Batman: Arkham City GOTY – Arkham City Predator Tips and Tricks

I’ve been attempting to 100% complete Batman: Arkham City and by far the hardest part for me is the Extreme Predator maps (especially as Catwoman). I’ve done all of Catwoman’s predator maps, most of Robin’s, and one or two of Nightwing’s, so here are the tips and tricks I’ve gathered as somebody who refused to use a guide.

Predator Tips and Tricks

All credit goes to Ninjaboy5056!

1. Two-Face Predator Boss Fight

It may seem odd to start here when I just mentioned extreme predator maps, but there’s one ultimate tip that makes this fight much easier to handle, especially on New Game Plus. Never escape to a vantage point after attacking Two-Face. If you do, he will always know your exact location once he gets up. Another thing you can do is reduce the number of enemies in the room. I believe that once you pass a certain threshold, he calls more in, but you can still reduce it to just before that threshold is met to only deal with the absolute minimum amount of enemies.

2. Catwoman sprints and wooden walls

Unlike every other character, when Catwoman runs, she is completely silent. You can still get spotted, but you’re never going to have a moment where the enemy turns around because they hear you approaching. You can use this technique to run up to the first enemy of Police Brutality (Extreme) and silent takedown them for free. Another useful tip involves the wooden wall. You can break these walls with just a single punch and almost every single enemy will come running to it. It is, by far, the most useful method of getting a bunch of different enemies in one place. (I swear I try to knockout smash a guy to attract the others and they refuse to come anywhere near it, but I break one wall and the cavalry comes running).

3. Top of the World (Extreme)

The enemies will patrol around the map to the exact same places at the exact same times as long as nothing has alerted them yet. After they’re alerted, they break this pattern, so unless you’ve got the literal perfect plan, you’re only going to get one or two guys before they’re alerted. For Top of the World (Extreme), there is a way to get a guaranteed Double Ledge Takedown. Grapple to the ledge above you and shimmy to the right. You’ll see an enemy prime for a ledge takedown, but don’t grab them just yet. If you wait a bit, you can get a second guy for free.

However, (and this is very important now), do not attempt the takedown until the on-screen prompt explicitly says “Double Ledge Takedown”. If you use it too early, you’ll only take one guy down and get shot in the face. After doing this, I generally shimmy a bit to the left to get into the alcove that leads to the upper floor grates. I will then attempt to get to the circular platform at the top-middle of the room. For most characters, the plan ends there, but Nightwing is required to get three instant KOs with wrist dart headshots. I find that this spot is the perfect place to do that. (Nightwing’s wrist dart is a bit overpowered if you’re good at aiming because it’s a free three enemies down).

4. Police Brutality (Extreme) – Robin’s Two-for-One Special

For Robin’s challenges on this map, you need to set off two explosive walls to take down two enemies at the same time. There are two strategies for this. The consistent but risky strategy and the inconsistent but safe strategy. The safe strategy involves getting a silent takedown on the jammer enemy, then waiting for the others to investigate, so you can go prime the walls with explosive gel. However, there’s one major flaw with this method. Since Robin doesn’t have a consistent method to lure enemies where he wants, you’re relying on pure luck for two enemies to pass by the two walls at the same time.

For the consistent method, grapple up to the vantage point facing the room the jammer enemy exits at the start of the map. Glide above the jammer enemy and into the room, then sneak around to the other side of the breakable wall and prime it with explosive gel. As long as the enemies are not alerted, the guy on the other side will not move.

After that, you’ve got to crouch walk your way in a straight line out of this room and into the next. If you did it right, you’ll be behind an enemy and see the other breakable wall behind them. Now all you have to do is sneak behind them and wait until they’re just far enough around the corner for you to prime the wall and get your explosions. However, there is a roughly 95% chance that you will be spotted immediately following the explosions. Be prepared to escape by the vantage points, but do not, under any circumstances, use your smoke pellet. You need it for another challenge.

5. Smoke, Thermal Enemies, and Pounce Attacks

You can do takedowns in smoke to thermal enemies, but you have to be fast. If you give them more than a second to react, they’ll turn their goggles on and the takedown won’t work. Even if you do take out the guy after that, it won’t count toward the challenge.

Another thing that can trip you up are pounce attacks. Unless the game explicitly says you are performing a pounce attack, it won’t work. Pounce attacks and Drop attacks look very similar, but Drop attacks don’t count as Pounce attacks for challenges and vice versa.

6. Natural Selection (Extreme) – Robin’s Crowd Control Extravaganza

I’m shocked that this strategy is consistent, but I did manage it three times in a row. From the start, wait for the enemy going down the stairs to turn away from you, then take a sharp left. Another left into a hallway and there should be a hole in the ceiling above you. Grapple up and you’ll be in a room with one explosive wall and two wooden walls (I think you can also do these challenges with the wooden walls, but I’m not risking it). Here’s the step-by-step process.

