What if Hush found Hugo Strange's logs in Arkham City, revealing Bruce's identity. After that he approaches Crane to destroy Batman together from both identities, with Hush tarnishing Bruce's reputation while Crane tarnishes Batman's. Maybe that was Dini's way of connecting Hush and Crane?
And you could still have a militia like force, with them being funded by Hush as he pretends to be Bruce Wayne. This gives Deathstroke more of a reason to be included instead of just tacked on at the end, it gives a chance for Lucius Fox to have a bigger role in the narrative, hell even Two Face and Penguin could’ve had more done for them because they both know Bruce Wayne and it could lead to some cool dialogue or interactions. Maybe they think he went nuts after being thrown in Arkham City or something, some cool wordbuilding could come out of it. It gives more room for them to flesh out the characters they showed off in AK, but never gave any real depth to
Arkham knight could have done a public reveal broadcast as Bruce Wayne (hush) which then causes Wayne tower and mansion to be infiltrated by Argus. This would be planned on purpose by hush and scarecrow to pressure Bruce to reveal himself as Batman and not the knight which adds so much more logic and motive to the ending where he gives up to scarecrow
@@memiaszzinternetu6513 also the whole reason Bruce took Jason under his wing is so that he doesn’t become a dangerous criminal, so Joker turned Jason into what Bruce would fear
@@SoyboyPeterIndeed Jason’s death is directly tied to how Batman is in the games. The change I would’ve made is instead have Jason reveal himself at ACE Chemicals at the beginning of the game and deep dive further in flashbacks and the psychological breaking of Bruce Jason ties directly into Bruce’s fears whereas Hush really doesnt as nearly to a degree Maybe you can still in someway tie Hush into the main story as well. Maybe it’s a sort of triumvirate instead, Scarecrow is the psychological threat, Jason is the more physical threat, and Hush is the shadowy manipulator threat (using the guise of Bruce Wayne to turn his life upside down).
I think that Jason could’ve made a great side character. You get reports from Cash on how someone is killing criminals. How people who witnessed it saw Jason move like someone who was trained by Batman. You build up Jason and see that Bruce discovers it’s Jason. They have a huge boss fight and by the end Jason helps the Batfamily.
I honestly like that the Arkham Knight was a main antagonist. Maybe they could’ve had Scarecrow, Hush, AND Jason be the main antagonists. Rocksteady definitely shouldn’t have gotten rid of Paul Dini and he totally should’ve written Arkham Knight. Hush should’ve been better. Same with Deathstroke. I think if Paul Dini wrote the game then he could’ve made the execution with Jason and Hush better. Perhaps maybe the writer that ended up writing Arkham Knight, Geoff Johns, could have written the game but alongside Paul Dini. That’s just my take though. Also, I think Azrael’s side mission in Batman: Arkham Knight was actually really good.
I like ur idea but instead of makin it seem like he was trained by Batman to make it more interesting they should make it seem like he could rival Batman ofc Jason can’t but it would be more suspenseful bc people would be like okay so who tf can rival Batman, tbh they coulda had him workin with hush and scarecrow but more as a separate team like they’ll sometimes share information
Yeah, but that'd be way to simular to azrael, and if they have Jason Todd it wouldn't make any sense on why he isn't a major player in the story considering his connection to batman, they could have made it a triumvarite between Jason, Scarecrow and Hush but even then Hush and Scarecrow wouldn't have any chemistry, with Jason you can tell he's just using Scarecrow as a means to an end and then if Hush is using the same reason that'd just be cheap, Maybe Hush and Jason together without Scarecrow could work but I couldnt see all three of them together
@@somerandofromoregon If Arkham Knight was still the antagonist I'd prefer he be a new character as advertised while Jason returns as the Red Hood. Maybe the antagonist who switches sides in-between.
I was just about to say, Scarecrow is like the only other Gotham rogue that Hush tolerates, & they have worked together before to manipulate everybody else.
In Heart of Hush (Written by Dini) it is revealed that Crane was a psychiatrist to young Thomas Elliot and in the present he kind of helps Hush with his plan against Batman, I think this could have been a way to unite them in the game.
It's wild to me that Hush killed six people just so he could walk past Bruce's receptionist. Hush could always impersonate Bruce to funnel his money into Scarecrow's plans, only for it to become gradually apparent this is affecting Batman somehow.
I remember reading "a leak" just before Knight came out, which was the Knight was a clone of Bruce Wayne, which is why he knows Batman's techniques. They "hinted" at this, by the Cadmus sign in the steel mill in Arkham City's HQ DLC, which is not there in the main game.
I feel there's tons of little hints to storylines across City & Harley Quinn's Revenge that could've payed off in an epic odyssey of a plot in a 3rd Arkham game. Ideally, Arkham Knight's story would've been close to something like an RDR2 in length imo. Covering the League's return & Talia's resurrection, Harley's baby (instead of dropping that), Hush's grand plan, & Azrael factoring in the story.
I'm gonna one up on Dini's pitch; Make it a triumvirate of Scarecrow - Hush - Prometheus. Having just Scarecrow and Hush while sounding okay would mean scrapping the entire militia invading storyline of Knight. So I'd set it up as following; - Scarecrow; obviously wanting revenge on Batman of what happened to him back in Asylum - Hush; wanting vengeance on Bruce Wayne (for Thomas saving his mother) and Gotham city overall to be in ruins due to it not giving what he deserves. - Prometheus; Prometheus's origins stems from his parents who are criminals being killed by cops. Have a flashback scene where Batman (who sometime before Arkham Asylum), failed to stop the kill. Prometheus growing up resents Batman and the cop who killed his parents. So it's not just one mystery Batman has to solve, it's two with Hush & Prometheus. And Prometheus can take the Commander role which Arkham Knight has. Not to mention this triumvirate will keep Batman plenty busy, and may even stretch him thin if they recruit other rogues to join their cause to work together (a concept which Knight says, but never really properly implemented).
Including Prometheus presents the same problem as the Arkham Knight/Jason Todd addition. The audience isn't gonna care bc they never appeared until now. If you want a triumphant you could just use Deathstroke. He's somewhat still a physical match for Batman
Yeah, but promethius was mentioned in the previous arkham games through the character profiles so it wouldn't really be a mystery, and he'd be too simular to azrael
True, but either approach would be a money printing machine. The comic will sell well because it’s Batman But the game, while being way more expensive to make, would most likely make more money in the long run especially if it takes advantage of the powerful hardware used by modern consoles and computers, mixed with a more polished version of the Arkham series formula without the jank of Origins and Knight.
God I’m so happy you’re making a video on this!!! I rant about this to everyone whenever talking about the Arkham games because it would’ve been such an epic finale! The AUDACITY of rocksteady to go “mmm you know Paul Dini? The guy who wrote some of the best episodes of BTAS and also both of the stories for the games that made us?? Yeah, that Paul Dini. What if we just….canned his idea? lol.” Fools. Rapscallions. It all led up to them making that suicide squad game, and we all saw how that turned out!
I'm starting to think WB executives made the move too let Dini go cause as we seen they try to follow trends and I think that's what led to Jason Todd being antagonist
@ I agree because it also seemed like they let him go so they could still cram the joker in it, since it seemed like Dini wanted to stray away from him and focus on scarecrow and hush
There was actually a reference to Jason Todd in Arkham Asylum. At the end of the medical facility section, Joker says "...Hell you can have Harley, seems like you could use a new sidekick."
There actually a direct reference to Robin in asylum, if you go to the visitor centre after locking Harley up, Joker will rant about he’s done with her before asking Batman what’s it like in his organisation, how does he punish his hired help when they fail him, before saying “Or is that green and red outfit punishment enough for him?”
I mean..., it hasn't been officially confirmed that line from "Batman: Arkham Asylum" is referencing Jason Todd... For all we know that line could just be referencing Dick Grayson moving on from Robin and becoming Nightwing.
@@gameover9390 I think that specifically sounds like a general reference to any Robin be it Dick, Jason, or Tim when the OP comment is specifically about references to Jason.
@@whattheworldneedsiscreativ6421 At the time that was true. But I guess the leap was made that it refers to Jason because of Asylum Batman being advanced in his career. With later canon however, it's confusing what that line is referring to because we know Tim was Robin by Asylum.
If I had to guess why Rocksteady chose Geoff Johns over Paul Dini, I'd say it is because Geoff Johns had so much power at the time. During the development and release of Arkham Knight, Geoff Johns was the Chief Creative Officer of DC Entertainment and became president of DC Entertainment a year after this game's release
I think the theme of Arkham Knight, which worked well by having it be Jason Todd, is in Bruce's guilt in having to, as the Joker said, "drag your friends in this crazy, little game of ours." Jason Todd is the product of Bruce's fear. The cost of allowing allies to work along side him but being powerless to protect them. Just like what almost happened to barbara for the most of the game, and to tim drake at the end so you can see how it all ties together. That being said, wish they didn't lie about arkham knight being an original character and just have the villain be straight up red hood
@@b1ackspid3r43 Paul Dini never got that far according to his response on X. He said Rocksteady wanted to take some time off after City & when they started up again, they already had a story. He didn't even know about Harley Quinn's Revenge until he saw it an ad.
I'm fine with the Todd story and I woulda been fine with Hush. I feel like Todd is a better emotional story but Dini would've been a better narrative overall. Knight will stay my favorite Arkham game no matter the situation
I honestly think Jason is the better pick not only is he more personal to Batman but he’s also just a better character than Hush. The change I would’ve made is the timeline of the identity reveal. Instead my idea would be Jason confronts Batman alone at ACE Chemicals reveals himself and the rest of the game deep dives into how that effects Bruce and we get flashbacks fleshing it out And Bruce is being psychologically broken by Jason and Crane (fear toxin) No need for Joker blood transformation, just Bruce’s mind straight up breaking and going crazy, hallucinating Joker more and more Maybe it even leads to Bruce nearly killing Jason or Crane in a confrontation as well. Jason would’ve worked much better here because then you can further service his character, without veiling development behind a mystery
I think Jason Todd would’ve been a better side mission reveal than Hush’s side mission in ‘Knight’, that’s for sure. I don’t think it’d bother me for either to be a part of the main story either though.
I do like Hush and Scarecrow working together and would be fun, it could go like this: - Batman still gets hit with Fear Toxin in ACE Chemicals building (this would be important) - Jason I feel would still be needed to be involved but have him as a neutral party, have him initially happy to see Batman and make it an emotional moment as Jason believes the rumors about Batman killing Joker finally. However Jason notices something is off about Batman and notices Batman's eyes are flashing green like The Joker's. This causes Jason to try and kill Batman thinking somehow The Joker has taken over Batman in death with this logic backed up by Batman's gradual personality shifts in recent months that Jason has been following - Have Hush still get into Wayne Enterprises with the intent of taking Bruce's money to fund Scarecrow's operation to kill Batman by having it seem like Bruce Wayne has turned into a terrorist. Have Hush trick Lucious into opening the files and at this point Lucious assuming it is Bruce brings up Batman and the evening's threats. Hush figures out thanks to Lucious that Bruce Wayne is Batman and ends up leaving. Have actual Batman call Lucious a few minutes after this and let Lucious put everything together that he fucked up bigtime. - Batman has 3 villains, Jason assuming Batman has fallen to Joker, Hush and Scarecrow. Batman is forced to tell everyone what is going on with him due to his interaction with Jason and not having any other options, calls in Nightwing to deal with Jason given there history and how Jason looked up to him. We actually get to play as Nightwing while he tracks down Jason and eventually Nightwing is able to bring Jason back around and ask them to help get Bruce back under control - With new info, Scarecrow attacks Wayne Manor, raising the stakes and have Scarecrow kill Alfred (like actually Kill Alfred no illusion) With Batman's mind devastated Joker takes full control of Batman now, we play as a Jokerized Batman who battles Hush now; who is now dressing like Batman to mock Bruce. Ends poorly for Hush as he is crippled but Jokerized Batman makes a mistake; he takes off Hush's mask and turns him into the GCPD as everyone thinks that the Hush Batman is the actual real Batman and is Bruce Wayne and this violent version is Hush. Despite losing Hush has actual won as he is now Bruce Wayne to the public. - Jason, Nightwing and Robin team up to go after Jokerized Batman but are folded easily. This Batman is able to track down Scarecrow to take him down but Scarecrow gets the better of him, traps him and the end sequence of Arkham Knight plays out just like it did, this mad version of Batman exposed as Bruce Wayne, the public now confused. Have the internal struggle of Batman and Joker play out but instead of Batman breaking free, have Dick come in with Jason and Robin (Dick dressed like Batman) and take down Scarecrow, with Dick thanking Mr Wayne for his help due to the feed still being live to Gotham with Dick as Batman explaining to Scarecrow that Mr Wayne offered to help Batman after learning Hush hacked and stole his fortune and falsely believed that Bruce was Batman. This way Batman's identity is safe as the public byes this.
