How to unlock the Vicki Vale and Reporters character showcases?

[My 600 Ping Life.]

I have 240%ed the game and 3-starred every free-roam AR Challenge but 2 character showcases are still locked.

I looked-up which ones I didn't have and I'm missing "Vicki Vale" and "Reporters". How do I unlock these? (these are the only things I haven't unlocked)

[JonoAMano]

[Spoilers]
Reporters unlock during the game, and Vicki Vale unlocks while the media swarms pre-epilogue Wayne Manor cutscene. If you speed-skipped through cutscenes, speed-skipped expository dialogue and / or ran the game with needlessly maxed out screen resolution in the non-NG+ playthrough, some showcase models and confirmations may not have registered properly.

[My 600 Ping Life.]

Originally posted by JonoAMano:

[Spoilers]
Reporters unlock during the game, and Vivki Vale unlocks after the swarming pre-epilogue Wayne Manor cutscene. If you speed-skipped through cutscenes, speed-skipped expository dialogue and / or ran the game with needlessly maxed out screen resolution in the non-NG+ playthrough, some showcase models and confirmations may not have registered properly.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥... Guess I'm ♥♥♥♥♥♥ since I already got 240%.

[My 600 Ping Life.]

Also I just checked and I'm also missing 2 concept arts (#36 and 56)... Is there a way to unlock them by messing with the game files?

[JonoAMano]

#36 is Wayne Manor - The press awaits. The media frenzy cutscene at the Manor unlocks #36 and the Vicki Vale showcase, and possibly the Reporters showcase as well. #56 is Nightmare Batman, which would normally unlock after the finale cutscene. Is your screen res maxed out and did you quit improperly during the finale or speed-skip either dialogues, cutscenes or confirmations during your first playthrough? Any of those could hinder proper unlocking.

Not certain about tweak unlocking, you'll have to look that up online.

[My 600 Ping Life.]

Originally posted by JonoAMano:

#36 is Wayne Manor - The press awaits. The media frenzy cutscene at the Manor unlocks #36 and the Vicki Vale showcase, and possibly the Reporters showcase as well. #56 is Nightmare Batman, which would normally unlock after the finale cutscene. Is your screen res maxed out and did you quit improperly during the finale or speed-skip either dialogues, cutscenes or confirmations during your first playthrough? Any of those could hinder proper unlocking.

Not certain about tweak unlocking, you'll have to look that up online.

I used to play in 1920x1200 back in 2016 but recently started playing again with a new monitor which is native 2560x1440. I played through NG+ with 2560x1440.

[JonoAMano]

This might not work on NG+ since the models and artworks were supposed to unlock in the primary game, but backwind your save to an earlier point just before activating the Knightfall protocol, then play forward normally with screen resolution reduced and without speed-skipping, see if the rewards unlock. You probably already know the drill, but here it is just in case:

01. Backwind to a previous save point. From the save slot menu:
Keyboard and Mouse: Hold down minus key (-) to display backups, press equal (=) once or twice to select.
XBox Controller: Hold down Left Bumper (above Left Trigger) then press Right Bumper once or twice to select.

If that doesn't place you back far enough in time, follow these instructions to access Backups from the Documents folder:
02. Reload a previous save.
Locate your backup folder, typically found here:
Documents \ WB Games \ Batman Arkham Knight \ Steam Account Number \ SaveData \ backup
Follow these instructions, procedure here:
http://support.wbgames.com/link/portal/24022/24028/Article/1062/I-lost-my-Batman-Arkham-Knight-save-How-do-I-recover-it

If you use saves from the Backup folder listed above, you can't drop set of saves into an empty save slot in the Remote folder listed below because swapped saves need an existing save to overwrite. What you need to do is start a new game on an empty slot and bring progress to at least 0% - 1% -- up to the first skippable cutscence -- and then quit to desktop before dropping new saves into the Remote folder to overwrite the old saves.

