Ricky Church reviews Batman: Arkham Knight – GCPD Lockdown DLC…
Though Batman: Arkham Knight was released three months ago, DLC for the game continues to trickle out through short campaign missions and challenge maps. The latest story DLC is GCPD Lockdown and, unlike Batgirl’s A Matter of Family in July, the events of Lockdown take place after Arkham Knight. Following the events of Arkham Knight, The Penguin attempts to break out of the GCPD to rule the underworld once again and Nightwing takes it upon himself to see Penguin remains behind bars.
The first initial thought upon completion of the story was how short it was. It wasn’t even near the length of A Matter of Family and felt too brief. I had also assumed, going into the campaign, there would be more of an assault on the GCPD to break Penguin out. The campaign, however, features a couple brawls you must fight through and an extended Predator encounter. There wasn’t much to set these encounters apart from anything in Arkham Knight aside from the fact you were playing as Nightwing instead of Batman. A Matter of Family at least had a timed element during the physical fights to change things up, but here it was just a matter of endurance, a very easy feat to accomplish for Arkham veterans.
Given that this takes place after Arkham Knight, it would be easy to assume the DLC would touch on the game’s somewhat ambiguous ending. Though it does mention the Knightfall protocol, it makes no effort to clarify the ending or further explore what’s happened to Gotham City and its other defenders in the wake of Scarecrow’s attack. That factor is a bit of a letdown, yet it’s also one that doesn’t entirely detract from the DLC’s story.
While the gameplay didn’t differ too much from the previous Arkham games, it was fun to play as Nightwing for such an extended period of time. He has much less gadgets than Batman does so this forces the player to rely more on hitting enemies and taking them down as quickly as possible as opposed to freezing, shocking or planting explosives on them. The same thing goes for the Predator encounter; stealth is a much more preferable option than direct confrontation. Even still though, it doesn’t vary much from other Predator of physical fights. Another added benefit to playing as Nightwing is the character’s lightheartedness. His dialogue is very much humour driven and in character. He has several good lines, especially with regard to his back-and-forth bickering with Penguin.
GCPD Lockdown is a fun campaign mission, but one that is all too brief with not much replay value. The gameplay could have been longer with more variables to offer a challenge for veterans of the series. The fact that Lockdown doesn’t totally build off the consequences of Arkham Knight’s ending, nor give more insight into it, is also a small disappointment. There’s enough entertainment value as Nightwing that gets the character right though. As I also said with A Matter of Family, if you’re not already a Season Pass holder for DLC content I’d suggest holding off on getting this until a DLC bundle or Arkham Knight’s eventual Game of the Year Edition to get this piece.
Rating: 6.5/10
Ricky Church
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=qvTY7eXXIMg
Originally published September 29, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