• Step 1. Gel the wall (You can skip this part)
• Step 2. Break the wooden wall to the right of the breakable wall and hang from the ledge of the hole.
• Step 3. Wait for the vast majority of enemies to investigate. One of them will come into the room, one will turn the corner, the rest will leave.
• Step 4. Wait just a bit, then climb back into the room and silent takedown the guy in there with you. Do not knockout smash them.
• Step 5. Sneak behind the guy who turned the corner and gel the other side of the breakable wall.
• Step 6. Sneak back into the room and drop down to the bottom floor. Enter the nearest grate and prepare yourself.
• Step 7. If you skipped Step 1, then just explode once three enemies enter to investigate the body. If you didn’t skip Step 1, zoom in and isolate the target on the right to ensure it explodes first.

7. End of the Line (Extreme) – Free Knockouts Galore

This strategy is a little inconsistent, but if you can pull it off, you’re set. You need to silently get to the grates to your right. What I do is crouch walk until an enemy goes “Huh” or something along those lines. I then sprint the rest of the way. It’s definitely inconsistent, but if you get there undetected, you can just wait in the grates for the perfect opportunity to take out the jammer guy and slide into a nearby vent/opening.

From here, use your Detective vision equivalent to wait until most of the enemies are at the body. Then, you need to climb on top of the nearby train car. Drop down on the other side and sneak under the underhang. There should be a hold in the ceiling that you can use to get behind the sniper up here. You will need to take out the sniper, but the method you use is dependent on your character, so I’ll leave it up in the air. Now it’s time for the greatest heist of the century. Get your batarang/bolas/shuriken/wingding ready. (Preferably the remote control variety of available). It’s time to snipe some guys. If an enemy is near a ledge on top of the train cars, you can just hit them off with any of the above.

Armored enemies will only get knocked down if you hit them from behind, so remote control gadgets make this much easier. I highly recommend that you calculate how many enemies you’ll need for the challenges first so you don’t screw yourself over while picking enemies off. The trick is to lessen the amount of enemies while still leaving just enough for you to complete the challenges. (Thinking on it, Nightwing could just use the Wrist Dart headshots for free knockouts anyway, since it works on armored enemies).

8. Lost City (Extreme) – Batman’s Batter-Up

How do I still have more of these?

I unfortunately don’t have a consistent strategy to whittle down the enemy count without getting shot because I go for High Speed Impact over and over until one of the enemies finally goes over the ledge which results in the enemies being alerted and roaming about randomly. However, if you manage to get it down to three enemies with at least one disruptor charge left, then I’ve got a strategy for Switch Hitter.

Why three when you only need two? Well, the third enemy will head straight for the hostage. It is imperative that you do not set up for Switch Hitter before this happens because you will need to either disrupt, (if you have two charges) or take out, the hostage taker. Once that situation is handled, we can begin.

• Step 1: Use a freeze grenade to freeze an enemy on the upper level (If the two enemies aren’t separated they might break each other out, so be patient).
• Step 2: Disrupt the other enemy and wait for them to be in a good position on the upper level.
• Step 3: Line launch into the disrupted guy and then transition into the frozen enemy. If you’re really lucky with your positioning like I was, they’ll both go over the ledge ending the predator challenge right there. If not, be prepared to run before the first guy gets a new gun or before the second guy gets up from the ground.

Getting it down to three enemies without getting hurt is still hard, but this is the most consistent and safest way to get Switch Hitter without taking damage (as far as I know).

9. End of the Line (Extreme) – Robin and the Three Pointer

So… I hadn’t done the Triple Snap Flash the first time I beat this map because I did Predator Master earlier than I probably should’ve and used the Free Medal on it. Regardless of the confusing wording, you have to detonate all three snap flashes on three different henchmen all at the same time. Now that I’ve done it, here’s the strategy. When you’re knocking armored enemies off of the subway trains with the remote-control shuriken, aim for the enemies with goggles.

If you can make it so there’s only three enemies left, none of them have thermal goggles, and they’re all grouped up at the last enemy you just took out, you can smoke pellet them, put snap flashes on all three of them, detonate all three of them, and then ground takedown them all before any of them can get up. (Although, if you don’t have the beatdown yet, let the last guy get up and end their entire bloodline right then and there).

Edit: I recommend getting the ledge takedown on the sniper when they cross the bridge before this, but it’s a bit of a risky maneuver. I just find that it’s harder to get the enemies back up there once you’ve picked a lot of them off.

10. Lost City (Extreme) – Robin’s Hit and Run

Yes, there are still more of these somehow.