Yeah if scarecrow or hush had found out batman identity from something hugo strange left behind, that would be a good way they could team up. Additionally, hush having access to bruce Wayne's identity could fuel their rise to power, and having scarecrow mess with Batman's mind while hush sabotages bruce wayne on the other end would also work, with the story of them trying to ruin batman with everything still at play. This could maybe even go so far as to use Batman's gadgets against him.
11:08 I feel like joker wouldn’t least appear in one hallucination scene seeing as we had foreshadowing for the joker hallucination at the end of Mr freeze’s boss fight
Harley’s child is also a remnant of Dini’s plans for Arkham Knight. The positive test was in the main Arkham city game when he was still working with rocksteady but then in Harley Quinn’s revenge, which Dini did not work on they placed a bunch of negative tests and a “may result in false positive” warning on the box, basically retconning the test as a false positive. Most people think Batman made Harley “miscarriage” when he fought her in the church but the story line was just abandoned and rocksteady reconned the test.
The unresolved arc of Harley Quinn being positive for pregnancy no doubt would've played a part in the original Arkham Knight's story as well. Maybe it would even serve connecting thread between Hush and Scarecrow somehow...
I imagine them doing a bait and switch where you start the game as Bruce Wayne and then slowly realize you’re actually playing as Hush. Having the game make you kill people and say things that don’t quite match up and then reveal that you’re Elliot in disguise. He could have figured out his identity through Lucious Fox and then gained access to his Batman equipment. Makes way more sense how he would be an “Arkham Knight” type of character. There’s so much to play off of from their childhood too
I like Geoff Johns as a writer but Paul Dini probably had a better plan in mind for the game. I've got an idea as to how Hush and Scarecrow could have teamed up. Scarecrow was most likely looking for a doctor after getting mauled by Killer Croc and probably found Hush (you can find some of Scarecrow's fear canisters in his lair) who patched him up, Hush probably offered to help Scarecrow in exchange for help getting revenge on Bruce Wayne (kind of like how Hush got a favour out of RIddler in the comics). Maybe while Scarecrow got to talking with Hush during his recovery, Hush told him of his plan and then Hush snuck into Hugo Strange's personal room while Hugo was gone to city hall (to steal some stuff that would help him with his identity theft recovery) where he found the information that revealed Batman's identity.
No doubt Paul Dini's Arkham Knight idea would have been Way better with Hush and Scarecrow. Rocksteady's arkham knight was greatly disappointing for me .
4:15 actually there are more references to Jason appearing in Batman Arkham than just that moment, since Arkham Asylum actually the moment that Harley has Gordon Joker tells us "if you get to Harley without alerting the guards i'll give you Gordon, hell i may even give you Harley because you probably need a new sidekick" meaning that Joker has Jason already and after that moment if you go to visit joker at the Visit room where the endgame takes place Joker will ask Batman if he punishes his helpers or if that silly outfit that they wear is already too much of a punishment
What if: Jason could have teamed with both Scarecrow AND Hush. Scarecrow wants to destroy Batman, Hush wants to destroy Bruce Wayne, Jason wants Bruce dead. Jason tells Scarecrow and Hush that Batman and Bruce are one in the same and let them tear him apart mentally and metaphorically, so that when they’re done Jason can get revenge on Bruce by torturing him like he had been tortured and then have his chance to kill him. Whether Batman lives or not? Depends where they would want to take the story from there. Would that work in a video game setting? Probably not at the end, but we may never know.
Yeah he just had loose ideas. They basically said “don’t hesitate to take other offers” because they were planning on not using freelance writers for the third game. Probably just for budget reasons or simply to make it easier for communication and adjustments without needing outside approval or input
I think Hush and Scarecrow could have been working their plans separately, almost like Batman being attacked on two fronts, leaving him debilitated. And perhaps a connecting factor would be Jason Todd. Perhaps Jason keeps appearing as the Red Hood or Arkham Knight to assist both villains in some way. Scarecrows siege of Gotham was only possible because of what Jason knew. So perhaps he would be integral to both the Hush and Scarecrow’s success in tarnishing Bruce. But only Jason would know that they were hurting the same person. And at the end Bruce finds out who the Red Hood is.
I believe that Dini wanted to introduce the joker's son, since he wasn't involved with "Harley Quinn's Revenge". He would do something very original for the third one, that's for sure.
I'm a month late and no one may read this, but Scarecrow and Hush have worked together in a story called Heart of Hush that was written by Paul Dini himself. Before he became Scarecrow, Crane was actually Tommy's psychiatrist when Bruce and Tommy were just kids. In that story Hush and Crane refer to each other as "Mentor". and "Pupil" that goes to show what their relationship was like. It's a shame that we didn't get that story in video game format. Crane in the games is older than Batman as well, so maybe the seeds were planted early on before they switched writers.
I seriously don't get it when people say that "Batman: Arkham Knight" is an absolute masterpiece and go out of their way to defend it whenever people try to criticize it... Like..., is it *still* one of the most graphically impressive video games? Yes. But is its overall story/narrative as griping and well written as the previous Batman Arkham video games that were written by Paul Dini? *NO* lol... Just no lol... 1. The whole quote-unquote "main mystery" throughout "Batman: Arkham Knight" of "Who is the Arkham Knight?" just doesn't work... like at all lol... I've literally watched a playthrough from a gamer who has *only* seen the live-action Batman movies and who has never read a single Batman comic in their life and they immediately figured out and deduced who the Arkham Knight is as soon the game literally started blatantly showing flashbacks of Joker torturing Jason Todd... Like..., the overuse of Jason Todd flashback hallucinations in Panessa Studios were such a dead give away that literally anyone could've seen it coming and it's like the writers at Rocksteady Studios didn't even want to try to write an intriguing mystery plot but they still went ahead and had Bruce be totally ignorant trying desperately to deduce who the Arkham Knight is and Bruce just ends up looking like a total dumbass and not at all like the world's greatest detective when he literally doesn't find out who the Arkham Knight is up until Jason finally reveals himself lol... It's just not an impactful reveal and makes Bruce/Batman seem real dumb since he fully believed Joker killed Jason because the guy recorded a video of him shooting Jason in the armored chest, no body or anything at any point, Batman fully believed Joker's video (when it was established he doesn't trust Joker at all in "Batman: Arkham Asylum" and "Batman: Arkham City"), and moved on. 2. Also, the whole quote-unquote "twist" of Jason Todd being the Arkham Knight added nothing important to the game in my opinion and it only left Jason feeling unsympathetic due to him killing *sooo* many innocent people indirectly through working with Jonathan Crane as well as the other villains... I think it's an actively bad twist that makes Jason less interesting than in other versions where he has some morals. Hell, his motive in Arkham Knight just being about getting revenge on Batman is *exactly* what "Batman: Under the Red Hood" has Jason explicitly lampshade in that story as a simple motive that would make him a bad guy, and that is what his motive *is* in "Batman: Arkham Knight". What makes Jason Todd such a great character is that he's just like Batman, the only difference is he's willing to stop villains for good. He's still a vigilante, and an anti-hero at worst, so "Batman: Arkham Knight" making him a full fledged villain who works with Scarecrow and Deathstroke and having him indirectly kill innocent people makes him an unsympathetic, irredeemable villain. It's a shame because I think Jason Todd is Batman's most interesting supporting character, when done right unlike in "Batman: Arkham Knight"... 3. Holy shit, they *completely* wasted Hush in "Batman: Arkham Knight" lmao... That mystery at the end of "Batman: Arkham City" surrounding Hush was fantastic and Hush could’ve been the main villain of the game along with Scarecrow. Instead all that build up led to nothing in "Batman: Arkham Knight". Nothing but a ten minute side mission where you end up just pressing counter once to defeat Hush... Like that is *so* crazy to me lol... Hush had this amazing side quest in "Batman: Arkham City" which set him up for a bigger role in the sequel and then it just seemed like he was just added into "Batman: Arkham Knight" as a complete afterthought... You hardly have to do anything for the ten minute side mission Hush is given in "Batman: Arkham Knight"... 4. Holy shit, they *completely* wasted Deathstroke in "Batman: Arkham Knight" lmao... Another tank fight that's literally just a reuse of the Cloudburst boss fight that the player already had with the Arkham Knight on Bleake Island lol... 5. It's so sad, that after all that teasing and set up from "Batman: Arkham City", the roles played by Azrael, Hush (already typed about this...), Ra's al Ghul, and Harley Quinn were basically nothing in "Batman: Arkham Knight". In the end, it was all about the Arkham Knight / Jason Todd / Red Hood... Which was also basically nothing as I've already typed about... They could've played up Harley Quinn's insanity (do you remember that "Batman: Arkham City - Harley Quinn's Revenge" DLC?) and Ra's al Ghul's desperation for really good additions to the main story and Azrael and Hush deserved so much more than what they got as well... Just missed opportunity on top of missed opportunity and so much wasted story potential in "Batman: Arkham Knight"...
It's funny to think that they setup and developed Hush way more than Jason, who wasn't even mentioned til AK... And Hush ended up being that errrrr thing that we got. Truly disappointing
@@SoyboyPeterhush was at least set up in Arkham city. Jason is literally not mentioned once throughout the series and now suddenly he is one of the main antagonists. Terrible writing.
@@friendlyreaper9012I mean that isnt a fair argument. Hugo Strange wasnt set up in Asylum at all. Doesnt mean he cant be the main antagonist. Sure setting up Arkham Knight wouldve helped make him a better villain, but not doing so doesnt make him bad. The whole Marvel post credit, set up thing has people thinking that its necessary for good writing. It isnt, it adds to it sure, but it isnt necessary. Arkham Knight was bad writing, but not because he wasnt set up
I distinctly remember back in the day after Arkham City came out, there was some doubts by people online that there would be a sequel. People pointed out that Dini hadn't worked on the Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC, and since he was leaving, it led to some unease. And later when Origins release it made me nervous again because it was a prequel and not a sequel which also didn't include Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy
If the Arkham knight (the character) never existed and it was just red hood and joker survived Arkham city and Jason would just go after joker and batman stopped him it would be better fr and maybe scarecrow too
8:20 what if hush had already started taking Wayne's money before the game started so scarecrow reached out to him so gotham would be invaded by a Wayne funded army.
Great video, glad to hear someone talk about potential details of the original vision. I think if Paul Dini was still writing it, the Arkham trilogy could’ve gone down as one of the best trilogies of all time. His vision for Asylum and City was amazing and City set up so much. I think many people who played them before Knight know that feeling of disappointment, even if you like it regardless.
They really still could've had Red Hood show up, scraping "Own The Roads" as a Side mission and utilizing Red Hood instead. A series of predator missions, investigation missions, and a boss fight that was like the one we got in the game. At the end you still get Red Hood unveiled as Jason and also a viable companion later in the game. There honestly should've been more team up instances as well if I'm being honest.
