Batman is dead in Gotham Knights, leaving the city’s fate in the hands of Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, and Red Hood. Gotham Knights lets you swap between each of these characters pretty much whenever you’d like, giving you a different arsenal of attacks and traversal abilities to choose from. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t do a great job of explaining how to actually swap characters, causing players to stick with the same hero for much longer than intended. In this guide, we’ll explain how to swap characters and how progression works between them in Gotham Knights.
How to switch characters in Gotham Knights
To swap characters, you need to be at the Belfry in between missions and patrols.
Head over to the left section of the Belfry on the same side as the training area, where you’ll see the four heroes’ costumes. Interact with the costume that corresponds to a particular hero to switch to them.
Keep in mind, the only way to swap characters is to utilize the method listed above, so you’ll need to take a break from crime fighting to do so.
When playing online, you’ll join with whichever character you were playing as when booting up the session.
Does swapping characters matter?
While each character in Gotham Knights does have a unique playstyle, they’re all equally as effective. Red Hood excels at ranged combat, while Nightwing is better up close. Though, assuming your gear stats are equal between two characters, both will perform the same while fighting crime.
You do gain access to various traversal mechanics for each character depending on progression, but from a combat perspective, all heroes are the same in terms of usefulness.
There are certain story segments that unlock with each character, offering a specific cutscene tied to that particular hero. So keep that in mind as you swap to a new character at the Belfry.
How progression works in Gotham Knights
Your XP carries over from character to character, keeping each hero balanced as you progress through the game. However, you do need to manually unlock abilities after swapping to a character if you’ve earned XP since you last used them.
For instance, if you start with Red Hood, but swap over to other characters shortly thereafter, you’ll have plenty of abilities to unlock if you decide to go back to Red Hood at the end of the game.
Likewise, your Salvage and Mods are shared across all characters. You’ll also likely unlock different gear such as suits, melee weapons, and ranged weapons for other characters, even if you aren’t playing as them.
After you swap to a new character, be sure to look at your Mods and crafting options, because you’ll likely have new gear at your disposal.
The only thing that doesn’t carry over across characters is Knighthood progression. Maxing out Knighthood requires you to complete a handful of challenges, and doing so gives you a new traversal mechanic.
For example, Batgirl can glide, while Robin can teleport. You have to meet Knighthood requirements for all heroes separately to earn each character’s traversal ability.