Your main game saves will be here:
Steam / userdata / Steam User Number / 208650 / remote

Arkham Knight's save system has up to 3 .sgd files per save slot which read as follows:
First save slot: BAK1Save0x0.sgd, BAK1Save0x1.sgd, BAK1Save0x2.sgd
Second save slot: BAK1Save1x0.sgd, BAK1Save1x1.sgd, BAK1Save1x2.sgd
Third save slot: BAK1Save2x0.sgd, BAK1Save2x1.sgd, BAK1Save2x2.sgd
Fourth save slot: BAK1Save3x0.sgd, BAK1Save3x1.sgd, BAK1Save3x2.sgd

Make certain your 3 edited saves are corresponding using the nomenclature listed above. In other words don't just randomly grab one set of 3 saves; make sure they belong to the same save slot and time index. If you still have your backup saves from your first-run non-NG+ playthrough that would work even better.

[JonoAMano]

Another thing, if you use the Backup saves make certain to edit the datestamps from the .sgd file names. For example, edit from this:
BAK1Save0x0.sgd_2017-08-10_13-03-11

To this:
BAK1Save0x0.sgd

Just so you don't accidentally lose any major progress, make copies of your current Remote saves, and also make copies of any Backup saves you want to swap them with.

[My 600 Ping Life.]

So I used the menu backups from the first method which brought me to

[spoilers]
The part where you find Barbara after exiting AK's HQ on NG+

But there's something I remembered after I read about the "quit improperly" part.

One of the times (I don't remember if it was NG+ or the regular playthrough since I did it for the first time right before starting NG+) I activated Knightfall (the full one) and tried to skip the credits but it got to the part where it shows the photo and thanks from the dev team and it froze so I had to Alt+F4. Could that have been the issue?

[JonoAMano]

I think you hit the nail on the head. The end cutscene should run it's course but when the credits roll it's safe to skip to the group dev photo. If you F4 quit before the menu or returning to the game then that could have goofed confirmations, glitching the art and showcase rewards.

[JonoAMano]

I did a test playing from the Scarecrow sacrifice. After that and before Knightfall, make sure you have the following Showcase and Concept Artwork:
Showcase Pre-Knightfall: 06 Red Hood, 20 Family - Wealthy Citizens
Concept Art Pre-Knightfall: 14 Arkham Asylum, 15 Crime Alley, 16 Scarecrow Meeting

I played forward from the Knightfall farewell normally and skipped through the credits and group mugshot. The following rewards unlocked:
Showcase Post-Knightfall: 51 Reporters, 61 Vicki Vale
Concept Art Post-Knightfall: 36 Wayne Manor - The press awaits, 56 Nightmare Batman

Mind you this was on a first-run game; I don't have any NG+ saves from Knightfall forward. If memory serves correctly, I too was puzzled how to reenter the game on gamepad after the group mugshot. Incidentally, that's normally not a game freeze, there's simply no Exit or Escape prompt to guide us. After some counterintuitive experimentation here's the procedure.

Skipping end credits:
Controller: red B button (XBox) or other gamepad equivalent
Keyboard: press Escape

Quitting or reentering game after developer group mugshot:
Controller: green A button (XBox) or other gamepad equivalent
Keyboard: press Enter

I did an Alt+F4 quit at the group mugshot and as expected got cheated of the four post-game rewards, but it saved right at the BatSignal ready to activate Knightfall. Using your original set of NG+ saves, play forward normally and see what happens. Or backwind to just before Knightfall. Even though the rewards are supposed to unlock in first-run -- as mine did when I played forward after the forced F4 quit -- perhaps you can get them to unlock in NG+.

Let us know your results.

[My 600 Ping Life.]

Ok. So I did a few most wanted missions to unlock the incomplete Knightfall protocol and let the credits play completely. And it actually worked. I got all 4 rewards. Only downside is that I'll have to grind through those damn AR Challenges again and regain my WBplay skins.

Thanks for the help. Not all heros wear capes.

[JonoAMano]

You're welcome. In the future you can skip through the end credits, but exit normally past the developer mugshot using the procedure above and you'll keep all the rewards.

Incidentally, if you made a copy of your original progress you could reinsert that save, play forward from Knightfall and you'd probably be able to keep all your rewards plus original completed AR Challenge maps. I wish I thought of that sooner. In any case, if you run into any playthrough issues in the future you can always use the backwind feature. Enjoy. :-)