I now also wonder since Riddler was also a part of the Hush comic story, if he was supposed to be connected to Paul Dini's story. I mean he first kidnapps gcpd officers in the church where we saw Hush, an in one of his lairs there was fear gas canisters. Those might have been subtle setup for their team up reveal at some point.
7:41 I'd say that they'd work together by each of them destroy Bruce and Batman's life. Hush would ruin Bruce's life (Business, relationships, while SC ruins Batman's life.. I.E the city
I really like hearing your take on this video and I always come back and rewatch it a few times just because it felt interesting and engaging to me. First off, I believe having Scarecrow and Hush as the main villains would actually be awesome to see in the story because one, Scarecrow imo was a good pick for the main villain in Knight and two, Hush to me kinda makes sense for a main story villain instead of just being a somewhat redundant side mission like in the original game. Not to mention that I quite liked the idea of Scarecrow ruining Batman's legacy and Hush ruining Bruce Wayne's legacy and I thought that sounded like an awesome idea. Also, I would've loved to see Azrael appear as another character in the story too, but I rather see him as some sort of ally for Batman and/or the Bat-Family. One more thing, I also thought including Jason Todd in the Arkhamverse was a solid idea, but the way he was presented in the story was definitely a complete bummer. That's all I'm gonna say.
They were prisoners of the moment. Johns was a hot name at the time. He had come off to major, successful stories in Flash Point and the Darkest Night events. He was getting all kinds of opportunities, even getting a shot to handle the DC cinematic universe. WB went with the “sizzle” over the “steak.”
I have made this inference years before Arkham Knight released, on a Arkham City Hush mission video on RUclips. They displayed the Arkham Knight, and since Hush and Batman's meet in the City, it was obvious that Hush would be the main character for the Arkham Knight, also holding a two gun signature. That's very evil that they dumped Dini, he's a great writer for Batman and also for Kevin Conroy since wasting his effort on both that story and SSKJL.
And also with Arkham City, the story peaked. They could somehow connect to Talia and Ra's (I'm aware of the DLC but yet) Also Batman : The Hust comic was out there and obviously it would kinda be the same for the story. Rest was up to Dini.
What could've been done to bridge City and Knight is DLC focusing on Jason Todd for Arkham City. What if you start the DLC as Bruce Wayne and you can walk around a bat cave with interactables. When you interact with the costumes Bruce gives a little history, so you have say the Golden age costume maybe the Batman the animated series costume and then as just a little cheese for the audience maybe a proto Batman beyond costume that he's developing. Then you could look through the robins get a little history about the robins and then finally you get to Jason Todd's costume and it starts story mode. Alfred addresses that it is the anniversary of the passing of Master Todd, Bruce take a deep breath fades to black... then the game can go down either two paths. You play as a younger Batman and Jason Todd is your sidekick and you guys are going out and fighting crime together. Alternatively when we come out of fade to Black we see that we're in the perspective of Jason and we're playing a young Robin. The narrative needs to focus on theirs ideological differences and maybe you could either do some slight time skipping for each little mission Jason's a bit older maybe a bit more brash until we finally get a solo mission without Batman and we're back at the asylum. That's where Jason gets jumped and captured by Harley Quinn and Joker and it ends with Joker getting ready to get to work on him with a crowbar and then you fade to Black. Return control to Bruce Wayne he's got a tear in his eye. He addresses that he was never certain what happened to Jason that night after he left and that he has nightmares about what could have happened. So that'll address how does Batman remember the parts he's not there for if Jason's on a solo mission, it's his imagination playing up the idea of Jason being on this mission being all alone in Arkham Asylum being abducted by the crazies of the asylum. At least then you can have this bridge between City and Knight and it feels built up. Instead Knight writes a mystery in one of the worst ways possible where a brand new villain is introduced that audiences have never known before only for that villain to be a brand new character in the protagonist history that audiences have never known before. In the comics the Hush story line is literally about how there's this all new villain we've never heard of called Hush and then we're introduced to Bruce Wayne's best friend and all new character we've never heard of called Tommy Elliott. It's one of the worst ways to tell a mystery because there's literally only one culprit that could be the new villain that is the new character. The frustrating aspect of Arkham Knight is that it feels like it's more engrossed in the idea of the big reveal rather than conveying a strong story. It feels like since Batman is such a prolific literary character if they just made it Red Hood for those of us who know Batman lore it wouldn't shock us when the big revelation happens but it still would probably be a big revelation to anybody new to the Batman lore. So instead the way Arkham Knight is written it feels like it's being written to trick those with pre established knowledge. Like the Batman Hush movie that intentionally changed it's ending. It's as though the change is meant to be this big shock to the knowledgeable when for most it's just more frustrating because it feels like they wrote Under the Red Hood at a lower quality and with extra steps while incidentally I guess a precursor to three Jokers. And if they wanted to make this game work as is they should have had Hush teaming up with the Arkham Knight. Because then you can have Hush, as Tommy Elliott going after Bruce Wayne the man while the Arkham Knight is a perversion of Batman.
Instead of the Asylum remake that’s being rumored. They should remake Knight & include a more fleshed out hush, it’s the same exact game. But just add extra hush content. Or at least just a Seasons Of Infamy style DLC. Idk.
As a casual who doesn’t care for superhero’s , I thought this game was cool. When Arkham Knight was announced I didn’t care about the story or the continuity, I just wanted another cool Batman game and I got that. This game 100% did well with general audiences who don’t care about world building and story arcs, the gameplay was just so damn fun
Arkham Knight is just Batman Unchained jammed into the Arkhamverse. The biggest draw of Unchained was Clooney Batman hallucinating Nicholson Joker with Scarecrow as the big bad. Another grab from unfinished work is Batman DarKnight which would've had Man-Bat and She-Bat. There are a few clearly missing villains in Knight that we all already know but for those who don't there's Anarky who's suspiciously missing unless he was originally supposed to be in the diner at the start. Clayface which I argue was supposed to be somewhere since you can find props covered in a clay colored substance. And the last example, Zsasz; whose model is used in a sort of easter egg and a riddle clearly pointing at him being active, and the in-game files showing Zsasz being a mission. As a question, there are 2 helicopter crashes, one over by a Pyg victim and one of Hatter's cars the other atop a building, which as far as I know are never seen happening. What caused these crashes? Was that stuff cut?
Another thing about the representation between Scarecrow and Hush. Scarecrow represents the mind because of the fear toxin, showing Bruce the darkest and most twisted sides of his own thoughts, whilst hush represents the body, appearing like a healthier Bruce Wayne, a Bruce Wayne more fit for the role than the real one, which I think is really really cool. Bruce would feel entirely broken, a shadow of his former self
This explains so much. I remember the beta for Knight being shown and the devs saying that the Arkham Knight was an all new character only for it to be Todd the next year. Johns is one of DC's classic writers that starts out hot (see early work up to his Green Lantern run) that gets too far out there (New 52 Justice League and beyond) to the point that it turns readers off. Looks like the third Arkham game fell to that too.
I mean, maybe it for the best they went with Geoff Johns. As good as Paul Dini was and how gratefal i am for everything he's given us with Bruce Timm, i'm sorry to say that if the recent Batman: Caped Crusader show has proved anything, he might be losing his touch on how to write for the DC. He gender-swapped Penguin completely destroying the character on the dumb excuse that "Batman lacks good female villains" and as a result has lost quite a lot of faith from fans. So case in point is i wouldn't say he's perfect anymore and can't really blame the developers for shelving his original idea if decisions like that was on the horizon. Granted this was 2015 and way before everything started turning woke in 2020, but still, even with the story being centred on Hush & Scarecrow, i don't think it was totally unreasonable for Rocksteady not to want to take the risk. But even then they still could've found someone better then Geoff Johns. I firmly believe Grant Morrison could've written an excellent story for Arkham Knight.
It's also worth noting that Asylum and City have a very distinct artstyle and world-style. The Arkham architecture, the buildings, the character design, the story, all this has some otherworldly feel to it with some fantasy vibes that are a bit hard to pinpoint. Arkham Knight made it all more realistic and scientific. I guess with Paul Dini the 3rd Arkham game would retain that style.
Hush would be perfect to explain how the militia exists in taking the whole town hostage. It would just use Bruce's money to fund the army. Scarecrow leading the rest of the side-villains would keep Batman to much occupied for him to go and keep Hush at bay. They don't even need to work together in the beginning for the story to work. The side-villains would be perfect in escalating the stakes, since they are disorganized, and provoking chaos, Batman is jumping all over the city trying to catch them all. Then the news present that Bruce Wayne (Hush) has bought a personal army and invades Gotham, complicating things even more. It's way easier than saying that Jason magically acquired billions of dollars from nowhere and spent it all in getting a personal army who is well trained in hunting Batman, except not (I still remember Arkham Knight's first scene where he instructs them to not shoot at the chest).
the problem with Arkham Knight as a character isn't just that he's Red Hood in a different skin but that he's Red Hood but worse while. Red Hood was a solo vigilante who killed criminals and *nobody else* making him fairly easy to redeem. Arkham Knight controls a an entire militia who committed who knows how many atrocities and that's not even counting all the stuff they did *onscreen* - He oversaw the murders of innocent Ace Chemical plant workers - joined scarecrow's plan which would have lead to the deaths of so many people. Hell, he's the one operating the cloudburst tank! - He's the one who gassed the diner which resulted in dozens of innocent deaths even if you don't shoot anyone! And at the end of the day, he still gets the normal Red Hood Redemption arc even though he's done nothing to deserve. he's just an awful character
The identity of Arkham Knight should’ve been more of a mystery to begin with and something Batman should’ve solved with multiple culprits theorized. But Jason Todd makes sense since he has this connection to joker which starts affecting Batman’s psyche. But I just don’t think it was executed well especially comparing it to the Under the Red Hood movie.
Azrael could've been an ally in the beginning of the game to stop Scarecrow and at some point Hush could have began to impersonate him to get into Batman's cave and do damage from within. Big reveal would come after finding Az being held captive without his suit, only to meet up with the imposter afterwards like nothing had changed. I feel like if Hush is involved in a storyline he needs to impersonate somebody somehow other than Bruce. He could have also posed as a GCPD officer in the beginning of the game. I feel like another street level hero could've been added to the game like the Question or Simon Dark for some DLC content, or maybe another Gotham hero like Ragman.
It's crazy the things that get cut from video games, and most of the time they sound cool like controlling the weather in Bioshock: Infinite, Ada Wong being in RE: Village and a different way we would've met the Duke just to name a few
It could have also incorporated the batfamily more have Hush be targeting Bruce Wayne through his children. Unlike in most media nightwing and Robin aren’t being targeted for being Batmans sidekicks but Dick and Tim are being targeted for being Bruce’s Kids hell you could still play around with Jason here as once again Bruce’s kids are in danger.
As better as it would've been for Hush to be the main villain and fleshed out more, the "my face! *SMASH*" takedown is hilarious and I laugh every time
I think the major "theme" of the AK story that we got was Bruce finally starting to lose his grip and push himself wayyyy too far. all of his greatest failures are catching up to him (Jason, Joker's death, Barbara's injury, Tim being pushed aside) and he has to sort of conquer the fear that drove him to act in ways that allowed these things to happen. Everyone he's involved with gets hurt in this game (sometimes directly by him), and joker reminds him of that in his flashbacks. I think the "theme" is the failure, breakdown, and eventual death of the batman persona, like Gordon says at the beginning.