Another challenge that confused me at first. You have to get an enemy stunned on the ground, attach a snap flash to them, then detonate it so it hits another enemy, all before the stunned enemy gets up! Here’s how I did it. There’s a normal enemy on the top floor who won’t move and an enemy with thermal goggles who does move. You have to wait until the two of them are right next to each other, then throw a smoke pellet at both of them. You need to be quick for this next part! Swiftly glide kick into the enemy with thermal goggles, attach the snap flash to the stunned enemy on the ground, immediately detonate it, then grapple away. You are not guaranteed to escape without being seen, but I thankfully did manage it.

This one isn’t really a big tip, (and may be pretty obvious to a lot of you), so I’m going to keep it separate, but please remember when doing campaigns, that you have infinite retries on the first map. I put together so many crazy hard combinations of modifiers on the first map of several campaigns because I know I can get them out of the way much easier without having to worry about losing my retries.

Also, Also, the Black Mask and Freight Train challenges are required for Robin’s achievements (this includes the campaign that has both of them). Nightwing gets the Wayne Manor Armory and Wayne Manor Main Hall as his requirements (Again, the campaign that includes both of those is also required). Batman and Catwoman don’t have extra requirements which I don’t really know how I feel about. None of the extra maps are considered “Extreme”, so they wouldn’t be a major problem if they were required (beyond the tediousness of course).

11. Police Brutality (Extreme) – Nightwing’s Karmic Punishment

I wasn’t planning on making another tip. I thought Nightwing was completely overpowered and the rest of this would be smooth sailing. I had just finished Lost City (Extreme) which wasn’t too bad despite requiring me to not take any damage, so I was confident going into this. Here are my tips after I finally beat the thing. (I’m dreading the two campaigns that have this map so much).

You have to knock down three or more enemies with one electrical blast, line launch into two guys in a single launch, and batclaw a weapon out of a henchman’s hands before taking them down.

• Step 1. Get on the vantage point to your left and wait for the jammer enemy to approach the top of the stairs in the middle of the room.
• Step 2. Jump towards the jammer enemy so you land behind them as they turn away from your location. (Also, hope Nightwing doesn’t do a roll, because if he does you just instantly lost the encounter and I have no idea how to stop him from rolling).
• Step 3. Silent takedown the jammer enemy and immediately grapple to the vantage point to the right.
• Step 4. Defuse the enemy in the top left of the room. Also, if you can, defuse the enemy in the top right of the room behind the glass window.
• Step 5. Wait for every non-defused enemy to approach the jammer guy you’ve taken down and immediately perform an electrical blast to get all four of them.
• Step 6. Run towards one of the defused enemies, grapple their gun away before they drop it, and knock them out on the ground.
• Step 7a. If you’re really confident you can wait until the enemies are getting up and line launch into the crowd. You’ll likely get the challenge complete, but also get shot to kingdom come.
• Step 7b. Just escape to a vantage point before anyone sees you. (You might want to aim for the vantage point you came from, but that’s up to you).

If they see you while you’re grappling to a vantage point, don’t even bother going all the way up. Drop down before you touch the vantage point (but after you’re a far enough distance to not get executed) and find another way to escape, like the alcove you start the level in. If you did it right, they won’t start destroying the vantage points and you’ll get shot a lot less.

I don’t really have a strategy for the line launch. I waited for an opportunity to stun two or more enemies, waited until they were getting up, then line launched into them. With less enemies, you have a lower chance of getting shot. The problem is that once the room is reduced to three enemies, one of them will take the hostage, severely limiting your options.

If either of the campaigns with this map in it have the free medal modifer and you know you won’t need it for another map. Just do the same strategy, but immediately start knocking out the enemies after the electrical blast. You should be able to get two or three before the defused guys get new guns and before the remaining guy(s) get up. From there, if you can escape, you can pick off enemies with the wrist darts and grapple the gun away from the last guy and take them down for the other challenge. Reminder: If an enemy is on the hostage, you can get them off without taking them down by doing the combat stun move. As far as I know, you need to do this if an armored enemy takes a hostage, so it’s a good thing to keep in mind anyway.

Here’s a bonus tip

Despite the game never giving you a visual prompt, you can perform a corner takedown on armored enemies. This will not allow you to silent takedown or knockout smash them. This will result in the armored enemy breaking out of your grasp and immediately attacking you, so be prepared to run or fight. However, this does count for Corner Takedown challenges. So, if you think you’ve screwed yourself over because there are only armored enemies left and you haven’t done this challenge yet, think again.

12. The Final Tips

This has been a ride. I’ve been coming back here to update this as I completed Robin and Nightwing’s predator challenges, but I’ve finally done them. Pretty soon, I’ll be visiting Calendar Man for the final time and getting my final achievement. However, there are still a few things worth mentioning, so let’s end this off with a bang.

