Gotham Knights Could Have Learned From Marvel’s Midnight…

Gotham Knights arguably failed to meet expectations. There are a few reasons why, but it seems largely due to how little marketing the game had to represent what it would feature. The perceived lack of villains in Gotham Knights was not explained until near its official release, giving fans the false impression that it could potentially have other antagonists throughout its open-world Gotham City. Yet even the villains that Gotham Knights chose to include did not impress many, unlike the generally positive reception to Marvel’s Midnight Suns.

There are few legitimate comparisons that can be made between Gotham Knights and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, but it may be of note that Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ approach to antagonists has served it better than Gotham Knights. Looking back at Gotham Knights, it could have learned from how Marvel’s Midnight Suns approaches its villains.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns Chose Quality Over Quantity

Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ villains include Lilith, the Mother of Demons, as well as the Fallen antagonists she has corrupted and Hydra enemies who are devoted to her. Venom, Sabretooth, Scarlet Witch, and Hulk are all Fallen Villains, while villains such as Dr. Faustus and Crossbones also appear.

These antagonists appear frequently, especially if players engage in a lot of non-narrative combat missions where villains have a chance to arrive as an intimidating reinforcement on Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ tactical battlefield. Marvel’s Midnight Suns has the added advantage of being a longer traditional RPG, which gives players a lot of time to establish relationships with their characters, and for villains to be contextualized with enough empathy.

Characters in the Abbey are constantly discussing each other even though there are relatively few heroes and villains to speak of, meaning they are all narratively impactful and fleshed out. The quality is there to present antagonists as unique threats, and it is through certain antagonists that other playable characters are debuted and recruited thereafter. Gotham Knights’ approach to villains is lackadaisical in comparison.

Gotham Knights Failed to Meet Expectations on Quality and Quantity

Gotham Knights is an action-RPG, and while superhero adventures have rarely dipped their toes into narratives that are as long as a traditional RPG is expected to become, it would have been good to see Gotham Knights attempt this. The game needed more time with its antagonists in order to make them actual characters, rather than having them be simple set piece boss fights to bookend each of Gotham Knights' case files.

The game abandons its villains soon afterward, making them seem irrelevant - especially considering most of them are only encountered optionally. There is a common criticism of Gotham Knights that it undermines its own characters and fails to create a cohesive narrative around them, which is evident through how little of characters’ backstories are revealed or discussed. This could have created better bonds between Gotham Knights’ titular protagonists, and established more about their histories with each antagonist. Rather, Marvel’s Midnight Suns aptly depicts its character relationships with each antagonist, and none seem out of place or dismissed throughout the entire narrative.