Love the video. I think Hush would have been much better as the Arkham Knight, but then a thought came up, what if the identity of the Arkham Knight was 3 people, instead of 1? Let's dig in a little, and of course its not the most perfect idea, but it would kind of give in a little joker twist at the end. So again, 3 people playing 1 character, the Arkham Knight. The whole Main Story Line play as is, but instead of Jason, which it really did kill the mood for the Batman fans, we got Azreal, Bane, and then Joker. Hush would be cool too as the Arkham Knight and what we got now is the most disappointing ending for the Hush Ark, but I think after his 'phase 1' of taking Bruce's looks and voice and finger prints, his phase 2 would be to stalk him and know his routine..... But then he found out he's Batman, and that's how Barbara gets called out, that's how Batman gets exploited as fuck and ect. So Hush was part of the team, but was not the Arkham Knight. Like it was all a legit team effort to bring down Batman. Now for the 3 Knights, Azreal got his movements, gadgets, vehicle and all things Batman, Bane has regained his memory of Batmans identity and basically became the placement for Hush, which those 2 really became best buddies, and then the Joker was the 3rd Knight, but no one else even knew as well...... Ok, fuck it. Hush is the 3rd, but Joker kidnapped him the night before and he killed Hush. He also gotten all of the info from Hush, cuz Hush is desperate enough to get back to his revenge plan and maybe try to get Joker in his plan, but Joker doesn't want Batman dead, thus he teams up with Batman (and still keep the imaginary Joker in Bruce's head, and even he's surprised), and kick everyone ass, or killed them with a multi-ending deal in different ways, including the ending of Scarecrow revealing Batmans identity....... And how Joker survived? Idfk, it's joker. Does he need a reason, up at this point? Maybe there was a 5th joker infected and that dude pulled an ' FF7 Advent Children's and turned into the full Joker, or some other reason that mily mind couldn't process at the moment cuz it's 5am as I'm texting this and I'm burnt. Lol. So have fun with the idea, but having the Knight as 3 different people would be a more awesome idea than Jason, as he was introduced at the last fucking minute..... Maybe the Jason story would be fine, but Jason would have to be in WITH The League of Assassins, and not Scarecrow..... Better story plot. Lol All in all, great video dude. 🤘
Hear me out now, what if we had hush and red hood working together and i know that might seem random but in batman hush, red hood fresh out of the pit approaches hush and asks him if he can help him get in batmans head to get revenge so not only would this team up make sense, it would also be fair to the plot since we missed out on hush
I also figured riddler could have been involved. You know, like in the original Hush storyline. There's implications even in city that eddie was already going downhill in city so maybe he did have brain cancer, and the lazarus pit was right there in arkham city for him to use. Also scarecrow's fear toxin can be found in hush's hideout AND one of riddler's puzzle rooms. Personally I believe that even in the timeline we got riddler and scarecrow were working together in some capacity in city but the relationship soured by arkham knight. As for why it soured, well their egos would clash, but also crane couldn't have resisted messing with eddie, and that's in part why by AK riddler is fully consumed by his fears and other issues.
Honestly, they could have done hush, azreal, and scare crow as the big 3 villains Batman had to take down Azreal could have been the Arkham knight challenging Batman physically, hush challenging the legacy of Bruce Wayne, and scare crow challenging Batman and Bruce mentally, there could have been a side mission where we had to hunt down Harley and maybe Harley mocks Bruce by saying he never did find Jason’s body or something
I think there is a ton they could have done to make it feel more cohesive. Even doing something like tracking down who kidnapped Barbara back to the abandoned Arkham Asylum. Using detective work to narrow it down that that’s where they’re hiding her because it’s been abandoned since the first game. And they could have called that Return to Arkham. Or like the mutants or some kind of new gang/faction operating out of the old asylum. Call it Arkham Uprising. You could have a lot of the similar missions in Kight’s Gotham, but then at some point you drive the Batmobile back to the asylum and go through some of the old buildings and levels with a new twist. Nostalgic and capturing the same atmosphere everybody loves, but with all new combat and stealth missions as Batman infiltrates. Could be part of the major climax, just a tasteful amount. Wouldn’t want to overdo the time at the asylum and be called lazy.
Okay, the reason as to why this plotline of scarecrow and Hush was most probably abondoned was because: 1) Arkham Batman knew who hush was and how he looked like behind his mask. The whole premises as to why Hush is a legitimate threat to batman is because of his envy and hatred for Bruce Wayne. He figured out Batman's identitiy because of his obsession over Bruce Wayne. Not the other way around. 2) Crane in the Arkham Asylum was experimenting with his fear toxin on patients and doctors alike, but after the incident with Killer croc, he has a epiphany as to what true fear feels like. Its being abondoned by someone who you trusted the most at your time of need. 3) While crane and Hush could have worked together, they on their own didn't have the means and the resources to threaten an whole city to evacuate using theatrics, while being impossible to track. Crane is intimidating, not evasive. And they on their own didn't have influence or intimidation to command obidience from other villains. 4) Crane would have seen Elliots obsession over bruce wayne as just another form of fear and envy and would have dosed him with his fear toxin instead of working with him. 5) Arkham Knight trained his militia to not fear batman, used tanks, mines, checkpoints, watchtower to monitor and control the city, and more than anything else, he did not fear Batman, and saw his the way scarecrow wanted him to become. They shared a common vision, but for different reasons. That's why scarecrow accpted and worked with him. One of the reasons as to why scarecrow acheved his goals is because he had enough time to execute his plans, which most of the villains in batman's rouge gallery are not fortunate to have when facing the Dark Knight. Something Arkham knight provided but Hush couldn't. Hush usually plans the long game, not the once in a lifetime opportunity kind of thing. Side note: HUSH would have been an excellent villain for GOTHAM KNIGHTS, because the game had a day and night cycle and each day a different event took place. Hush is know to orchestrate events from the shadows and play the long game. Him planning something from the criminal underground and as a main villain would have made a lot of sense.
Good theory, but riddeler hates to be proved wrong. He once theoried that Bruce Wayne was the dark knight but abondoned the theory after he came to the conclusion that Bruce wayne only does charity to maintain a decent public image and date other celebrities. (which is often the case for most of the Gotham Elites.) Going back and accepting that he was wrong will drive him insane. And Hush lost the element of suprise, once he was identified as the identity theif by the dark knight. He knew that Elliot hated Bruce Wayne and has surgically changed himself to be identitical to Bruce Wayne in everyway possible. Batman most probably changed to rential scan as primary security measure to prevent elliot from breaching his security and finding out his secret.
@@shadowknight2500 In the Hush comic he was right and didn't change his mind but he couldn't say anything because if he did Ra's Al Ghul would kill him.
@@jonathanbarr9764 True, but in the Arkhamverse, these events do not take place. and that's why Hush and ridller would not have worked, neither would have scarecrow and hush.
I heard Dini's original Arkham 3 idea revolved around Joker's child. But Harley's revenge took that off the board, he didn't write that story either. What I think would have worked best, as a game and as a Batman experience involving numerous villains would be to do a retelling of No Man's Land. The quake hits Gotham, and the Villains are looking to take control of the city in the confusion. And this is where Scarecrow see's his moment to give Batman the nightmare of failing Gotham, where Hush can manipulate people into thinking he is Wayne and destroy his legacy, Azrael's prophecy would be fulfilled and he might go Knightfall on us and try assuming the Batman mantle weather Bruce wants him to or not. And maybe the game could have more dynamic storylines because of the gangs trying to take control. We could have to keep an eye on where villains are causing trouble and until they're caught it can interfer with us in different ways. Think that scene from Batman Forever with Two Face ambushing the Batmobile while the player is trying to stop Firefly. It'd be annoying but in a game way and we can deal with it before it happens by keeping Two-Face from assuming too much territory,
Hush could have done basically the same thing as the side quest minus the eye scanner and Batman defeating him parts and slowly funds Scarecrow using Bruce's money.
Story wise Jason was definitely a miss, but my controversial take was bringing the joker back was also a misstep. It makes us tread the same things we have before. City ended so perfectly and instead of moving forward, it was just a rehash of everything else. It also diminishes the stature of the other villains in Knight because the joker always overshadows them. The joker is such a great character but when you overuse him it doesn’t work
We likely could've gotten a Heart Of Hush adaptation as well if they used Dini's idea instead of John's. This genuinely would've been better and done Hush justice. Thomas Elliots character is someone who could out strategisize even Bruce Wayne even when they were kids and what Knight did was a disservice just like even the movie did
OMFG!!!! I knew NOTHING about the making of these games! I didn't know Paul Dini was involved with the games but it makes soooo much since I didn't know they scrapped his idea I didn't know 90% of this stuff!! Naw was glued to the floor the entire time I can't believe they had this fire of a storyline and they just threw it away! Smh
I remember figuring out that Jason Todd was the Arkham knight early on in the game,due to all the flashbacks of Jason Todd. Once it was revealed in game,that Jason was the Arkham knight,I stopped playing the game and didn’t play it again for about a year. I thought it was bullshit that we were told that the Arkham knight was an original character,when in reality it was just a throw away layer to an existing character.
Considering Bruce was training Azrael and he takes up the cowl, there could have been a part of the plot where Batman needs to be Bruce Wayne to stop Hush from impersonating him while you play as AzBat. I can also see hush committing fraud like he tried to in the actual side mission and using Wayne's money to get the army that Arkham Knight has if they still wanted to keep those elements for the Batmobile
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
What if Hush found Hugo Strange's logs in Arkham City, revealing Bruce's identity. After that he approaches Crane to destroy Batman together from both identities, with Hush tarnishing Bruce's reputation while Crane tarnishes Batman's. Maybe that was Dini's way of connecting Hush and Crane?
69 likes... i can fix that
And you could still have a militia like force, with them being funded by Hush as he pretends to be Bruce Wayne. This gives Deathstroke more of a reason to be included instead of just tacked on at the end, it gives a chance for Lucius Fox to have a bigger role in the narrative, hell even Two Face and Penguin could’ve had more done for them because they both know Bruce Wayne and it could lead to some cool dialogue or interactions. Maybe they think he went nuts after being thrown in Arkham City or something, some cool wordbuilding could come out of it. It gives more room for them to flesh out the characters they showed off in AK, but never gave any real depth to
Arkham knight could have done a public reveal broadcast as Bruce Wayne (hush) which then causes Wayne tower and mansion to be infiltrated by Argus. This would be planned on purpose by hush and scarecrow to pressure Bruce to reveal himself as Batman and not the knight which adds so much more logic and motive to the ending where he gives up to scarecrow
sometimes schizo's make it make sense
Hush finding Hugo Strange's "logs" sounds so lazy and forced.
The Hush story would've been SOOOO PERFECT because it'd be both personal for Bruce and Batman
And guess what? Jason accomplishes that exact same thing except Jason is more worthy for finishing a series.
@@SoyboyPeterwhen exactly in the story Jason affected Bruce?
@@memiaszzinternetu6513 Jason’s fake death is literally the reason why Bruce is so protective of Tim. You should fucking know this.
@@memiaszzinternetu6513 also the whole reason Bruce took Jason under his wing is so that he doesn’t become a dangerous criminal, so Joker turned Jason into what Bruce would fear
@@SoyboyPeterIndeed Jason’s death is directly tied to how Batman is in the games. The change I would’ve made is instead have Jason reveal himself at ACE Chemicals at the beginning of the game and deep dive further in flashbacks and the psychological breaking of Bruce
Jason ties directly into Bruce’s fears whereas Hush really doesnt as nearly to a degree
Maybe you can still in someway tie Hush into the main story as well. Maybe it’s a sort of triumvirate instead, Scarecrow is the psychological threat, Jason is the more physical threat, and Hush is the shadowy manipulator threat (using the guise of Bruce Wayne to turn his life upside down).
Tossing Dini aside is absolutely ludicrous and Knight would definitely have been better with him writing it
I think that Jason could’ve made a great side character. You get reports from Cash on how someone is killing criminals. How people who witnessed it saw Jason move like someone who was trained by Batman. You build up Jason and see that Bruce discovers it’s Jason. They have a huge boss fight and by the end Jason helps the Batfamily.
I honestly like that the Arkham Knight was a main antagonist. Maybe they could’ve had Scarecrow, Hush, AND Jason be the main antagonists.
Rocksteady definitely shouldn’t have gotten rid of Paul Dini and he totally should’ve written Arkham Knight. Hush should’ve been better. Same with Deathstroke. I think if Paul Dini wrote the game then he could’ve made the execution with Jason and Hush better.
