last week trying to save Gotham city from feuding gangs and supervillains, and the two of us sat down to try and hash out what the game does well, what it does poorly, and all the ways it left us confused.
Levi Winslow: Ok. So, like, I feel Gotham Knights is a bifurcated game, something that has two separate identities living within itself. First, there’s the narrative action-adventure stuff where you’re solving crimes, meeting the villains, beating up goons before getting a cutscene taking you back to The Belfry. That is a solid gameplay loop. Then you hit the open world. I don’t dislike it, There’s some enjoyment in grapple-hook-jumping from one rooftop to another, but the RNG RPG-ness of it, the Diablo-like nature to the unnecessary loot grind, makes for some of the most tedious parts of the whole game. What do you think? How do you feel about the linear narrative juxtaposed with the open-world grind?
Ethan Gach: I’m incredibly underwhelmed by both so far. Everything just fits together so awkwardly, and I mean everything. The individual scripted cutscenes? Great. Love ’em. Completely fine. But everything else, going room-to-room in a story mission, crime-to-crime in the open world, and even enemy-to-enemy during the big brawls, all just feels rough and uneven and not good. Like you could describe the back-of-the-box bullet points of this game, and I’d go, sure, that sounds fine. It’s not the new Arkham I want, but I love the Batman comics, I love the universe, lets go jump off some rooftops and solve some mysteries. And yet almost nothing in this game feels actually good to do in my opinion.
Screenshot: Warner Bros. Games / Kotaku
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Levi: Can’t argue with you there. The gameplay is especially clunky and imprecise. I don’t mind the combat. It isn’t as smooth as Marvel’s Spider-Man or as impactful as the Arkham games, but it definitely carries more weight and feels way better than Marvel’s Avengers, which is the closest comparison I could give. Like you said, something about it all just feels off and awkward. I really can’t stand the stealth and how sticky and slippery the characters are. You wanna open this chest after busting some skulls, but you gotta stand in this exact spot to trigger the contextual button input. Deviate from it just a little bit, like barely even a centimeter, and the prompt will disappear. Or you’re perched on this ledge to scope the area, looking for some stealth takedowns but, whoops, you accidentally flicked the left stick forward and now your vigilante has just jumped off and lands in front of the enemies you were trying to stealth. It’s frustrating.
Ethan: Yeah I basically haven’t even bothered with stealth for that reason, especially because the rest of the incentives feel like they are pushing me toward just complete chaos. Who have you been playing as? I’ve rotated every mission, but so far I think Red Hood is my favorite, mostly because he feels the most substantial and least slippery. Batgirl is a close second.
Levi: Lol, I’m just a perfectionist who wants to complete all the challenges. So when it’s like “Perfect whatever number stealth takedowns,” I’m like, “Bet.” But yeah I started with Nightwing, then switched to Batgirl, who’s been my main ever since. She’s just so OP, it’s insane. I’ve heard Red Hood is pretty good so I’m gonna have to give him a try. What do you think of Robin? Considering how frustrating stealth is, I couldn’t imagine playing him because of how stealth-focused he is. His bo staff’s looks cool.
Screenshot: Warner Bros. Games / Kotaku
Ethan: There are too many big enemies and dudes that will come at you from off-screen, to the point that I just didn’t want to bother with Robin after the first time I tried him. I also really don’t like Gotham Knights’ version of the character. I’m a huge fan of The Animated Series’ take on Tim Drake, and this feels more like a weird cross between Spider-Man’s Peter Parker and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s Cal Kestis, if that makes any sense.
I also don’t really feel any compulsion to grind, which is weird, but I think mostly stems from just how diffuse everything is. There are not nearly enough villains in this world to beat up to sustain an entire upgrade and crafting loop.
