A year after my original playthrough, I suddenly had an urge to collect every riddler trophy and take on new game plus. This lead to 10 discoveries.

1. Core Gameplay in Arkham Knight is stellar. The Challenge map extra mode is demonstrates. Especially as a sizeable improvement on previous games that aspect is brilliant.
Pro-Tip: pick up baseball bats off the floor and beat ppl with them. Highly effective.

2. Quite Ironically, Riddler is the best boss fight in the game. That aspect is quite disappointing compared to Arkham City. There’s nothing comparable to fighting Mr. Freeze, Clayface, or Ra’s Al Ghul in Arkham Knight.

3. Batmobile Racing kicks ass. Zooming in and picking off drones with Perfect/Critical shots to power your secondary weapons is very satisfying in Batmobile combat.

4. It’s very easy to download and install costume mods online. There’s great stuff out there too.

5. The story, while bombastic, is full of holes and leaves massive gaping questions.

6. Mark Hamill’s Joker as a haunting sidekick/npc/villain was brilliant. He’s a perfect comedic relief throughout the game before a really epic villain climax before the end.

7. The alternate playable characters are heavily underutilized in story mode.

8. I wish you had full freedom to investigate side missions to completion. Story progress determines a lot. Not a very “open” world.

9. There’s something viscerally satisfying, about personally driving Batman’s enemies to be locked in this game. Especially from a completionist prospective, GCPD might be a favorite hub area for me now. It’s probably the smartest idea of game design going on here.

10. This game still looks next-gen however many years later….. 3D Graphics are peaking. It’s time for higher era of art direction.

Modern classic. The architecture and music create an unmatched vibe. You’re skulking through the lions den getting ambushed at every turn, but the deadliest creature at play is you.

Playing this makes me appreciate my childhood favorite, Arkham City, a lot more. I find the combat awkward quite often as Batman fails to lock onto targets. There’s also a lack of options overall in combat and stealth, and the absolute low point are the boss fights, with endless dumb wall-charging monsters, and somehow the final boss is the easiest.

But this game will always be dope. And I would love a mod that took the unique UI of this game and stuck it in the generic digital tech-fest visuals in the sequels.