Perhaps maybe the writer that ended up writing Arkham Knight, Geoff Johns, could have written the game but alongside Paul Dini. That’s just my take though.
Also, I think Azrael’s side mission in Batman: Arkham Knight was actually really good.
I like ur idea but instead of makin it seem like he was trained by Batman to make it more interesting they should make it seem like he could rival Batman ofc Jason can’t but it would be more suspenseful bc people would be like okay so who tf can rival Batman, tbh they coulda had him workin with hush and scarecrow but more as a separate team like they’ll sometimes share information
Yeah, but that'd be way to simular to azrael, and if they have Jason Todd it wouldn't make any sense on why he isn't a major player in the story considering his connection to batman, they could have made it a triumvarite between Jason, Scarecrow and Hush but even then Hush and Scarecrow wouldn't have any chemistry, with Jason you can tell he's just using Scarecrow as a means to an end and then if Hush is using the same reason that'd just be cheap, Maybe Hush and Jason together without Scarecrow could work but I couldnt see all three of them together
@@somerandofromoregon If Arkham Knight was still the antagonist I'd prefer he be a new character as advertised while Jason returns as the Red Hood. Maybe the antagonist who switches sides in-between.
@@doge8606 Plus it'd fall into the same critique of the original game where Jason was working with villains.
Knight is a good game but I wish the story could have been better, Rocksteady getting rid of Paul Dini as the writer was a big mistake.
I always wondered what the original city sequel would have been. Hush, Azrael, calendar man, scarecrow, Harley...
Calendar man’s escape in arkham city was always unsettling to me
@@darkyozora1222 wait ESCAPE!
@@Arguewiththehand yea after talking to him on certain days he escapes arkham city by leaving a murdered inmate in his place in his cell.
@@darkyozora1222bro what 😂😂😂😂
@@brandonkukumayeyi6048 no literally its even a trophy in arkham city
Hush and Scarecrow had teamed up in the comic Heart of Hush. Crane was actually Hush’s therapist when Hush was a kid.
I was just about to say, Scarecrow is like the only other Gotham rogue that Hush tolerates, & they have worked together before to manipulate everybody else.
though him and batman rogues were similar ages
Written by Paul Dinni even
In Heart of Hush (Written by Dini) it is revealed that Crane was a psychiatrist to young Thomas Elliot and in the present he kind of helps Hush with his plan against Batman, I think this could have been a way to unite them in the game.
It's wild to me that Hush killed six people just so he could walk past Bruce's receptionist.
Hush could always impersonate Bruce to funnel his money into Scarecrow's plans, only for it to become gradually apparent this is affecting Batman somehow.
To this day, I'm still angry Azreal never got a DLC chapter
I remember reading "a leak" just before Knight came out, which was the Knight was a clone of Bruce Wayne, which is why he knows Batman's techniques.
They "hinted" at this, by the Cadmus sign in the steel mill in Arkham City's HQ DLC, which is not there in the main game.
I feel there's tons of little hints to storylines across City & Harley Quinn's Revenge that could've payed off in an epic odyssey of a plot in a 3rd Arkham game.
Ideally, Arkham Knight's story would've been close to something like an RDR2 in length imo. Covering the League's return & Talia's resurrection, Harley's baby (instead of dropping that), Hush's grand plan, & Azrael factoring in the story.
I'm gonna one up on Dini's pitch;
Make it a triumvirate of Scarecrow - Hush - Prometheus.
Having just Scarecrow and Hush while sounding okay would mean scrapping the entire militia invading storyline of Knight.
So I'd set it up as following;
- Scarecrow; obviously wanting revenge on Batman of what happened to him back in Asylum
- Hush; wanting vengeance on Bruce Wayne (for Thomas saving his mother) and Gotham city overall to be in ruins due to it not giving what he deserves.
- Prometheus; Prometheus's origins stems from his parents who are criminals being killed by cops. Have a flashback scene where Batman (who sometime before Arkham Asylum), failed to stop the kill. Prometheus growing up resents Batman and the cop who killed his parents.
So it's not just one mystery Batman has to solve, it's two with Hush & Prometheus.
And Prometheus can take the Commander role which Arkham Knight has.
Not to mention this triumvirate will keep Batman plenty busy, and may even stretch him thin if they recruit other rogues to join their cause to work together (a concept which Knight says, but never really properly implemented).
how are your comments 4 days ago when he video released 16 minutes ago
@@TygerCommander hes a member
@@darthpalpaduck oh
Including Prometheus presents the same problem as the Arkham Knight/Jason Todd addition. The audience isn't gonna care bc they never appeared until now. If you want a triumphant you could just use Deathstroke. He's somewhat still a physical match for Batman
Yeah, but promethius was mentioned in the previous arkham games through the character profiles so it wouldn't really be a mystery, and he'd be too simular to azrael
They should do a Paul Dini's Cut of Batman: Arkham Knight.
In comic book form it could work!! Since, you know, it's waaaay more cheap than a whole new game.
True, but either approach would be a money printing machine.
The comic will sell well because it’s Batman
But the game, while being way more expensive to make, would most likely make more money in the long run especially if it takes advantage of the powerful hardware used by modern consoles and computers, mixed with a more polished version of the Arkham series formula without the jank of Origins and Knight.
@@SilentSnake1998 How tf do you want them to go about doing that then? Easier said than done.
@@moshymosh Never said it would be easy, that’s why I said either option works because the comic route doesn’t have that problem.
Would be really difficult without Kevin Conroy.
God I’m so happy you’re making a video on this!!! I rant about this to everyone whenever talking about the Arkham games because it would’ve been such an epic finale! The AUDACITY of rocksteady to go “mmm you know Paul Dini? The guy who wrote some of the best episodes of BTAS and also both of the stories for the games that made us?? Yeah, that Paul Dini. What if we just….canned his idea? lol.” Fools. Rapscallions. It all led up to them making that suicide squad game, and we all saw how that turned out!
I'm starting to think WB executives made the move too let Dini go cause as we seen they try to follow trends and I think that's what led to Jason Todd being antagonist
@ I agree because it also seemed like they let him go so they could still cram the joker in it, since it seemed like Dini wanted to stray away from him and focus on scarecrow and hush
There was actually a reference to Jason Todd in Arkham Asylum. At the end of the medical facility section, Joker says "...Hell you can have Harley, seems like you could use a new sidekick."
I guess they were originally thinking of Asylum as a pre-Tim story because later additions to the canon would show he was already Robin by that game.
There actually a direct reference to Robin in asylum, if you go to the visitor centre after locking Harley up, Joker will rant about he’s done with her before asking Batman what’s it like in his organisation, how does he punish his hired help when they fail him, before saying “Or is that green and red outfit punishment enough for him?”
I mean..., it hasn't been officially confirmed that line from "Batman: Arkham Asylum" is referencing Jason Todd... For all we know that line could just be referencing Dick Grayson moving on from Robin and becoming Nightwing.
@@gameover9390 I think that specifically sounds like a general reference to any Robin be it Dick, Jason, or Tim when the OP comment is specifically about references to Jason.
@@whattheworldneedsiscreativ6421 At the time that was true. But I guess the leap was made that it refers to Jason because of Asylum Batman being advanced in his career. With later canon however, it's confusing what that line is referring to because we know Tim was Robin by Asylum.
If I had to guess why Rocksteady chose Geoff Johns over Paul Dini, I'd say it is because Geoff Johns had so much power at the time. During the development and release of Arkham Knight, Geoff Johns was the Chief Creative Officer of DC Entertainment and became president of DC Entertainment a year after this game's release
I think the theme of Arkham Knight, which worked well by having it be Jason Todd, is in Bruce's guilt in having to, as the Joker said, "drag your friends in this crazy, little game of ours."
Jason Todd is the product of Bruce's fear. The cost of allowing allies to work along side him but being powerless to protect them. Just like what almost happened to barbara for the most of the game, and to tim drake at the end so you can see how it all ties together.
That being said, wish they didn't lie about arkham knight being an original character and just have the villain be straight up red hood
I would love to see Paul Dini’s script for Arkham Knight to see what the game could’ve been
Seeing that script would make a man suicidal for what could have been
He probably never had a script, just some early ideas for what he might have done
@@Kpengie even that would do. I just would want to see his original idea for the game
@@b1ackspid3r43 Paul Dini never got that far according to his response on X. He said Rocksteady wanted to take some time off after City & when they started up again, they already had a story. He didn't even know about Harley Quinn's Revenge until he saw it an ad.
I'm fine with the Todd story and I woulda been fine with Hush. I feel like Todd is a better emotional story but Dini would've been a better narrative overall. Knight will stay my favorite Arkham game no matter the situation
Eyyy batman who giggles is on there
I honestly think Jason is the better pick not only is he more personal to Batman but he’s also just a better character than Hush.
The change I would’ve made is the timeline of the identity reveal.
Instead my idea would be Jason confronts Batman alone at ACE Chemicals reveals himself and the rest of the game deep dives into how that effects Bruce and we get flashbacks fleshing it out
And Bruce is being psychologically broken by Jason and Crane (fear toxin)
No need for Joker blood transformation, just Bruce’s mind straight up breaking and going crazy, hallucinating Joker more and more
Maybe it even leads to Bruce nearly killing Jason or Crane in a confrontation as well.
Jason would’ve worked much better here because then you can further service his character, without veiling development behind a mystery
Sams
@@gabebartlett9680I'm surprised that your idea would actually work! Having the flashbacks as a result of the reveal would make more sense
I think Jason Todd would’ve been a better side mission reveal than Hush’s side mission in ‘Knight’, that’s for sure.
I don’t think it’d bother me for either to be a part of the main story either though.
I do like Hush and Scarecrow working together and would be fun, it could go like this:
- Batman still gets hit with Fear Toxin in ACE Chemicals building (this would be important)
- Jason I feel would still be needed to be involved but have him as a neutral party, have him initially happy to see Batman and make it an emotional moment as Jason believes the rumors about Batman killing Joker finally. However Jason notices something is off about Batman and notices Batman's eyes are flashing green like The Joker's. This causes Jason to try and kill Batman thinking somehow The Joker has taken over Batman in death with this logic backed up by Batman's gradual personality shifts in recent months that Jason has been following
- Have Hush still get into Wayne Enterprises with the intent of taking Bruce's money to fund Scarecrow's operation to kill Batman by having it seem like Bruce Wayne has turned into a terrorist. Have Hush trick Lucious into opening the files and at this point Lucious assuming it is Bruce brings up Batman and the evening's threats. Hush figures out thanks to Lucious that Bruce Wayne is Batman and ends up leaving. Have actual Batman call Lucious a few minutes after this and let Lucious put everything together that he fucked up bigtime.
- Batman has 3 villains, Jason assuming Batman has fallen to Joker, Hush and Scarecrow. Batman is forced to tell everyone what is going on with him due to his interaction with Jason and not having any other options, calls in Nightwing to deal with Jason given there history and how Jason looked up to him. We actually get to play as Nightwing while he tracks down Jason and eventually Nightwing is able to bring Jason back around and ask them to help get Bruce back under control
- With new info, Scarecrow attacks Wayne Manor, raising the stakes and have Scarecrow kill Alfred (like actually Kill Alfred no illusion) With Batman's mind devastated Joker takes full control of Batman now, we play as a Jokerized Batman who battles Hush now; who is now dressing like Batman to mock Bruce. Ends poorly for Hush as he is crippled but Jokerized Batman makes a mistake; he takes off Hush's mask and turns him into the GCPD as everyone thinks that the Hush Batman is the actual real Batman and is Bruce Wayne and this violent version is Hush. Despite losing Hush has actual won as he is now Bruce Wayne to the public.
