History VideoGame / BatmanArkhamKnight

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Red Hood kills the enemy thugs without a second thought.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[Foreshadowing/ArkhamKnight Has its own page.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** The game starts with Joker's cremation set to the tune of Frank Sinatra's "I've Got You Under My Skin". Later in the game, [[spoiler:we find out Batman still has some traces of Joker's toxin in his blood which activates when hit by Scarecrow's new fear toxin. Causing Batman to see hallucinations of Joker which indeed threatens to take over Batman's personality.]]
** The very first thing we see in the game is the label on Joker's cremation chamber - "ROBINSON". Or "ROBIN SON", if you read it with a space in there. A major theme of the game is that Batman sees his sidekicks as family. [[spoiler:The game's main villain is ex-Robin Jason Todd lashing out at his old mentor and adopted father for replacing him.]]
** The character list gives two characters identical vital statistics, namely [[spoiler: the Arkham Knight and Jason Todd. This is another hint to the Knight's identity.]]
** The smoker in Pauli's Diner is wearing a hood, so the player can't see them before Scarecrow's fear toxin kicks in and everyone in the diner suddenly looks like a zombie. [[spoiler:The smoker was wearing a '''red hood''', hinting that he was the ''Batman'' character Red Hood, who we later learn is working with Scarecrow as the Arkham Knight.]]
** Relating to the disappearance of Henry Adams:
*** There's a flyer on the refrigerator at Pauli's Diner stating that a local man named Henry Adams has gone missing. Sure enough, it's revealed later that he's been abducted -- [[spoiler:by Batman himself; as the only transfusion recipient with natural immunity[[note]]Seemingly, at least[[/note]] to Joker's blood, he was instrumental in Batman and Robin's attempts to synthesize a cure.]]
*** [[spoiler:Out of all the Jokerized citizens, Henry is the one whose physical appearance most closely resembles the real Joker, to the point that it looks like he could almost be an older relative, only without the skin or hair coloration. Turns out to be a hint that he's the most Joker-like of all of them, and ''not'' immune after all]].
*** A hint that [[spoiler:Henry isn't quite as immune as originally believed (and the one who hacked the security system)]] shows up when Batman asks him to help with hacking a security camera. [[spoiler: He makes sure to tell Batman that he doesn't really know anything about computers to throw him off, before proceeding to do as Batman asked much faster than anyone who's genuinely computer-illiterate could be expected to. He does state that the interface is much simpler than a normal computer layout, though in hindsight, this appears to be a taunt of sorts.]]
** Similarly, billboards for the cocktail singer Johnny Charisma's live Halloween show appear throughout the city. [[spoiler:While some fans' initial interpretations of a hidden message[[note]]"JO C AR IS A LIVE"[[/note]] seemed outlandish, it's later revealed to be somewhat true; Johnny, another infected blood recipient, is slowly becoming more Joker-like in his appearance, complete with a similar hairstyle and an equally ostentatious lounge-lizard suit. Batman even later hallucinates variations of the billboard where Joker's the one hosting the show.]]
** When Gordon meets Batman in the holding area for the Joker Infected, he counts only four people, though Batman said there were five. A hint comes immediately after of who the fifth Infected is: [[spoiler: Batman steps close to the empty fifth cell, and ''his own'' reflection appears in the glass, and he says, "He'll be here soon."]]
** There's a hint in [[spoiler:Barbara's "death"]] that the scene is a fakeout - [[spoiler: the Joker hallucination visibly moves her gun before she picks it up. Joker also gets directly in front of Batman when she actually shoots herself; while it plays like a GoryDiscretionShot in the moment, it's also a hint that she never actually shot herself.]]
** [[spoiler:Joker's]] first lines after he reveals himself to Batman in the ACE Chemicals building, "We're going to give Gotham the Batman it deserves. A new Batman. A better Batman. A darker, more- well, we can come back to this later." [[spoiler:As seen in the GoldenEnding, Gotham got just that.]]
** When the Knight shows up in his chopper, he targets Batman and says "Time to die, old man." [[spoiler:Another meaning of the term 'old man'? Father. Appropriate for Jason, who feels betrayed by his father figure.]]
** After unmasking the Arkham Knight, [[spoiler:Joker's hallucination]] waxes nostalgic about the asylum the Knight named himself after and says "maybe we'll get to go back there someday!" [[spoiler:Scarecrow brings Batman back to Arkham Asylum for the final act.]]
