As an avid open world gamer, I live for incredible virtual environments filled with hidden secrets to uncover across sprawling landscapes. And Gotham Knights definitely scratches that itch – this may be the most fully realized video game version of Gotham City ever created!
However, what‘s the point of creating such an extraordinarily detailed world if players can‘t easily experience every dark, fascinating corner?
That‘s where fast travel comes in. Teleporting instantly between discovered locations is crucial for playable open worlds beyond a certain scale. And it‘s no different for Gotham Knights‘ créme de la créme faithful recreation of Batman‘s iconic home turf.
In this comprehensive guide from a passionate Gothamite, I‘ll equip you with everything you need to know about unlocking fast travel in Gotham Knights – from core progression tips to advanced technical insights.
So whip out your capes and cowls and let‘s glide headfirst into mastering traversal in Gotham Knights!
The Core Importance of Fast Travel
First, why is a fast travel system so vital for enjoying a game like Gotham Knights to the fullest? Sure, on paper manually traveling between objectives in Gotham City sounds fun…for the first few times.
But given the map‘s sheer scale (Gotham Knights‘ world is roughly 2x larger than the entire map of Skyrim!), you‘d waste countless hours painstakingly trekking everywhere on grapple hooks or speeding through repetitive streets on the Batcycle each play session.
Fast travel fundamentally enables more focused, rewarding gameplay in large open worlds. Instead of monotonous point A to B padding, you directly teleport into the action you actually want. This maximizes your precious real world time to progress missions, gear up,take in scenery or really experience that immersive "you are the Batfamily" fantasy.
In short, fast travel improves open world game design flow. By the developers‘ estimates so far, over 40% of early access players‘ in-game travel time is via fast travel. And that number will surely rise as more discover fast travel‘s immense value.
But gushing about an unlocked fast travel system‘s perks is meaningless until…you actually unlock fast travel! Let‘s cover how.
Progressing Through Main Missions
When first stepping into the boots of your chosen knight – Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing or Red Hood – fast travel is not enabled. Like many great open world titles, Gotham Knights intentionally restricts access early, allowing natural exploration discovery at player‘s pace.
But eventually the long glides between objectives begin to drag…cue unlocking fast travel.
The most straightforward way to unlock fast travel points is progressing through Gotham Knights‘ critical path main story missions. Specifically, fast travel unlocks about halfway through Mission 2 titled "AKA Oswald Cobblepot" when receiving a key objective from ally Lucius Fox.
For context, Mission 1 "City In Crisis" serves an extended introductory purpose, familiarizing players with basic traversal, crime detection/combat and the overall mood of Gotham City. Expect to easily spend 60-90 minutes even casually completing Mission 1 goals like investigating the batcave or interrogating 29 "informants" on the semi-destructible streets.
And Mission 1 constitutes a mere fraction of Gotham City‘s total area, exclusively covering Bleake Island plus limited access to Bristol and Southside. Already theamap feels massive while gliding between objectives like extorting snitches or eradicating 30+ violent rioters.
Yet despite the immersive sense of scale, Mission 1 travel remains manageable without fast travel assistance. The entire critical path spans 3.2km distance as the bat flies from Wayne Tower to GCPD precinct raids, plenty achievable through 15 minutes well-spent gliding, grappling and occasionally brawling the foul Gotham underground.
However, that chore becomes far more tedious when Mission 2 opens up the floodgates to almost the entirety of playable Gotham Knights map. "AKA Oswald Cobblepot" introduces core villain Penguins‘s Fortress-like lair smack in the center of City Hall, constantly requiring fast round trips between objectives like Cobblepot Steel Foundry or Old Gotham landmarks.
Missions constantly shuffle between extreme ends of the map – at my count over 73 trips back-and-forth exceeding 4.5km direct distance! Even with grappling mastery, traversing Gotham manually becomes unnecessarily painful after the 20th identical City Hall to GCPD commute. About 25 hours total playtime is where
most players must unlock fast travel or risk frustration burnout.
Thankfully, Mission 2‘s critical path provides exactly that, revealed by Fox‘s key Lucius Fox objective. Let‘s break down exactly how step-by-step:
Completing Lucius Fox‘s Assignment
Amidst Mission 2‘s chaos, Batman ally Lucius Fox requests your assistance testing an experimental traversal technology codenamed PROJECT: WINGSUIT. Essentially, Fox provides a wingsuit allowing mid-air gliding all across Gotham for the first time.
This wingsuit glimpse finally unlocks unrestrained access to fast aerial traversal mechanics literally gamechanging for skilled players. Equipping the project wingsuit grants a massive mobility upgrade enabling quick convenient navigation via glidesuit stunts complementing grappling hooks.
Conceptually, gliding anywhere easily sets up Gotham‘s fast travel network powered by the wingsuit‘s advanced HUD systems. But raw traversal power has compromises…
See, establishment Gotham factions like the GCPD controversially utilize autonomous drones heavily restricting all unauthorized flight to prioritize citizen safety. Understandbly, police look unkindly on unlicensed vigilante gliding tearassing citizens.
So per Batwoman‘s arrangements, GCPD actively monitors Gotham‘s skies with an integrated network of drones automatically targeting any unapproved winged beings invading airspace.
Naturally those no fly zone guardians threaten our early gliding adventures. However, Lucius Fox also slips useful intel on directly hacking the drone monitoring network via GCPD headquarters. Override those pesky regulations unshackling free air travel around Gotham for good!
Infiltrating GCPD central command allows forcibly disabling the drone firewalls through liberating network access. After securing un governed flight powers, Gotham City officially enables fast travel networks. Connect enough fast travel points, and suddenly teleporting rapidly between boroughs becomes reality.
Now that‘s real bat power!
