Gotham Knights: Beginner's Guide & Best Tips

The Honest Truth About Gotham Knights

Alright, let's cut the crap. You're here because you either bought Gotham Knights on a sale, got it as a gift, or you're stubbornly trying to love a game that the internet decided to hate before it even launched. I get it. I've been there. I spent my first three hours running around as Batgirl, thinking I was a tactical genius, only to get folded by a random Regulator with a lead pipe because I ignored every tutorial prompt that popped up.

This game is not *Arkham Knight*. Stop expecting it to be. It's not trying to be. WB Montreal took a swing at a co-op RPG with loot, crafting, and a story that actually tries to do something different with the Bat-Family. Does it land every punch? No. The level scaling can eat a bag of dicks sometimes, and the transmog system being locked behind a literal in-game crafting table is one of the stupidest design choices I've seen in a decade. But underneath the jank and the 30 FPS cap (which still hurts, by the way), there's a genuinely solid action game with a glowing heart. You just need to know how to break it open without breaking your keyboard.

This guide isn't for the people who already beat Heroic Assault on the highest difficulty. This is for the guy playing on Medium who just died for the fifth time to Mr. Freeze because he didn't understand how the Thermal Suit worked. I'm talking to you. Let's fix your playthrough.

Why Players Struggle

I see the same four complaints in every Steam thread, and honestly? They're all fair. Here's what's actually happening under the hood.

1. The Level Scaling Lies to You.
You'll walk into a "Recommended Level 15" crime and get one-shot by a sniper. Why? Because the game uses a dynamic scaling system that doesn't just check your level; it checks your gear score. You can be level 20 with a score of 1,000 and get wrecked by a level 18 enemy with a score of 1,800. The number on your character sheet is a trap. The only number that matters is the big one at the top of your gear slots. I learned this the hard way when I spent hours grinding levels, crafted a better belt, and suddenly the same street thugs that were killing me became tissue paper.

2. Momentum is King, and You're Not Using It.
The combat system revolves around Momentum. It's your resource for special abilities, ranged attacks, and healing. If you're sitting there mashing light attack, you are playing the game wrong. The game doesn't teach you that blocking and dodging also generate Momentum. So you're sitting on empty bars while I'm over here spamming Red Hood's "Brawler" ability every ten seconds because I know how to parry. If you aren't using your R1/RB + face button combos every five seconds, you're fighting with one arm tied behind your back.

3. The Open World is a Trap for Perfectionists.
When you first get control, there are crimes popping up everywhere. There is a very specific giant owl statue you can scan. There is a collectible on every roof. Do not touch any of it until you finish the first three main story missions. I wasted six hours clearing the entire southwest district of crimes, got a bunch of gear that was instantly obsolete, and then walked into the first real boss fight underleveled because main quests give you more XP per minute than anything else. The open world is there to supplement your progression, not define it.

4. The Bike Controls Are Not Good.
Let's be real. The Batcycle handles like a shopping cart with a flat tire. It takes corners like a cruise ship. If you are trying to drift every turn, you're going to hit a lamp post. Stop trying to drift. Just hold the brake and steer. It's faster. I lost count of how many times I flew over the handlebars because I tried to drift at high speed into a marked crime. Just use the grappling hook for short distances and the bike for cross-map travel. Adapt.

Getting Started / First Steps

Here's what you do the first time you boot the game up. Ignore the shiny distractions.

Step 1: Pick Your Main, But Understand the Catch.
Pick whoever looks cool. Seriously. All four characters can clear the story. But know this: Robin is the worst solo starter. He's squishy, his stealth is overkill for a solo player, and his momentum gen is slow without a partner to distract enemies. Nightwing and Batgirl are the safest picks for a new player because they have built-in healing and good crowd control. I started with Red Hood because I'm dumb and like shotguns, but I had to unlearn a lot of bad habits. If you want the path of least resistance, pick Batgirl. She gets a revive ability at skill level 5 that literally saves your run.