** [[spoiler:The first line of the Joker's song, "take me on home to the Asylum", foreshadows Batman's return to Arkham Asylum, where Joker takes full control before being banished into the deepest parts of Batman's mind.]]
** At the beginning of the 'Friend in Need' sidequest, when Bruce Wayne is entering Wayne Tower, there's a hint that [[spoiler:it isn't really Bruce Wayne: before, when listening to Bruce's voicemail, there are mocking messages from the Joker fragment, which obviously are only happening in his head; when 'Bruce Wayne' checks the messages, he only hears the four from real people.]]
** [[spoiler:The Joker/Jason Todd hallucinations make it painfully obvious who the Arkham Knight is.]]
** After Scarecrow gasses Batman on Stagg's airship, he asks Batman what he can see: "the city engulfed in fear? Betrayed by those you trust the most? Your darkest secrets revealed?" It sounds like typical [[EvilGloating villainous bluster]], but [[spoiler:he manages to make it all happen by the end of the game - the Cloudburst briefly drowns Gotham in fear gas, Gordon shoots Batman on Scarecrow's orders, and the world learns Batman is Bruce Wayne.]]
** When Batman [[spoiler:heads to surrender to Scarecrow]] near the end of the story, check the wall outside and you'll see a spray-painted red Batsymbol. [[spoiler:It's also the Red Hood's symbol, letting the player know he's following Batman before Hood rescues him from Scarecrow.]]
** The newspapers lying around in the Clock Tower headlined with "BATGIRL SAVES COMMISSIONER" seem to be foreshadowing the "A Matter of Family" DLC, where Barbara does exactly that.
** When you reach the penultimate weapons cache in Penguin's side-quest, Nightwing is noticeably absent. [[spoiler:Because he had gone off to find the last cache and got himself captured by Penguin.]]
** Near the end of the first segment of the weapons cache side-quest (which is completed as part of the main story), as Batman is closing the vault door to protect himself from the explosion [[spoiler:the hallucination of Joker pretends that Batman is locking him up inside the vault, jokingly begging and pleading not to be locked in.]] This ends up hinting at his fate in the game when [[spoiler:Batman purges the Joker from his mind by locking him up in a cell to be trapped in the darkest corner of his mind for eternity, with the Joker hallucination similarly pleading not to be trapped inside, only this time he's no longer kidding around.]]
** During Batman's first face-to-face encounter with the Arkham Knight, the other soldiers are told to not shoot the bat symbol on his armour because that's where the armour is thickest. [[spoiler:When Batman uses the remote control on the Batmobile to surprise the mercs, Knight immediately grapples out, much like Batman himself would. Or someone he trained.]] Much later, [[spoiler:Gordon shoots Batman there intentionally, "killing" him and knocking him off the building in order to escape Scarecrow's machinations]].
** After Batman tells Jim that Barbara was captured, they head to the clock tower, only to get attacked by the Knight's militia jeeps. The Arkham Knight demands Jim to be brought to him ''alive''. [[spoiler: This is because they were planning to blackmail him to join their side; Batman is led to believe Barbara died, while Jim is still captured and likely knows the truth.]]
** When Batman contacts Lucius to instruct him to open the Wayne Tower Parking Garage, Lucius comments with mild confusion that he believed Bruce was already in the building, hinting that [[spoiler:Hush]] had already entered the building.
** Some of the chatter in the Militia watchtowers makes reference to things not revealed to the player until later; on the watchtower overlooking the most southernly bridge connecting Founders Island and Miagani Island you can hear the militia soldiers speaking about an assassin brought in by the Knight as an advisor, referring to [[spoiler:Deathstroke who takes command after the final fight between Batman and the Knight]] while the militia soldiers in the Watchtower situated on a walkway between two towers, next to a bridge to the mainland and just north of Wayne Tower, mention that they plan to retrieve their captive brethren from the GCPD, claiming that the "Cops will never see it coming." Hinting at the [[spoiler:siege of the GCPD, which serves as the action climax to the main story, before the confrontation in Arkham Asylum finishes the story proper.]]
** Several of the stories unlocked through riddles foreshadow elements of the Season of Infamy missions including [[spoiler:Nora being consious inside the ice, Mad Hatter forcing a man into being Alice, and the schism within the League.]]

