Now, to my friends out there who've played Batman: Arkham Knight before, this may be old news but, just in case, I wanted to make sure you knew that, IMO, it's absolutely worth it to replay the game to do one thing differently:
If you did all of the side missions, then beat Scarecrow and triggered the Knightfall protocol... try beating Scarecrow first, then doing the side missions and Knightfall. You get different dialogue from many of the bosses and a ton of different ambient dialogue now that Batman has been unmasked. (One of my favorite ambients is the henchman bemoaning the fact that they've "been getting our asses kicked by Bruce Wayne???" and that's really a sign they should retire, lol! There are a lot of fun things to overhear, though; the henchman have Many Thoughts™️ on the subject, lol!)
You do all of the side missions without the Joker tagging along, however, which makes it worth playing the other way as well to get his color commentary, lol. Also, since Jason has been unmasked as the Arkham Knight and is gone, you get Deathstroke talking to/mocking/threatening/etc. you as you work through the militia missions, which gives you some different dialogue.
Almost all of the characters you interact with will mention the unmasking. Weirdly, I only found Dick Grayson/Nightwing's dialogue to be 100% the same either way 🤔🤷♀️Maybe because there'd be no way he'd leave and head back to Blüdhaven if he knew Bruce had been unmasked and that his time as Batman was over?
Harvey Dent/Two-Face has some of my very favorite comments as you're transporting him to the GCPD in the Batmobile, where he says essentially that it hasn't been Bruce Wayne on those rooftops all of those nights, that Batman is his true face. Very cool!
Oswald Cobblepot aka the Penguin has some lines the other way that I really loved, too, when Batman hasn't been unmasked yet. As he's taking him back in the Batmobile to the GCPD, Batman says something threatening and Oswald dismisses him with a line about everybody knows that he doesn't kill. To which Batman (who's falling more and more under the Joker's influence since Scarecrow hasn't been defeated yet) tells him in this slightly creepy tone that he's not feeling very much like himself tonight. And Oswald's demeanor takes this total 180 and he says something very friendly like, "Oh, you just need to get a good night's sleep, mate, that's all!" and that Batman will feel much better tomorrow. Because, of course, all of Batman's villains know that his moral code to not kill is ALL that's standing between them and an absolute bloodbath. A Batman who has SNAPPED would be a villain to give villains nightmares, indeed!
I also loved hearing Edward Nygma aka the Riddler who is absolutely in DENIAL that Batman, his arch-nemesis, is Bruce Wayne. There's NO WAY, Batman HAS to be pulling some sort of trick! 😂😂😂
You don't have to do all of the missions either way to get the Knightfall protocol, just enough that Alfred tells you preparations are complete. However, to get the final scene after the credits, you have to have done them all, including the Riddler's 90 bazillion riddles, trophies and challenges. (I did it the first time but that was enough for me. I'm head-cannoning this second time that Selina totally escaped on her own while Eddie was freaking out because Batman was ignoring him, lol!)
And then they still got this awesome BatCat kiss, even if it was off-screen... *wistful fangirly sigh* 😍😍😍😉
Anyway, don't want to be too spoilery but I just wanted to make sure that, if you've enjoyed the game, that you've experienced it both ways! Definitely a lot of fun! 💖💖💖