Step 2: Do the First Three Main Missions Back-to-Back.
Do not do a single side crime. Do not collect a single "Gotham's Most Wanted" bounty. The first three missions (the prologue, the First Case, and the Owl encounter) will teach you the game's systems, give you blueprints, and unlock your crafting bench at the Belfry. More importantly, they give you skill points like candy. You will walk out of those three missions with enough points to unlock your entire first Momentum ability. That is massive.

Step 3: Unlock the Fast Travel ASAP.
This is the one thing you should side-quest for. Look at your map. See those big blue radio towers? Go zip to them. You need to activate three of them to unlock the "Fast Travel to Belfry" option. It's boring, but it saves you five minutes of bike riding every time you need to craft or swap characters. Do it before you do anything else in the open world.

Step 4: Rebind Your Parry Button (Console Only).
If you are on a controller, the default parry is L2/LT. That's the same button you use for aiming your ranged weapon. This is dogshit design because you will accidentally try to parry a sniper bullet and instead just put your gun away and get shot in the face. Go into the settings and swap the parry to R3 (click the right stick) or Circle/B. It will feel weird for an hour, then it will feel natural. I cannot stress how many times the default mapping got me killed by the League of Shadows assassins.

Step 5: Don't Touch the Mods Yet.
When you first get access to gear mods (those little +Elemental Damage chips), you will be tempted to slot them. Don't. Early game mods are garbage. They give +2% poison damage. That does nothing. Wait until you find blue rarity mods at Level 20. Until then, just sell them for caches. You'll thank me when you don't run out of cash for fast travel.

Expert Tips & Tricks

These are the things I wish the loading screen tips actually told you. Things you only figure out after 40 hours of banging your head against the police chief's desk.

• The Flamethrower is broken (literally). The "Molotov" type weapon mods that add fire damage? They do 45 base DPS on application, but they ramp to 120 DPS after three seconds of continuous burning on a single enemy. If you slap this on a weapon with a fast attack speed (like Nightwing's escrima sticks), you can melt a boss's health bar while they are locked in an animation. Most tier lists sleep on fire damage because it doesn't stack well, but for a single target burn, it's the best elemental damage in the game. Cold damage is better for crowd control, but fire is for killing.
• Your traversal ability (teleport, glider, jumpjet) has a hidden "dodge cancel." If you are about to get hit by a big attack, you can press your traversal button (the one that makes you jump super high) and then immediately dodge. This gives you a double invincibility frame window. It's not a true exploit, but it feels like one. I use this on the final boss of the main story to avoid her AOE sweep and it trivializes the fight. Robin's teleport is the best for this because it has a faster animation.
• The "Explosive Gel" ability is not for combat. I see noobs trying to use it mid-fight. Stop. The gel is for breaking walls and creating stealth kills. Put it on a wall near a patrol route, detonate it when the enemy walks past, and they die instantly regardless of level. This is how you clear the "Very High Threat" gangs without taking damage. You can carry three charges at base. Use them on every stealth encounter.
• Red Hood's "Brawler" tree is way better than his ranged tree. I know, I know. Red Hood has guns. You want to shoot things. But his ranged attacks have terrible ammo efficiency and low damage per bullet. His melee tree gives you Momentum on every heavy hit and a move that literally heals you when you land it. I spent my first three runs trying to stack poison ranged attacks and got destroyed by the second boss EVERY TIME. Switch to melee Red Hood. You'll never go back. It's similar to the Hades build where you ignore the bow and just use the fists — check out our Hades guide for build philosophy comparisons if you want to see why "ignore the ranged option" is sometimes correct.
• The stealth meter is lying to you. When you are in stealth mode (crouching), the game shows an eye icon that turns yellow when you are about to be detected. The yellow phase lasts 0.8 seconds before you are spotted. That's a long time. You can actually hit a stealth attack during the yellow phase if you are fast enough. I tested this frame by frame. If you see yellow, mash the takedown button. Eight times out of ten, you will get the kill before the enemy screams.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Ignoring the "Knighthood" Skill Tree.
This is the biggest trap in the game. The Knighthood tree (the one with the diamond icon) looks boring because it's just stat buffs. But those stats are multiplicative. A +10% health from Knighthood is not the same as a 10% health mod on gear. It stacks on top of your gear. Maxing out this tree first makes you tanky enough to survive three hits from a boss instead of one. I ignored it because I wanted cool abilities, and I paid for it with every death.