''Batman: Arkham Knight'' is the 2015 direct sequel to ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' and the fifth and final game in the ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries'', though not [[VideoGame/SuicideSquadKillTheJusticeLeague the last set in its universe]]. The game is developed by Rocksteady, the originators of the Arkham Series, after ''Arkham Origins'' was developed by WB Games Montreal to provide more time for them to make ''Arkham Knight''.

[[TimeSkip One year]] after the death of ComicBook/TheJoker (Creator/MarkHamill) in ''Arkham City'', crime in Gotham is at an all time low. But that all changes on {{Halloween|Episode}}, when Scarecrow (Creator/JohnNoble), previously thought to be dead, [[VillainTeamUp reunites Gotham's villains]] with one goal in mind: kill the Batman. Gotham is evacuated after a threat to detonate bombs filled with fear toxin across the city, and criminals run rampant through the streets. The Dark Knight (Creator/KevinConroy) must now fight through his {{rogues gallery}} one more time, while also facing off against a [[EvilCounterpart dark mirror]] to himself, the mysterious "Arkham Knight" (Creator/TroyBaker).

In addition to a WideOpenSandbox [[SequelEscalation much bigger than previous games]], ''Arkham Knight'' introduces three major gameplay additions to the franchise. "Fear Takedowns" allow Batman to ambush up to three enemies at once before starting a fight (and four and five with upgrades); full use of [[CoolCar the Batmobile]] for navigation and combat; and a dual-play system that allows Batman to swap out for ComicBook/{{Robin}}, ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} or ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} at select points in the game.

A Season Pass for multiple {{DLC}} packs was announced. This included pre-order DLC as Red Hood and Harley Quinn. This was followed by a {{Prequel}} set before ''Arkham Asylum'' (''A Matter of Family'') starring Batgirl, several challenge rooms and Batmobile race tracks. This in turn was followed by additional post-launch content, with episodes featuring other members of the Batfamily and a villains pack (''The Season of Infamy'') featuring Killer Croc, ComicBook/MrFreeze, ComicBook/RasAlGhul and Mad Hatter.

** The dual-play mechanic allows you to switch over and play as an AI companion in the middle of battle. It's flashy and makes quick work of enemies, but it's only available in specific areas when there's a mission there. Occasions include any part of the Penguin's side mission (where Nightwing dual-plays,) the Riddler's puzzles (where you dual-play with Catwoman,) and the Panessa Studios level (where Robin acts as a dual-play partner.)

** In one side-mission, Batman changes into his Bruce Wayne persona to enter Wayne Enterprises, who has none of the same equipment or combat abilities as Batman. [[spoiler:Unless the player notices the slight facial scarring or the somewhat off voice, the fact that it's really Hush may not be evident until he finally assaults Lucius Fox for his retinal scan.]].

** The Batmobile can be pretty hard to control the first time you drive it due to its insane speeds and sensitive controls, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be unstoppable. Switching the camera to a first-person viewpoint by pressing R1/RB makes things like Riddler races a bit easier.

** Under normal circumstances, you don't get the Remote Electrical Charge until you're near the end of the game. But as it's in the GCPD lockup and the cops won't do anything to stop Batman, there's nothing preventing you from punching the glass out and grabbing it early. The same can be said for the Freeze Blast, which is located near the Batsuit capsule in the Panessa Studios' quarantine lab.

* CastOfSnowflakes: The game has a huge cast of main and supporting villains as well as minor characters, and all of them have unique models; the GCPD Lockup has quite a few unique [=NPCs=], despite most of them being ostensibly {{Red Shirt}}s. Even Killer Croc, who only appears in one scene and is visible for under 25 seconds, gets a wholly unique, radically different character model with tail physics, rather than a re-skinned version of his ''City'' appearance. [[spoiler:Most impressively, the Joker hallucination seamlessly switches between the dying "Sick Joker" of ''Arkham City'', the healthier Joker of the flashbacks, and "Vacation Joker" from ''The Killing Joke'' for the specific flashback of Barbara's crippling.]]