End of the Line (Extreme) – The Flying Grayson (Nightwing)

The strategy starts out very similar to Tip 7. Free Knockouts Galore, up until you get behind the sniper enemy in the alcove. In this specific case, you want to wrist dart them in the head to be as silent as possible. You shouldn’t miss at this distance. After that, you got to wait for the perfect moment to batclaw the other sniper off of the bridge. If they land on the floor, a quick electrical blast from the vantage points to the three or more enemies that investigate the body works well. However, if the sniper enemy lands on one of the trains. Get excited. As long as you get to the vantage points fast enough, you have the prime opportunity to electrical blast three or more and knock them out all at the same time.

But, what about Switch Hitter? Honestly, this one’s a bit rough. I get it down to two or three enemies and wait for two of them to get close to each other. I electrical blast them and start setting up my trajectory for the line launches. Once they’re getting up, I line launch into the first guy, switch, then hit the second guy. My successful attempt actually required me to line launch from the ground floor into one of the trains. It’s a bit rough and they don’t always line up great, but it’s fairly safe. (You can defuse them too for added security, but they will drop their gun and run if they notice before you kick them).

Natural Selection (Extreme) – Nightwing breaks the Laws of Physics

The only real challenge to this one, from my memory, is knocking three enemies to the ground with the Escrima sticks. However, I’ve repurposed one of the other tips as a fairly reliable method.

• Step 1. Get into the alcove indicated in Tip 6. Robin’s Crowd Control Extravanganza, break the wooden wall, and hang from the ledge.
• Step 2. Wait for any enemy who might see you on the bottom floor to start heading up to the broken wall and drop down.
• Step 3. Use Detective Mode and the Escrima sticks to aim at them through the ceiling!. Due to how these sticks ricochet, you can actually hit them from down here even though you can’t see them.
• Step 4. Try to aim for enemies who are not armored. Armored enemies won’t be knocked to the ground and you won’t get the challenge complete unless all three enemies are knocked to the ground. It can be a bit hard to tell the difference with Nightwing’s Detective Mode, but you’ll notice if you look a bit closer.
• Step 5. You only have two attempts at this. You can try once and if you hit an armored enemy, you can aim again and try to hit three non-armored enemies. However, after the second attempt, they will all instantly knock your location. Thankfully, they take the long way around, so you have more than enough time to escape to a grate. If you didn’t get the challenge at this point, you’ll have to figure out an alternative (There is another wooden wall up there, but I don’t know if it is as effective the second time).

Quickfire Gadgets

This last one is a bit odd because I rarely used quickfire gadgets, but there are a couple that can be useful. Quickfire explosive gel at the top of ladders can help you quickly set up traps. Quickfire batclaw can help you quickly pull enemies off of ledges. Quickfire batarang has a decent chance of knocking an enemy to the ground even if they see you as long as you use it enough times in a row. Lastly, we have Catwoman and the quickfire whip. From my understanding, you can swiftly pull an enemy to the ground with this quickfire gadget. So, if you’re in a bind with two enemies on your tail, it might be safer to quickfire whip both of them and then escape instead of just escaping in the first place. Although, I’m not entirely certain as I barely used these gadgets.

Admittedly, I wanted to make some Catwoman tips, but most of her challenges are surprisingly easy. It’s just beating the maps in the first place that’s difficult. Let’s see if I can come up with anything…

Caltrops make noise, so don’t throw them near an enemy. It’s best to aim for places that enemies often go to, like ladders. Due to how Catwoman gets to the vantage points, it’s often a better idea to run away and find another place to hide when escaping. Granted, the vantage points can still be useful if you get up there without being seen, but they’re generally a terrible escape plan. Don’t underestimate the ceilings Catwoman can crawl on. They are basically Grates 2.0. Do keep in mind that performing a silent takedown or knockout smash from a ceiling will make Catwoman drop the ground. If you can, use this chance to run away from the body before returning to the ceiling. Remember, her run is completely silent. Her Bolas are about as useful as your average batarang, but I remember it working surprisingly well for knocking enemies off of the trains on End of the Line (Extreme). Just keep in mind that even though the alcove up there is generally a safe place, you can be seen if you’re close to the opening. Especially, by the sniper!

Catwoman doesn’t have too many strategies that work on large groups of enemies, so it’s generally best to take them out one by one. Although, if you’re good at trial and error with memorizing the early patterns in a map, you could set up a bunch of caltrops traps and lure most of the enemies into them at once by doing something loud, like a knockout smash. This would be very risky though, so be warned.

I think that’s it. Welcome to the end of the line. I’m glad I finally did this even if some of it was just pure suffering. I’ll be glad to put it up in my 100% completions alongside Arkham Knight.