- Jason, Nightwing and Robin team up to go after Jokerized Batman but are folded easily. This Batman is able to track down Scarecrow to take him down but Scarecrow gets the better of him, traps him and the end sequence of Arkham Knight plays out just like it did, this mad version of Batman exposed as Bruce Wayne, the public now confused. Have the internal struggle of Batman and Joker play out but instead of Batman breaking free, have Dick come in with Jason and Robin (Dick dressed like Batman) and take down Scarecrow, with Dick thanking Mr Wayne for his help due to the feed still being live to Gotham with Dick as Batman explaining to Scarecrow that Mr Wayne offered to help Batman after learning Hush hacked and stole his fortune and falsely believed that Bruce was Batman. This way Batman's identity is safe as the public byes this.
That’s actually a pretty interesting story
They should have let you write the game fam 💯
Your take was pretty amazing. I believe if Scarecrow and Hush were the main villains, I bet they would try to push Batman's limits to the extreme.
That would be a great idea to have then what we got instead. And it doesn’t have to have Jim Gordon being a bitch
Yeah if scarecrow or hush had found out batman identity from something hugo strange left behind, that would be a good way they could team up. Additionally, hush having access to bruce Wayne's identity could fuel their rise to power, and having scarecrow mess with Batman's mind while hush sabotages bruce wayne on the other end would also work, with the story of them trying to ruin batman with everything still at play. This could maybe even go so far as to use Batman's gadgets against him.
11:08 I feel like joker wouldn’t least appear in one hallucination scene seeing as we had foreshadowing for the joker hallucination at the end of Mr freeze’s boss fight
Harley’s child is also a remnant of Dini’s plans for Arkham Knight. The positive test was in the main Arkham city game when he was still working with rocksteady but then in Harley Quinn’s revenge, which Dini did not work on they placed a bunch of negative tests and a “may result in false positive” warning on the box, basically retconning the test as a false positive. Most people think Batman made Harley “miscarriage” when he fought her in the church but the story line was just abandoned and rocksteady reconned the test.
The unresolved arc of Harley Quinn being positive for pregnancy no doubt would've played a part in the original Arkham Knight's story as well. Maybe it would even serve connecting thread between Hush and Scarecrow somehow...
I imagine them doing a bait and switch where you start the game as Bruce Wayne and then slowly realize you’re actually playing as Hush. Having the game make you kill people and say things that don’t quite match up and then reveal that you’re Elliot in disguise. He could have figured out his identity through Lucious Fox and then gained access to his Batman equipment. Makes way more sense how he would be an “Arkham Knight” type of character. There’s so much to play off of from their childhood too
Good Vid and Congrats on hitting 100k🎉
Imagine having Paul freakin Dini write for your two insanely successful games and for the third you go “Nah, we don’t need him”
I like Geoff Johns as a writer but Paul Dini probably had a better plan in mind for the game. I've got an idea as to how Hush and Scarecrow could have teamed up. Scarecrow was most likely looking for a doctor after getting mauled by Killer Croc and probably found Hush (you can find some of Scarecrow's fear canisters in his lair) who patched him up, Hush probably offered to help Scarecrow in exchange for help getting revenge on Bruce Wayne (kind of like how Hush got a favour out of RIddler in the comics). Maybe while Scarecrow got to talking with Hush during his recovery, Hush told him of his plan and then Hush snuck into Hugo Strange's personal room while Hugo was gone to city hall (to steal some stuff that would help him with his identity theft recovery) where he found the information that revealed Batman's identity.
No doubt Paul Dini's Arkham Knight idea would have been Way better with Hush and Scarecrow. Rocksteady's arkham knight was greatly disappointing for me .
4:15 actually there are more references to Jason appearing in Batman Arkham than just that moment, since Arkham Asylum actually the moment that Harley has Gordon Joker tells us "if you get to Harley without alerting the guards i'll give you Gordon, hell i may even give you Harley because you probably need a new sidekick" meaning that Joker has Jason already and after that moment if you go to visit joker at the Visit room where the endgame takes place Joker will ask Batman if he punishes his helpers or if that silly outfit that they wear is already too much of a punishment
What if: Jason could have teamed with both Scarecrow AND Hush. Scarecrow wants to destroy Batman, Hush wants to destroy Bruce Wayne, Jason wants Bruce dead. Jason tells Scarecrow and Hush that Batman and Bruce are one in the same and let them tear him apart mentally and metaphorically, so that when they’re done Jason can get revenge on Bruce by torturing him like he had been tortured and then have his chance to kill him. Whether Batman lives or not? Depends where they would want to take the story from there. Would that work in a video game setting? Probably not at the end, but we may never know.
These games were MIND blowing when they dropped. I spent hours exploring Arkham City. We all did.
Great video, Hush has so much potential
10:44 this guy definitely chose the "kill batman" option
On twitter paul dini has said that he never got that far with the story on his twitter
Wait really?
@@kwayneboy1524 yes
That's even sadder . They didn't even let him do it
@@danielcastaneda4975 oh I know he said he wanted to use hush and scarecrow but he never got that far
Yeah he just had loose ideas. They basically said “don’t hesitate to take other offers” because they were planning on not using freelance writers for the third game. Probably just for budget reasons or simply to make it easier for communication and adjustments without needing outside approval or input
I think Hush and Scarecrow could have been working their plans separately, almost like Batman being attacked on two fronts, leaving him debilitated. And perhaps a connecting factor would be Jason Todd. Perhaps Jason keeps appearing as the Red Hood or Arkham Knight to assist both villains in some way. Scarecrows siege of Gotham was only possible because of what Jason knew. So perhaps he would be integral to both the Hush and Scarecrow’s success in tarnishing Bruce. But only Jason would know that they were hurting the same person. And at the end Bruce finds out who the Red Hood is.
Basically don't do what Rocksteady did. Don't ditch the Dini.
I believe that Dini wanted to introduce the joker's son, since he wasn't involved with "Harley Quinn's Revenge". He would do something very original for the third one, that's for sure.
I'm a month late and no one may read this, but Scarecrow and Hush have worked together in a story called Heart of Hush that was written by Paul Dini himself. Before he became Scarecrow, Crane was actually Tommy's psychiatrist when Bruce and Tommy were just kids. In that story Hush and Crane refer to each other as "Mentor". and "Pupil" that goes to show what their relationship was like. It's a shame that we didn't get that story in video game format. Crane in the games is older than Batman as well, so maybe the seeds were planted early on before they switched writers.
I seriously don't get it when people say that "Batman: Arkham Knight" is an absolute masterpiece and go out of their way to defend it whenever people try to criticize it... Like..., is it *still* one of the most graphically impressive video games? Yes. But is its overall story/narrative as griping and well written as the previous Batman Arkham video games that were written by Paul Dini? *NO* lol... Just no lol...
1. The whole quote-unquote "main mystery" throughout "Batman: Arkham Knight" of "Who is the Arkham Knight?" just doesn't work... like at all lol... I've literally watched a playthrough from a gamer who has *only* seen the live-action Batman movies and who has never read a single Batman comic in their life and they immediately figured out and deduced who the Arkham Knight is as soon the game literally started blatantly showing flashbacks of Joker torturing Jason Todd... Like..., the overuse of Jason Todd flashback hallucinations in Panessa Studios were such a dead give away that literally anyone could've seen it coming and it's like the writers at Rocksteady Studios didn't even want to try to write an intriguing mystery plot but they still went ahead and had Bruce be totally ignorant trying desperately to deduce who the Arkham Knight is and Bruce just ends up looking like a total dumbass and not at all like the world's greatest detective when he literally doesn't find out who the Arkham Knight is up until Jason finally reveals himself lol... It's just not an impactful reveal and makes Bruce/Batman seem real dumb since he fully believed Joker killed Jason because the guy recorded a video of him shooting Jason in the armored chest, no body or anything at any point, Batman fully believed Joker's video (when it was established he doesn't trust Joker at all in "Batman: Arkham Asylum" and "Batman: Arkham City"), and moved on.
2. Also, the whole quote-unquote "twist" of Jason Todd being the Arkham Knight added nothing important to the game in my opinion and it only left Jason feeling unsympathetic due to him killing *sooo* many innocent people indirectly through working with Jonathan Crane as well as the other villains... I think it's an actively bad twist that makes Jason less interesting than in other versions where he has some morals. Hell, his motive in Arkham Knight just being about getting revenge on Batman is *exactly* what "Batman: Under the Red Hood" has Jason explicitly lampshade in that story as a simple motive that would make him a bad guy, and that is what his motive *is* in "Batman: Arkham Knight". What makes Jason Todd such a great character is that he's just like Batman, the only difference is he's willing to stop villains for good. He's still a vigilante, and an anti-hero at worst, so "Batman: Arkham Knight" making him a full fledged villain who works with Scarecrow and Deathstroke and having him indirectly kill innocent people makes him an unsympathetic, irredeemable villain. It's a shame because I think Jason Todd is Batman's most interesting supporting character, when done right unlike in "Batman: Arkham Knight"...
3. Holy shit, they *completely* wasted Hush in "Batman: Arkham Knight" lmao... That mystery at the end of "Batman: Arkham City" surrounding Hush was fantastic and Hush could’ve been the main villain of the game along with Scarecrow. Instead all that build up led to nothing in "Batman: Arkham Knight". Nothing but a ten minute side mission where you end up just pressing counter once to defeat Hush... Like that is *so* crazy to me lol... Hush had this amazing side quest in "Batman: Arkham City" which set him up for a bigger role in the sequel and then it just seemed like he was just added into "Batman: Arkham Knight" as a complete afterthought... You hardly have to do anything for the ten minute side mission Hush is given in "Batman: Arkham Knight"...
4. Holy shit, they *completely* wasted Deathstroke in "Batman: Arkham Knight" lmao... Another tank fight that's literally just a reuse of the Cloudburst boss fight that the player already had with the Arkham Knight on Bleake Island lol...
5. It's so sad, that after all that teasing and set up from "Batman: Arkham City", the roles played by Azrael, Hush (already typed about this...), Ra's al Ghul, and Harley Quinn were basically nothing in "Batman: Arkham Knight". In the end, it was all about the Arkham Knight / Jason Todd / Red Hood... Which was also basically nothing as I've already typed about... They could've played up Harley Quinn's insanity (do you remember that "Batman: Arkham City - Harley Quinn's Revenge" DLC?) and Ra's al Ghul's desperation for really good additions to the main story and Azrael and Hush deserved so much more than what they got as well... Just missed opportunity on top of missed opportunity and so much wasted story potential in "Batman: Arkham Knight"...
It's funny to think that they setup and developed Hush way more than Jason, who wasn't even mentioned til AK... And Hush ended up being that errrrr thing that we got. Truly disappointing
But hush isn’t an iconic Batman villain that’s actually worthy of concluding a series. To be honest, Scarecrow isn’t either.
@@SoyboyPeter Scarecrow is iconic, he is the literal reason why "I am vengeance, I am the night, I am Batman!" qoute exists.
@@SoyboyPeter You sound like a new comic fan.
@@SoyboyPeterhush was at least set up in Arkham city. Jason is literally not mentioned once throughout the series and now suddenly he is one of the main antagonists. Terrible writing.
@@friendlyreaper9012I mean that isnt a fair argument. Hugo Strange wasnt set up in Asylum at all. Doesnt mean he cant be the main antagonist. Sure setting up Arkham Knight wouldve helped make him a better villain, but not doing so doesnt make him bad. The whole Marvel post credit, set up thing has people thinking that its necessary for good writing. It isnt, it adds to it sure, but it isnt necessary. Arkham Knight was bad writing, but not because he wasnt set up
Sounds like a power move by WB
Also, I think if Hush WAS the co-villain, the way he would be inserted was that he was the one to help "patch" together Scarecrow's mangled face
I distinctly remember back in the day after Arkham City came out, there was some doubts by people online that there would be a sequel. People pointed out that Dini hadn't worked on the Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC, and since he was leaving, it led to some unease. And later when Origins release it made me nervous again because it was a prequel and not a sequel which also didn't include Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy
If the Arkham knight (the character) never existed and it was just red hood and joker survived Arkham city and Jason would just go after joker and batman stopped him it would be better fr and maybe scarecrow too
Again an amazing video by the one and only himself
8:20 what if hush had already started taking Wayne's money before the game started so scarecrow reached out to him so gotham would be invaded by a Wayne funded army.