*** South Gotham is visible in the skyline.

* BoringButPractical: The best way to wrack up higher combos in the game isn't to use Batman's variety of gadgets, special attacks, or environmental takedowns, but to simply punch out your enemies. A critical strike from Batman's basic punch adds 3 to the combo meter (while most abilities add 1) and they can be executed much more quickly and reliably than any other form of attack.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/arkham_knight_9338.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''[[{{Tagline}} Be vengeance. Be the night. Be the Batman.]]'']]

* TheUnmasking:[[spoiler:After his SecretIdentity is revealed, that's it: Batman's done. The superstitious fear he relied on to intimidate criminals and the RoguesGallery is gone, as they now see a rich guy in an overpriced costume instead of the Batman. After wrapping up loose ends, he flies back home and seemingly kills himself to spurn his remaining enemies from attacking his allies in revenge.]]
** [[spoiler:Even after his SecretIdentity is revealed, the thugs aren't all emboldened just because they know it's Bruce Wayne under the mask. Some MookChatter has thugs express disappointment that Batman is just a rich guy. Likewise, a wandering group of thugs joke about Wayne themed gear but shut up when they realize it's still the same guy who's repeatedly kicked their asses. One thug complains that now they "have a bat with nothing to lose" while another is excited to know he met Bruce Wayne, despite said encounter ending in a beating. A few even mention that after how many times Batman's beaten them up through vigilante justice, they're planning on suing him for everything they can get.]]

** [[spoiler:During the elevator ride after the final Arkham Knight battle, Gordon has since figured out that he met Batman at the age of 8 in his civilian identity. Whether he had known for a while or had only just pieced it together by the Arkham Knight referring to Batman as "Bruce" right in front of him is up to interpretation.

** [[spoiler:During the elevator ride after the final Arkham Knight battle, Gordon has since figured out that he met Batman at the age of 8 in his civilian identity. Whether he had known for a while or had only just pieced it together by the Arkham Knight referring to Batman as "Bruce" right in front of him is up to interpretation.[[note]]though it's worth noting that most SecretSecretKeeper iterations of Gordon have also figured out that Barbara is/was Batgirl[[/note]]]]

** The Arkham Knight is [[spoiler:Jason Todd, who once fought alongside Batman as the second Robin]]. Though, [[spoiler:after playing a bit of the game, the flashbacks could easily turn this into TheUntwist. Earlier, possibly even before playing the game, if you're a long-time comic book reader.]]

** The Arkham Knight, a new villain[[note]][[spoiler: well, [[ComicBook/RedHood of a sort]]]][[/note]] created for Rocksteady by Creator/GeoffJohns to be "the ultimate test for Batman". He's the one throwing tanks at Batman and he shows up to scuffle with Bats before making threatening him and fleeing to get more tanks ready.

** It becomes funnier when you consider that Joker is just an infected part of Batman's subconscious, so it's actually ''Batman'' who's wondering about the split. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Unless it really is Joker's ghost.]]

*** Possibly justified somewhat in that [[spoiler:Batman lied or exaggerated. In the audio log in Joker's character bio, Batman says that the mutated blood simply ''acts'' like a prion infection. So they possibly never had CJD in the first place.]]

** Similarly, the player has to finish three laps to beat a Riddler course. That number doesn't reset if you fall short on a second or third lap- if you've successfully completed two laps and then fail on the third, you just have to complete one more, instead of going back to zero.

** There's a hint in [[spoiler:Barbara's "death"]] that the scene is a fakeout - [[spoiler: the Joker hallucination visibly moves her gun before she picks it up.]]

** When Batman contacts Lucius to instruct him to open the Wayne Tower Parking Garage, Lucius comments with mild confusion that he believed Bruce was already in the building, hinting that [[spoiler:Hush]] had already entered the building. Given that it was after the Panessa sequence that his side mission unlocked, you can only wonder what he'd been doing the whole time. (Or it’s about the ambush that happens five seconds later.)

** During the final part of the side mission "The Perfect Crime", Professor Pyg gleefully announces that his Dollotrons have become immune to pain, meaning that Batman supposedly can't take them down by normal means. When the player actually fights them though, the Dollotrons go down just like any other mook.
** In the Mad Hatter part of the Season of Infamy DLC Bruce makes heavy use of the Remote Hacking Device to disable the bombs planted in the three cop cars. However, if playing from the start the mission unlocks at the same time as the mission to track the tires of the Militia vehicle which was used to [[spoiler:kidnap Barbra]] which occurs sometime before the Airship sequence, where you ''acquire'' the RHD.