2. Not Using the "Belfry" Fast Travel.
You can fast travel to the Belfry from anywhere on the map. It costs nothing. But you can also fast travel from the Belfry to any previously visited district for a small cash fee. I see people riding the bike across the entire map because they don't want to spend 200 cash. That is insane. 200 cash is worth 20 minutes of your life that you will never get back. Just pay the fee. You get cash from selling one piece of garbage gear.

3. Fighting the League of Shadows on the Ground.
Those ninjas with the electric swords? They have a combo that can stunlock you to death in three hits. Do not fight them on flat ground. Lure them onto rooftops or into areas with ledges. Use the environment takedowns (pressing the takedown button near a ledge). They cannot counter if you throw them off a building. The AI is not programmed to handle verticality. Abuse this.

4. Saving Your Healing.
You have two healing charges in the early game. They recharge slowly. Do not save them for "later." Use them the second you drop below 50% health. The game punishes "saving" resources because the next hit might be a one-shot. I lost a boss fight with the villain at 5% health because I was holding my heal for a "better moment." There are no better moments. Use it.

5. Not Checking the Case Files.
The game has a menu called Case Files in the pause screen. It lists all the active investigations, tells you where to go next, and even gives you hints for the very obtuse puzzles. I spent an hour trying to figure out how to open a gate in the Industrial District before I realized the Case File literally said "Use the Batcycle's EMP to disable the generator." The game tells you this. Read the files. This isn't a Dark Souls secret; it's a UI feature.

FAQ

Q: Which character is the best for a first playthrough?
A: Batgirl, no contest. She has a healing drone, a Batarang that stuns groups, and her momentum ability "Hacker" can disable turrets from across the map. She is the most forgiving character. Nightwing is a close second if you want to be more agile, but his damage output is lower in the early game.

Q: Can I change characters mid-playthrough?
A: Yes. You can swap at the Belfry any time you want. Your progress is shared across all characters for the main story. However, side quests and collectibles are not shared. If you started a side quest as Robin, you have to finish it as Robin. This is stupid, but it's how the game works. So pick one character for the side stuff and stick with it.

Q: What is the max level?
A: Character level cap is 30. Gear score cap is 12,000 for the base game, but goes higher in the Heroic Assault DLC. You will hit Level 30 around the end of the main story. Don't stress about reaching it early.

Q: The bike sucks. Is there a way to make it faster?
A: No. The bike is the bike. You can upgrade it at the crafting bench with parts you find in caches, but it only improves health and damage output (the bike has a ramming attack). It never gets faster. Just use the fast travel and the grappling hook. If you absolutely need speed, use Nightwing's glider. It's faster than the bike for short hops.

Q: Is co-op easier or harder?
A: Co-op is easier by a wide margin. Enemy health scales up by 60% for each additional player, but you get double the abilities and can revive each other. If you are struggling solo, invite a friend. The game is way more fun with someone to laugh at the glitches with. There's a reason the game launched with co-op as the focus. This game is similar to Dying Light 2 in that the co-op transforms the experience — check out our Dying Light 2 guide if you want to see how co-op scaling works in other games.

Q: Why does my gear look ugly?
A: Because the transmog system is buried in the crafting bench. You need to craft a piece of gear first, then select the "Transmog" option (press Triangle/Y on the gear preview screen). It costs a small amount of materials. The game does not tell you this. I thought my character was locked into looking like a clown for 20 hours until I accidentally found the button.

Q: The supposed "free roam" crime system is buggy. What gives?
A: It's not buggy, it's timed. Crimes despawn after a while if you ignore them. They also respawn in different locations. If you see a blue crime icon on the map, you have about 3 in-game hours (real time) to get there. The game also has a "Very High Threat" crime type that only appears at night. If you want to farm loot, play at night. It's obnoxious, but it's the system.