Batman: Arkham Knight Red Hood Gameplay Footage Breakdown

Yesterday we talked about Gamestop’s Red Hood DLC trailer. It’s a simple video that shows us a bit about Red Hood’s reputation in the Arkhamverse, then gives us a bit of gameplay. Some folks might have seen that as a cop-out kind of trailer, but CabooseXBL on YouTube has got a quick analysis of those four glorious seconds of gameplay that actually tells us a lot.

Things were flashing by pretty fast in the trailer, and we may have missed plenty. One of those things is the neon sign in Chinese that’s in the background at the very start of the gameplay footage. That clues us in that Red Hood’s story is probably going to take place in Gotham’s Chinatown district, perhaps in a large warehouse. After boasting seamless maps and the power of the cloud giving us even more detailed graphics in-game, it’s likely that Red Hood’s stomping grounds will be expanded greatly to give you more to explore. They’ll probably be giving the same treatment to Harley Quinn’s story pack, which will take place in Blüdhaven Police Department.

The first guy that Red Hood takes down in the gameplay footage is the victim of an undeniably awesome Stealth Takedown. Looks cleanly executed, and the poor guy probably didn’t even have time to wonder what hit him, ouch.

Weapons-wise, it looks like Red Hood could be a bit trigger-happy. You can see him just going at it with his gun, and it’s still unconfirmed if that’s something you can do regularly as Red Hood, or if it’s a special kind of takedown. In the background of this portion of the video, we can see what appears to be a glowing blue light. Those could just be fluorescent lights meant to illuminate the area, or it could be a Challenge icon for a challenge that you can activate within the story pack.

Looking at his movement, he appears to be recycling moves from his Robin days. This has given rise to speculations that Red Hood won’t have his own unique moves set, but it’s more likely that he’ll just be carrying over some of the moves like that zip kick in the video, while also adding more to his fighting style because he now has guns and no qualms with killing thugs. Rocksteady has put too much into this to just neglect him, all things considered.

Right after that zip kick, we see that the thug is another of Black Mask’s men. This is the second time we’ve seen a Black Mask thug in the video, which makes the possibility of Red Hood hunting Black Mask in this story pack a very real possibility.

The last bit of footage shows us a better view of Red Hood shooting at what appears to be someone on the ground. This appears to be cropped out of a cut scene, which is some assurance that the story pack will not be limited to just challenge maps and it won’t just have us running around, mindlessly killing everything in sight. It looks like there’ll at least be a bit of plot to back it up.

Rocksteady has mentioned that the Red Hood story pack will intersect with the Arkham Knight storyline, so will we be seeing Batman when we play as Red Hood? Maybe we’ll even get some dual-play action going. Do these possibilities look good to you? Maybe you’ve got more ideas, or a different take on what the gameplay footage is cluing us in on. Tell us in the comments!