--> '''Batman:''' [[ForScience Mixing his DNA with a vampire bat!?]] That was ''never'' [[FreakLabAccident going to end well.]]

** The worst offender is the puzzle with the clues that leave only two four-digit numbers. You learn they are map co-ordinates. The real problem is that the game's map gives these co-ordinates tiny lettering that is still hardly legible on a big screen. The map's controls rarely flow naturally to a fixed point on the map, which combined with the bad lettering makes a treasure hunt type experience frustrating.

*** Justified in that [[spoiler:Batman lied. In the audio log in Joker's character bio, Batman says that the mutated blood simply ''acts'' like a prion infection. They never had CJD in the first place!]]

** Considering that Scarecrow no longer has any actual lips, he shouldn't be able to actually pronounce about half of the consonants of the alphabet. "B" and "p" sounds are the most egregious, but it's most noticeable with his trademark "fear" since his teeth and lips can't meet to create the "f" sound anymore.

** Downplayed, unlike prior games Batman has most of his arsenal already available to him, including the line launcher, which as typically appeared partway through the campaign, although the REC, disruptor and Remote Hacking Device (which replaces the Cryptographic Sequencer) are not initially available and have tho be acquired during the story, and the Freeze grenade also has to be acquired from the movie studios, though the player is never prompted to do so. The former three are somewhat of a {{justified|Trope}}, it is mentioned that Batman surrendered the REC to the GCPD after Arkham City while the RHD and Disruptor are new upgraded versions.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: A lot of the mooks in ''Knight'' talk about their kids this time around.

--->'''Rioter:''' "This is our town!''

* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Averted. [[spoiler:Robin holds up his Bullet Shield in the finale but he doesn't have time to properly brace. Two-Face first hits the shield, knocks it away, and stuns Robin, then the bifurcated barrister shoots the bird boy in the foot, which leaves Robin on the floor with Two-Face standing over him. If it wasn't for Barbara creating a last-minute distraction, Robin would have died]].

** The Panessa Studios inmates [[spoiler:and Batman]] are said to be suffering from a strain of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, basically the human variant of Mad Cow Disease. While the whole thing clearly plays loose with real-life medicine for thematic effect, it would be easier to list what they get ''right'':
*** CJD and all prion infections are caused when a specific protein (confusingly called the "prion protein" even when it's perfectly healthy) in the nervous system misfolds in some way. Unlike other misfolded proteins in the body, which are easily disposed of, this protein, for reasons medical professionals do not understand, cannot be broken down. This protein has the ability to make the healthy proteins fold into the misfolded kind, creating a cascading effect akin to a zombie outbreak. Over time, these proteins clump up, since, as stated, the body can't dispose of them, killing brain cells and nervous cells, causing increasing mental and neurological problems until an inevitable death. Prion diseases are universally incurable (and even untreatable) and universally lethal...the only diseases that can claim such an unavoidable and unanimous kill count (even rabies is curable if you get the vaccine in time). The only saving grace of prion infections is that mercifully, they are extremely rare.
*** So with all that... they do not [[spoiler:change your personality and mannerisms to that of a specific person, give you someone else's memories, change your physiology like hair or skin color, or make you hallucinate the spirit of anyone]]…you just die a slow, agonizing death.
*** Batman claims the strain is "mutated beyond anything on medical record". Prions cannot mutate...they do not have DNA or RNA.
*** [[spoiler:Batman is able to cure himself of Joker's influence [[BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind by locking him deep in the recesses of his mind represented by Arkham Asylum's Extreme Isolation]]. Needless to say, you cannot 'out-think' a prion infection in any capacity whatsoever. It is a buildup of diseased proteins that indiscriminately eats away at your brain until your imminent death, not an evil spirit trying to hijack your body.]]

* StopHelpingMe: In-universe example: Scarecrow trying to talk up his men involves him lecturing them about precisely how scared they are and how this will potentially scar them for life. Oddly, this doesn't go over particularly well with them.