Gotham Knightsis back in action already with its first major piece of post-launch content: a free one-to-four player dungeon-crawling mode called Heroic Assault, which pits you against a horde of Starro-possessed minions. And if you thought what Gotham Knights needed was a huge repeat of itsprotracted finale, well, then you’re about the only person, other than crafting resource farmers, who’s going to get anything out of this mode.
As much as I loved themain game, there’s no denying it - Heroic Assault just isn’t interesting to play, quickly running out of ideas and relying heavily on stats and repetitive enemy waves in dark caves.
What’s profoundly confusing about all of this is that Heroic Assault was reportedly planned well into Gotham Knight’s development, yet there’s barely any unique dialogue, narrative framing, or new enemies to fight. All the more perplexing is how the first half of the mode can be a cakewalk if, like me, you played New Game Plus and have your heroes at the final Level 40 cap with legendary gear.
To put things into perspective, the first floor in Heroic Assault has enemies at Level 25, who were so weak to my attacks that I could just spam batarangs at them. For a brief moment, it evokes the brutal, relentless power fantasy of theArkham games, but that’s not what Gotham Knights was built for, and it shows.
It’s not all doom and gloom Stealth is vastly more rewarded in Heroic Assault (ironic, given it’s the mode with the most players who could potentially alert enemies). There are also several optional paths to take with bonus loot crates practically bursting with rare crafting materials you may use to craft the best gear in the game.
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This isn’t a terrible idea on paper, but the amount of unique layouts wears thin before you’ve hit the tenth floor. Utterly drab art direction doesn’t do the mode any favors, with seemingly all the dull, desaturated grey color filters of 7th gen military shooters buried in Gotham’s old mines. At least in the ending of Knights, there was still some color to these environments - here there’s nothing to look at.
I’m not just talking about the visuals either. Enemies all look the same, with only a handful showing Starro’s mind-controlling spawn on their faces. This would’ve been an excellent excuse to remix some enemy behaviors due to Starro’s influence, like with The Taken inDestiny. That would still be cost-effective while offering something more than a slight reskin. Yet after tearing through floor after floor, the most distinctive change I found was that the Regulator gang’s heavyweight enemy type can now conjure a bubble shield - no other character class demonstrated any modifications across hours of play.
The final nail in the coffin for the mode is how the emphasis on co-op isn’t due to, say, unique challenges that require multiple heroes tackling separate objectives. They just spam a ludicrous amount of enemies at you. When I had to push my first laser payload cart, I had easily twenty Freak enemies on me at once. Fortunately, every enemy was so under-leveled that it didn’t matter that I tackled the given floor solo as Batgirl, but it’s just disappointing to see.
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Not even Starro offers a memorable final encounter, with the biggest wrinkle being that multiple factions attack you at once, randomizing the enemies you fight. Other than achievements, some new suit mods, and crafting resources, your grand reward is… a suit color scheme that looks themed around Baskin-Robbins. Yes really. No, I don’t know why.
This is all the more peculiar given you’re able to also now revisit amped-up boss fights with new modifiers in Showdown, but they remain locked to two players. I’d have much preferred a four player boss rush mode while Heroic Assault took its time in development to have more memorable content.
As it stands, there’s already LFG postings on Xbox Live for maximizing the Heroic Assault to farm materials. I appreciate that the mode is free and may not have had the internal resources needed to fulfill its potential, but a delay would’ve done wonders. Even Avengers' most repeated environments are more distinctive than this. It’s to the point it might’ve been more interesting to set the mode in the holographic training area - at least then everything would be properly lit.
I don’t know what the future for Gotham Knights holds, but I sincerely hope Heroic Assault isn’t a sign of what’s to come. After such a rock solid main game, this pittance of content spread absurdly thin is disappointing, to put it lightly. Unless you’re desperate for materials and don’t want to enjoy the randomized sandbox crimes, or are absolutely itching to team up with three friends online, there’s no reason to beat up DC’s tyrannical space starfish parasite.
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