Levi: Very that, both on Robin’s timidity and the unsatisfying number of villains in the open world. Gotham here truly feels lifeless. Sure, there are citizens wandering the streets and GCPD patrolling their headquarters (or getting bullied by some dudes), but there’s no energy to the city. I know I compared Gotham Knights to Marvel’s Avengers—which I admittedly did like for a hot minute—but I can’t help but wanna play Marvel’s Spider-Man every time I’m protecting Gotham. There’s something about the bland color palette and the sameness of the districts that strips Gotham of its character.
Ethan: I think the city itself looks cool, and I like the way they tried to play off the four heroes’ iconic color palettes with the neon lights and how steam and fog hang on the skyline. But I also kept thinking of Spider-Man, mostly because I was always frustrated I couldn’t chain the grappling hook together like I was web slinging.
Screenshot: Warner Bros. Games / Kotaku
I think a large part of that is how much space you have to cover because of how scattered the actual things for you to do are. I would have preferred a much smaller but denser section of the city than having to hopscotch around all the dead space. Usually, open-world games thrive on constantly finding things on the way to your objective that distract, intrigue, and send you down an entirely separate rabbit hole. Here it really does feel like moonlighting as an Uber driver in the worst-paved metropolis in the world.
Levi: Yeah, like, there really isn’t a whole lot to do in this world. And what’s available to do is incredibly repetitive: Go here, beat up some guys, check out a clue, escape before GCPD shows up, rinse and repeat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m having fun dominating dudes as Batgirl. But the fun isn’t as satisfying as in other, better superhero action games that have come out recently.
Ethan: I also feel like the game is in a very weird place tonally. Batman’s family is left to figure out what their relationships are without him to orient them, but they are all pretty unfazed by the actual fact that he’s dead. And despite the dramatic premise, things get off to a very slow start. I will say I prefer aspects of Gotham Knights’ gameplay to Marvel’s Avengers’—whose combat felt indistinct and very much in the licensed game bucket—but the way the latter was shot felt like a much better approximation of the feel of the MCU than Gotham Knights is for the DCU.
Screenshot: Warner Bros. Games / Kotaku
As a Destiny guy who loves a mindless gameloop I can sink into at the end of the day, I thought I was primed to see the glass half full in Gotham Knights, but that’s just not what’s happened.
Levi: Same. I really wanted a mindless loop that offered solid gameplay with an intriguing story, and Gotham Knights misses the landing. There are good elements here, don’t get it twisted. The combat is fine, serviceable actually. And the sometimes tender, sometimes tense moments between characters during cutscenes is captivating. But the actual meat and potatoes of the game, the core gameplay loop, just isn’t as satisfying as I was hoping. I’ll finish it, though. I’ve completed Nightwing’s Knighthood challenges to get his Mechanical Glider, so I gotta do the same for Batgirl. And I wanna play some co-op to see just how untethered the experience is, but I can’t imagine thinking too much about Gotham once I finished the story. It isn’t sticking in the same way Marvel’s Spider-Man did.
Maybe that’s an unfair comparison, but truly, in my head canon, Gotham Knights is somewhere between Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Avengers. It’s fine, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good spot to be in.
Screenshot: Warner Bros. Games / Kotaku
Ethan: I’m still only about halfway through the game, but feeling much less generous. It’s an indecisive mix of a bunch of games without any one solid thing to hold onto. The co-op that I’ve tried so far is very decent overall, and I think certainly sets a kind of standard for games like Far Cry—which have traditionally struggled with multiplayer that feels consistent and rewarding—to aim for.
But man, every aspect of the Batman mythos recreated here feels like it’s done better elsewhere. Maybe when the four-player mode comes out it’ll be closer to the 3D brawler it should have been. At this point I almost wish it were a live-service game. At least then there might be a shot at a better 2.0 version a year from now.
Levi: Right? Gotham Knights certainly feels like it could’ve been a live-service game. I’m hoping that four-play co-op mode Hero Assault extends to the open-world stuff too. There are four heroes. This game should be chaotic as hell, kinda like that underground Harley Quinn mission with that punk rendition of “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” That, so far, has been the most memorable part of the whole game.
