‘Batman: Arkham Knight’ Adds Red Hood DLC, But It’s A Retailer Exclusive
As part of the 75th anniversary of Batman, Rocksteady Studios revealed another pre-order bonus for Batman: Arkham Knight. The upcoming PS4, Xbox One and PC action title is adding the Red Hood to the repertoire of pre-order DLC that already includes Harley Quinn. However, it’s exclusive to a single store and you can probably already guess which one.
If you guessed GameStop, you are 100 percent correct. The game retailer nabbed the Red Hood Story Pack as an exclusive DLC offering for Arkham Knight. It hasn’t been officially announced and it is not part of the game listing on the website yet but an email containing this week’s sales flyer that went out this morning contains the following image. Update: GameStop’s website has been updated with the DLC mention.
We’ll update this article with the official announcement when it becomes available.
The Batman: Arkham series has a history of pre-order DLC so this news should not be terribly surprising. The introduction of the Red Hood is interesting touch as the current Arkham lore barely touches on Robin much less a former Robin.
For those unfamiliar with the Red Hood, he is actually the former Robin, Jason Todd, reborn. You can take that literally too because he was killed by The Joker in A Death in the Family story arc before being resurrected in the 2005 Under the Hood storyline.
Todd returned to Gotham with a vengeance and slightly mad following his resurrection. He used guns and frequently killed criminals in direct opposition to Batman’s preferred style of intimidation, punches and kicks. He also spent time going after the Dark Knight himself, who he blamed for failing to avenge his death at the hands of The Joker.
The Red Hood remained an anti-villain as part of the DC New 52 reboot and stayed an anti-hero as leader of The Outlaws, which included Starfire and Arsenal. He was still crazy but didn’t have the same aggressive need for vengeance against Batman as he did prior to the reboot and spent more time fighting crime in an undercover capacity.
That all leads to the question of which version of the Red Hood will we see for Batman: Arkham Knight? Will it be the mad, vengeance seeking anti-hero or the more traditional crime fighter? The look given to him by Rocksteady is definitely new and foregoes the red pull over mask for an actual hoodie, though it is hard to tell if there is a mask of some sort included from the image.
GameStop made clear in a recent statement (via GamesIndustry) that it plans work with developer more to offer exclusive content to entice gamers to make their purchases at the retailer. The exclusive Batman: Arkham Knight: Red Hood Story Pack is definitely a part of that growth but will likely be available as DLC to purchase later and / or as part of a Game of the Year Edition of Arkham Knight that will include all of the DLC.
Batman: Arkham Knight is currently slated for a 2015 release after a recent delay pushed it back from an originally planned October 2014 release.
[Images via DC Comics, GameStop]