Great video, glad to hear someone talk about potential details of the original vision. I think if Paul Dini was still writing it, the Arkham trilogy could’ve gone down as one of the best trilogies of all time. His vision for Asylum and City was amazing and City set up so much. I think many people who played them before Knight know that feeling of disappointment, even if you like it regardless.
They really still could've had Red Hood show up, scraping "Own The Roads" as a Side mission and utilizing Red Hood instead. A series of predator missions, investigation missions, and a boss fight that was like the one we got in the game. At the end you still get Red Hood unveiled as Jason and also a viable companion later in the game. There honestly should've been more team up instances as well if I'm being honest.
Hush could gain access to Bruce Wayne’s money and pretend to be Bruce Wayne to a much larger scale like using his money to build an army
when i was a kid i thought the red hood was two face when i first played it
Yeah same I thought it was Robin in a different suit
@@Sweetlikebutter well u were correct
@@ParrotPentester what if i played it when i was 14
I now also wonder since Riddler was also a part of the Hush comic story, if he was supposed to be connected to Paul Dini's story. I mean he first kidnapps gcpd officers in the church where we saw Hush, an in one of his lairs there was fear gas canisters. Those might have been subtle setup for their team up reveal at some point.
7:41 I'd say that they'd work together by each of them destroy Bruce and Batman's life. Hush would ruin Bruce's life (Business, relationships, while SC ruins Batman's life.. I.E the city
I really like hearing your take on this video and I always come back and rewatch it a few times just because it felt interesting and engaging to me.
First off, I believe having Scarecrow and Hush as the main villains would actually be awesome to see in the story because one, Scarecrow imo was a good pick for the main villain in Knight and two, Hush to me kinda makes sense for a main story villain instead of just being a somewhat redundant side mission like in the original game. Not to mention that I quite liked the idea of Scarecrow ruining Batman's legacy and Hush ruining Bruce Wayne's legacy and I thought that sounded like an awesome idea.
Also, I would've loved to see Azrael appear as another character in the story too, but I rather see him as some sort of ally for Batman and/or the Bat-Family.
One more thing, I also thought including Jason Todd in the Arkhamverse was a solid idea, but the way he was presented in the story was definitely a complete bummer. That's all I'm gonna say.
They were prisoners of the moment. Johns was a hot name at the time. He had come off to major, successful stories in Flash Point and the Darkest Night events. He was getting all kinds of opportunities, even getting a shot to handle the DC cinematic universe. WB went with the “sizzle” over the “steak.”
I have made this inference years before Arkham Knight released, on a Arkham City Hush mission video on RUclips. They displayed the Arkham Knight, and since Hush and Batman's meet in the City, it was obvious that Hush would be the main character for the Arkham Knight, also holding a two gun signature. That's very evil that they dumped Dini, he's a great writer for Batman and also for Kevin Conroy since wasting his effort on both that story and SSKJL.
And also with Arkham City, the story peaked. They could somehow connect to Talia and Ra's (I'm aware of the DLC but yet) Also Batman : The Hust comic was out there and obviously it would kinda be the same for the story. Rest was up to Dini.
What could've been done to bridge City and Knight is DLC focusing on Jason Todd for Arkham City.
What if you start the DLC as Bruce Wayne and you can walk around a bat cave with interactables. When you interact with the costumes Bruce gives a little history, so you have say the Golden age costume maybe the Batman the animated series costume and then as just a little cheese for the audience maybe a proto Batman beyond costume that he's developing.
Then you could look through the robins get a little history about the robins and then finally you get to Jason Todd's costume and it starts story mode. Alfred addresses that it is the anniversary of the passing of Master Todd, Bruce take a deep breath fades to black... then the game can go down either two paths.
You play as a younger Batman and Jason Todd is your sidekick and you guys are going out and fighting crime together.
Alternatively when we come out of fade to Black we see that we're in the perspective of Jason and we're playing a young Robin.
The narrative needs to focus on theirs ideological differences and maybe you could either do some slight time skipping for each little mission Jason's a bit older maybe a bit more brash until we finally get a solo mission without Batman and we're back at the asylum. That's where Jason gets jumped and captured by Harley Quinn and Joker and it ends with Joker getting ready to get to work on him with a crowbar and then you fade to Black.
Return control to Bruce Wayne he's got a tear in his eye. He addresses that he was never certain what happened to Jason that night after he left and that he has nightmares about what could have happened. So that'll address how does Batman remember the parts he's not there for if Jason's on a solo mission, it's his imagination playing up the idea of Jason being on this mission being all alone in Arkham Asylum being abducted by the crazies of the asylum.
At least then you can have this bridge between City and Knight and it feels built up.
Instead Knight writes a mystery in one of the worst ways possible where a brand new villain is introduced that audiences have never known before only for that villain to be a brand new character in the protagonist history that audiences have never known before.
In the comics the Hush story line is literally about how there's this all new villain we've never heard of called Hush and then we're introduced to Bruce Wayne's best friend and all new character we've never heard of called Tommy Elliott.
It's one of the worst ways to tell a mystery because there's literally only one culprit that could be the new villain that is the new character.
The frustrating aspect of Arkham Knight is that it feels like it's more engrossed in the idea of the big reveal rather than conveying a strong story.
It feels like since Batman is such a prolific literary character if they just made it Red Hood for those of us who know Batman lore it wouldn't shock us when the big revelation happens but it still would probably be a big revelation to anybody new to the Batman lore.
So instead the way Arkham Knight is written it feels like it's being written to trick those with pre established knowledge. Like the Batman Hush movie that intentionally changed it's ending.
It's as though the change is meant to be this big shock to the knowledgeable when for most it's just more frustrating because it feels like they wrote Under the Red Hood at a lower quality and with extra steps while incidentally I guess a precursor to three Jokers.
And if they wanted to make this game work as is they should have had Hush teaming up with the Arkham Knight. Because then you can have Hush, as Tommy Elliott going after Bruce Wayne the man while the Arkham Knight is a perversion of Batman.
Excited for this video cuz I've always wanted to know what Paul Dini's version would've looked like.
Instead of the Asylum remake that’s being rumored. They should remake Knight & include a more fleshed out hush, it’s the same exact game. But just add extra hush content. Or at least just a Seasons Of Infamy style DLC. Idk.
As a casual who doesn’t care for superhero’s , I thought this game was cool. When Arkham Knight was announced I didn’t care about the story or the continuity, I just wanted another cool Batman game and I got that. This game 100% did well with general audiences who don’t care about world building and story arcs, the gameplay was just so damn fun
I think having Hush not know Batman is Bruce Wayne is what makes that dynamic so compelling. It’s almost like the reverse of Hugo Strange
Arkham Knight is just Batman Unchained jammed into the Arkhamverse. The biggest draw of Unchained was Clooney Batman hallucinating Nicholson Joker with Scarecrow as the big bad. Another grab from unfinished work is Batman DarKnight which would've had Man-Bat and She-Bat.
There are a few clearly missing villains in Knight that we all already know but for those who don't there's Anarky who's suspiciously missing unless he was originally supposed to be in the diner at the start. Clayface which I argue was supposed to be somewhere since you can find props covered in a clay colored substance. And the last example, Zsasz; whose model is used in a sort of easter egg and a riddle clearly pointing at him being active, and the in-game files showing Zsasz being a mission.
As a question, there are 2 helicopter crashes, one over by a Pyg victim and one of Hatter's cars the other atop a building, which as far as I know are never seen happening. What caused these crashes? Was that stuff cut?
Yep. I’m subscribing to your channel.
Another thing about the representation between Scarecrow and Hush. Scarecrow represents the mind because of the fear toxin, showing Bruce the darkest and most twisted sides of his own thoughts, whilst hush represents the body, appearing like a healthier Bruce Wayne, a Bruce Wayne more fit for the role than the real one, which I think is really really cool. Bruce would feel entirely broken, a shadow of his former self
Getting rid of Dini was the biggest mistake
This explains so much. I remember the beta for Knight being shown and the devs saying that the Arkham Knight was an all new character only for it to be Todd the next year. Johns is one of DC's classic writers that starts out hot (see early work up to his Green Lantern run) that gets too far out there (New 52 Justice League and beyond) to the point that it turns readers off. Looks like the third Arkham game fell to that too.
I mean, maybe it for the best they went with Geoff Johns. As good as Paul Dini was and how gratefal i am for everything he's given us with Bruce Timm, i'm sorry to say that if the recent Batman: Caped Crusader show has proved anything, he might be losing his touch on how to write for the DC. He gender-swapped Penguin completely destroying the character on the dumb excuse that "Batman lacks good female villains" and as a result has lost quite a lot of faith from fans. So case in point is i wouldn't say he's perfect anymore and can't really blame the developers for shelving his original idea if decisions like that was on the horizon. Granted this was 2015 and way before everything started turning woke in 2020, but still, even with the story being centred on Hush & Scarecrow, i don't think it was totally unreasonable for Rocksteady not to want to take the risk.
But even then they still could've found someone better then Geoff Johns. I firmly believe Grant Morrison could've written an excellent story for Arkham Knight.
It's also worth noting that Asylum and City have a very distinct artstyle and world-style. The Arkham architecture, the buildings, the character design, the story, all this has some otherworldly feel to it with some fantasy vibes that are a bit hard to pinpoint. Arkham Knight made it all more realistic and scientific. I guess with Paul Dini the 3rd Arkham game would retain that style.
A cool rewrite for Arkham knight that I watched was from the Rewriter. He uses hush, scarecrow and Jason which is kind of like Dini’s original plans
Why has Dini been pushed aside on both the dev of this game and the Caped Crusader show? Does anyone know?
Hush would be perfect to explain how the militia exists in taking the whole town hostage. It would just use Bruce's money to fund the army. Scarecrow leading the rest of the side-villains would keep Batman to much occupied for him to go and keep Hush at bay. They don't even need to work together in the beginning for the story to work.
The side-villains would be perfect in escalating the stakes, since they are disorganized, and provoking chaos, Batman is jumping all over the city trying to catch them all.
Then the news present that Bruce Wayne (Hush) has bought a personal army and invades Gotham, complicating things even more.
It's way easier than saying that Jason magically acquired billions of dollars from nowhere and spent it all in getting a personal army who is well trained in hunting Batman, except not (I still remember Arkham Knight's first scene where he instructs them to not shoot at the chest).
the problem with Arkham Knight as a character isn't just that he's Red Hood in a different skin but that he's Red Hood but worse while. Red Hood was a solo vigilante who killed criminals and *nobody else* making him fairly easy to redeem. Arkham Knight controls a an entire militia who committed who knows how many atrocities and that's not even counting all the stuff they did *onscreen*
- He oversaw the murders of innocent Ace Chemical plant workers
- joined scarecrow's plan which would have lead to the deaths of so many people. Hell, he's the one operating the cloudburst tank!
- He's the one who gassed the diner which resulted in dozens of innocent deaths even if you don't shoot anyone!
And at the end of the day, he still gets the normal Red Hood Redemption arc even though he's done nothing to deserve. he's just an awful character
The identity of Arkham Knight should’ve been more of a mystery to begin with and something Batman should’ve solved with multiple culprits theorized. But Jason Todd makes sense since he has this connection to joker which starts affecting Batman’s psyche. But I just don’t think it was executed well especially comparing it to the Under the Red Hood movie.