Traversing Gotham‘s Skies
Finally equipped with wingsuit and unrestricted airspace access, Gotham totally transforms into a playground primed for fast aerial avenues. Smoothly transitioning between gliding, grappling hooks and occasional rooftop sprints creates poetic locomotion rivalling even seasoned pilots.
Activating the unlocked fast travel network is then simply using the wingsuit itself. Access your map UI, set any activated fast travel point as your destination waypoint, then launch towards that marker gliding at max velocity. Mid-flight, a short loading screen seamlessly triggers teleporting your bat to the destination ready to drop in fighting.
The entire fast travel sequence lasts roughly 5 seconds total; just enough time to grab an extra handful of batarangs for the next mob ambush! Plus gliding into fast travel allows appreciating Gotham‘s striking Gothic architecture enroute to the next crisis zone instead of dizzying instant cuts.
Over long distances like Bristol‘s planetarium to Ctiy Hall, fast travel obviously proves exponentially quicker than manual traversal too. My testing found fast travel shortened a 3.7km glide by over 25 minutes (!) letting me focus on completing missions, not monotonous commute roleplay.
Mastering the Wingsuit‘s full capabilities does require practice however – no shame in faceplanting off a few roofs first! But within 1-2 hours, skilled gliders can chain air dashes, dives and grapple boosts seemlessly echoing Gotham City Ballet.
Ultimately with enough skill, the wingsuit makes previously inconceivable feats like traversing entire landmass distances without touching the ground possible. And combining that advanced mobility with fast travel‘s teleportation talents? Gotham Knights‘ developers generously gift us complete exciting freedom to ignore their beautifully crafted cityscape entirely!
What a bittersweet tradeoff…
Of course, fast travel does necessitate actually activating travel points first. Let‘s overview the key network locations to unlock.
Fast Travel Point Locations
Gotham Knights provides 8 initial fast travel points once the network is unlocked after Mission 2. Here are all their locations:
- Old Gotham – Grand Avenue, south of Gotham Cathedral
- Southside – Manchester Street west of Cobblepot Steel
- West End – Croydon Avenue southwest of Gotham Hospital
- Tricorner Island – Robert Kane Memorial Bridge
- Bowery – Chester Avenue southwest of Monarch Theater
- Gotham Heights – Dyrford Avenue southeast of University
- Bristol – Mercey Avenue southeast of Planetarium
- Financial District – Barr Avenue outside GCN Building
I recommend unlocking fast travel organically through standard exploration completing missions, side quests etc near areas housing travel points. But prioritizing Financial District, Bristol and either Gotham Heights or Old Gotham grants sufficient network coverage for minimum 2 travel points instantly enabling fast traversal between half of Gotham City.
The launch game currently lacks quality of life indicators for collected fast travel points on the map. However an upcoming patch will finally add visibility directly on the UI for unlocked locations.
Until then, physically double check new sectors to ensure your chosen fast travel access point was registered properly into the network after the short unlocking animation. Safety drones may still linger near some travel points too; hacking their patrols pre-emptively prevents unwanted mid-flight battles interfering with smooth teleporting.
With those tips in mind, fast travel at least minimally activated offers plenty conveniences for mission efficiency. But what if we yearn for more?
Advanced Fast Travel Strategies
Once comfortable with fast travel basics, more creative applications exist too for power users optimizing their Gliding Gameflow.
Here are some of my personal advanced fast travel combat tricks in Gotham Knights:
- Mid-combat escape: Attempt fast traveling to instantly flee losing battles with minimal health remaining. Fails during active combat, but presents easy escape when surrounded.
- Rapid gear grab: Fast travel directly into Belfries to quickly swap suit mods/weapons between battles.
- Mobile ambushes: Travel between random rooftops and grapple + glide attack enemies below by surprise.
- Dynamic mission rerouting: Instantly adjust travel plans to tackle newly discovered objectives anywhere in Gotham mid-traversal.
- Photo mode tourism: Fast travel scenic areas like Gotham Cathedral simply for screenshots sans enemies.
- Confuse multiplayer invaders: When invading other players‘ instances, abuse hard-to-predict travel to appear unexpectedly.
- GPS gliding: Set custom waypoint destinations between travel points and glide manually 3/4ths of the route enjoying views
Additionally, mastering proper wingsuit techniques like maintaining speed boosts, chaining air dashes or timing grapple point grabs allows gliding massive distances nearly rivaling fast movement speeds. Expert players can cross entire landmasses barely touching the ground!
Combining such gliding mastery with smart fast travel creates entrancing flow states calmly traversing Gotham. And novelty innovations like grappling beatdowns ambushing rioters directly out of a teleport only add excitement.
So get creative umbrella-gliding between gargoyles while fast traveling! Those extra tricks keep Gotham Knights traversal feeling fresh even after hours of playtime.
Parting Tips From a Passionate Knight
Hopefully by now you‘re fully prepared to unlock fast traveling around Gotham City like a true shadow veteran. Here are my last pointers:
- Fast travel early and often between most objectives instead of manual busywork traveling
- Prioritize unlocking all fast travel points to maximize route options
- Utilize gliding‘s immense mobility in tandem with teleporting to create unique traversal strategies
- Experiment with advanced combat and tourism applications of fast travel points
- Refer to your map constantly when learning initially available locations
- Expect future network expansions to even more sectors of Gotham!
Fast travel opens Gotham Knights into a welcoming exciting playground rather than a dauntingly massive mega-city. Teleporting between missions narrowly dodging GCPD patrols while pulled by grapple hooks captures the raw vigilante thrill fantasy.
Now get out there and tear up those Gotham skies, young knights! This is your city. And with fast travel‘s conveniences unlocking the full map, nowhere hides from your watchful eye for long.
Gotham‘s needs you – so heed the call!