Great job 👏 , i like it
I personally would've loved to see Paul Dini's Batman Arkham Knight
Azrael could've been an ally in the beginning of the game to stop Scarecrow and at some point Hush could have began to impersonate him to get into Batman's cave and do damage from within. Big reveal would come after finding Az being held captive without his suit, only to meet up with the imposter afterwards like nothing had changed. I feel like if Hush is involved in a storyline he needs to impersonate somebody somehow other than Bruce. He could have also posed as a GCPD officer in the beginning of the game. I feel like another street level hero could've been added to the game like the Question or Simon Dark for some DLC content, or maybe another Gotham hero like Ragman.
It's crazy the things that get cut from video games, and most of the time they sound cool like controlling the weather in Bioshock: Infinite, Ada Wong being in RE: Village and a different way we would've met the Duke just to name a few
It could have also incorporated the batfamily more have Hush be targeting Bruce Wayne through his children. Unlike in most media nightwing and Robin aren’t being targeted for being Batmans sidekicks but Dick and Tim are being targeted for being Bruce’s Kids hell you could still play around with Jason here as once again Bruce’s kids are in danger.
As better as it would've been for Hush to be the main villain and fleshed out more, the "my face! *SMASH*" takedown is hilarious and I laugh every time
I think the major "theme" of the AK story that we got was Bruce finally starting to lose his grip and push himself wayyyy too far. all of his greatest failures are catching up to him (Jason, Joker's death, Barbara's injury, Tim being pushed aside) and he has to sort of conquer the fear that drove him to act in ways that allowed these things to happen. Everyone he's involved with gets hurt in this game (sometimes directly by him), and joker reminds him of that in his flashbacks. I think the "theme" is the failure, breakdown, and eventual death of the batman persona, like Gordon says at the beginning.
Love the video. I think Hush would have been much better as the Arkham Knight, but then a thought came up, what if the identity of the Arkham Knight was 3 people, instead of 1? Let's dig in a little, and of course its not the most perfect idea, but it would kind of give in a little joker twist at the end.
So again, 3 people playing 1 character, the Arkham Knight. The whole Main Story Line play as is, but instead of Jason, which it really did kill the mood for the Batman fans, we got Azreal, Bane, and then Joker. Hush would be cool too as the Arkham Knight and what we got now is the most disappointing ending for the Hush Ark, but I think after his 'phase 1' of taking Bruce's looks and voice and finger prints, his phase 2 would be to stalk him and know his routine..... But then he found out he's Batman, and that's how Barbara gets called out, that's how Batman gets exploited as fuck and ect. So Hush was part of the team, but was not the Arkham Knight. Like it was all a legit team effort to bring down Batman.
Now for the 3 Knights, Azreal got his movements, gadgets, vehicle and all things Batman, Bane has regained his memory of Batmans identity and basically became the placement for Hush, which those 2 really became best buddies, and then the Joker was the 3rd Knight, but no one else even knew as well...... Ok, fuck it. Hush is the 3rd, but Joker kidnapped him the night before and he killed Hush. He also gotten all of the info from Hush, cuz Hush is desperate enough to get back to his revenge plan and maybe try to get Joker in his plan, but Joker doesn't want Batman dead, thus he teams up with Batman (and still keep the imaginary Joker in Bruce's head, and even he's surprised), and kick everyone ass, or killed them with a multi-ending deal in different ways, including the ending of Scarecrow revealing Batmans identity....... And how Joker survived? Idfk, it's joker. Does he need a reason, up at this point? Maybe there was a 5th joker infected and that dude pulled an ' FF7 Advent Children's and turned into the full Joker, or some other reason that mily mind couldn't process at the moment cuz it's 5am as I'm texting this and I'm burnt. Lol. So have fun with the idea, but having the Knight as 3 different people would be a more awesome idea than Jason, as he was introduced at the last fucking minute..... Maybe the Jason story would be fine, but Jason would have to be in WITH The League of Assassins, and not Scarecrow..... Better story plot. Lol
All in all, great video dude. 🤘
Hear me out now, what if we had hush and red hood working together and i know that might seem random but in batman hush, red hood fresh out of the pit approaches hush and asks him if he can help him get in batmans head to get revenge so not only would this team up make sense, it would also be fair to the plot since we missed out on hush
I also figured riddler could have been involved. You know, like in the original Hush storyline. There's implications even in city that eddie was already going downhill in city so maybe he did have brain cancer, and the lazarus pit was right there in arkham city for him to use. Also scarecrow's fear toxin can be found in hush's hideout AND one of riddler's puzzle rooms. Personally I believe that even in the timeline we got riddler and scarecrow were working together in some capacity in city but the relationship soured by arkham knight. As for why it soured, well their egos would clash, but also crane couldn't have resisted messing with eddie, and that's in part why by AK riddler is fully consumed by his fears and other issues.
Honestly, they could have done hush, azreal, and scare crow as the big 3 villains Batman had to take down
Azreal could have been the Arkham knight challenging Batman physically, hush challenging the legacy of Bruce Wayne, and scare crow challenging Batman and Bruce mentally, there could have been a side mission where we had to hunt down Harley and maybe Harley mocks Bruce by saying he never did find Jason’s body or something
What would’ve worked best is that maybe have tracking down hush be a daytime part as Bruce and have the scarecrow be a nighttime part as Batman.
Batman: End of Arkham
That would’ve been an amazing title.
"Arkham endgame"
Marvel fans: 💀
I think "Beyond Arkham" sounds way better.
Lol thats a terrible title no creativity and too long arkham unhingded is better
@@egecan9597 well the game will never come out so it really doesn’t matter does it?😁
I think if you play it with the season of infamy dlc it's a lot better
When I first heard the Arkham knight speaking I was really thinking oh man what if it’s Damian Wayne also Spider-Man 2000 ps1 great video man
Red Hood should've been strictly post-game DLC story like Tim Drake w/ Harley Quinn's Revenge
I think there is a ton they could have done to make it feel more cohesive.
Even doing something like tracking down who kidnapped Barbara back to the abandoned Arkham Asylum. Using detective work to narrow it down that that’s where they’re hiding her because it’s been abandoned since the first game. And they could have called that Return to Arkham.
Or like the mutants or some kind of new gang/faction operating out of the old asylum. Call it Arkham Uprising.
You could have a lot of the similar missions in Kight’s Gotham, but then at some point you drive the Batmobile back to the asylum and go through some of the old buildings and levels with a new twist. Nostalgic and capturing the same atmosphere everybody loves, but with all new combat and stealth missions as Batman infiltrates.
Could be part of the major climax, just a tasteful amount. Wouldn’t want to overdo the time at the asylum and be called lazy.
Okay, the reason as to why this plotline of scarecrow and Hush was most probably abondoned was because:
1) Arkham Batman knew who hush was and how he looked like behind his mask. The whole premises as to why Hush is a legitimate threat to batman is because of his envy and hatred for Bruce Wayne. He figured out Batman's identitiy because of his obsession over Bruce Wayne. Not the other way around.
2) Crane in the Arkham Asylum was experimenting with his fear toxin on patients and doctors alike, but after the incident with Killer croc, he has a epiphany as to what true fear feels like. Its being abondoned by someone who you trusted the most at your time of need.
3) While crane and Hush could have worked together, they on their own didn't have the means and the resources to threaten an whole city to evacuate using theatrics, while being impossible to track. Crane is intimidating, not evasive. And they on their own didn't have influence or intimidation to command obidience from other villains.
4) Crane would have seen Elliots obsession over bruce wayne as just another form of fear and envy and would have dosed him with his fear toxin instead of working with him.
5) Arkham Knight trained his militia to not fear batman, used tanks, mines, checkpoints, watchtower to monitor and control the city, and more than anything else, he did not fear Batman, and saw his the way scarecrow wanted him to become. They shared a common vision, but for different reasons. That's why scarecrow accpted and worked with him.
One of the reasons as to why scarecrow acheved his goals is because he had enough time to execute his plans, which most of the villains in batman's rouge gallery are not fortunate to have when facing the Dark Knight. Something Arkham knight provided but Hush couldn't. Hush usually plans the long game, not the once in a lifetime opportunity kind of thing.
Side note: HUSH would have been an excellent villain for GOTHAM KNIGHTS, because the game had a day and night cycle and each day a different event took place. Hush is know to orchestrate events from the shadows and play the long game. Him planning something from the criminal underground and as a main villain would have made a lot of sense.
I thought the Riddler figured out Batman's identity and then told Hush as payment for a surgery Hush performed off the books.
Good theory, but riddeler hates to be proved wrong. He once theoried that Bruce Wayne was the dark knight but abondoned the theory after he came to the conclusion that Bruce wayne only does charity to maintain a decent public image and date other celebrities. (which is often the case for most of the Gotham Elites.) Going back and accepting that he was wrong will drive him insane.
And Hush lost the element of suprise, once he was identified as the identity theif by the dark knight. He knew that Elliot hated Bruce Wayne and has surgically changed himself to be identitical to Bruce Wayne in everyway possible. Batman most probably changed to rential scan as primary security measure to prevent elliot from breaching his security and finding out his secret.
@@shadowknight2500 In the Hush comic he was right and didn't change his mind but he couldn't say anything because if he did Ra's Al Ghul would kill him.
@@jonathanbarr9764 True, but in the Arkhamverse, these events do not take place. and that's why Hush and ridller would not have worked, neither would have scarecrow and hush.
@@shadowknight2500 Fair.
I heard Dini's original Arkham 3 idea revolved around Joker's child. But Harley's revenge took that off the board, he didn't write that story either.
What I think would have worked best, as a game and as a Batman experience involving numerous villains would be to do a retelling of No Man's Land. The quake hits Gotham, and the Villains are looking to take control of the city in the confusion. And this is where Scarecrow see's his moment to give Batman the nightmare of failing Gotham, where Hush can manipulate people into thinking he is Wayne and destroy his legacy, Azrael's prophecy would be fulfilled and he might go Knightfall on us and try assuming the Batman mantle weather Bruce wants him to or not. And maybe the game could have more dynamic storylines because of the gangs trying to take control. We could have to keep an eye on where villains are causing trouble and until they're caught it can interfer with us in different ways. Think that scene from Batman Forever with Two Face ambushing the Batmobile while the player is trying to stop Firefly. It'd be annoying but in a game way and we can deal with it before it happens by keeping Two-Face from assuming too much territory,
Hush could have done basically the same thing as the side quest minus the eye scanner and Batman defeating him parts and slowly funds Scarecrow using Bruce's money.
Story wise Jason was definitely a miss, but my controversial take was bringing the joker back was also a misstep. It makes us tread the same things we have before. City ended so perfectly and instead of moving forward, it was just a rehash of everything else. It also diminishes the stature of the other villains in Knight because the joker always overshadows them. The joker is such a great character but when you overuse him it doesn’t work
We likely could've gotten a Heart Of Hush adaptation as well if they used Dini's idea instead of John's. This genuinely would've been better and done Hush justice. Thomas Elliots character is someone who could out strategisize even Bruce Wayne even when they were kids and what Knight did was a disservice just like even the movie did
OMFG!!!! I knew NOTHING about the making of these games! I didn't know Paul Dini was involved with the games but it makes soooo much since I didn't know they scrapped his idea I didn't know 90% of this stuff!! Naw was glued to the floor the entire time
I can't believe they had this fire of a storyline and they just threw it away! Smh
In my opinion, most people would not have been so mad at the Batmobile's excessive inclusion in this game if the story was actually good.
I still liked AK but how do you go against Dini for Johns ???
I remember figuring out that Jason Todd was the Arkham knight early on in the game,due to all the flashbacks of Jason Todd. Once it was revealed in game,that Jason was the Arkham knight,I stopped playing the game and didn’t play it again for about a year.
I thought it was bullshit that we were told that the Arkham knight was an original character,when in reality it was just a throw away layer to an existing character.
Considering Bruce was training Azrael and he takes up the cowl, there could have been a part of the plot where Batman needs to be Bruce Wayne to stop Hush from impersonating him while you play as AzBat. I can also see hush committing fraud like he tried to in the actual side mission and using Wayne's money to get the army that Arkham Knight has if they still wanted to keep those elements for the Batmobile