The Nighthawk Event

Technically, this should have gone in Days 1, 2 and 3... but it's so incredible that I might as well make it a post of it's own. And, since it appears to be a limited time event, I should do it quickly in case any of you want to participate.

The Nighthawk event starts with the sudden appearance of The Nighthawk... but he's been committing crimes. Something doesn't sit right with Defender and you're assigned the task of proving Nighthawk's innocence. In order to do so, you need evidence.

Now, at first I was lost. Unlike normal missions, there wasn't a number indicator on my map to show where I should begin. But as I got a feel for Millennium City, I began to notice the giant red circle on my map changed whenever the police radio kicked up a new broadcast. I put two and two together and headed towards the circle. Along the way, I found some friends.

Upon putting the hurt on the goons, I realized they had loot waiting for me. Suppressing a squee, I pressed Z and was treated to “Circumstantial Evidence.” Huh. Well, maybe it's a … oh, right. Nighthawk. Sure enough, my quest tracker checked off that I now had one of ten pieces of circumstantial evidence. After some various experiments later, I came to realize only the goons dressed in black dropped the evidence I needed.

Ok. Must be this evil Nighthawk's henchmen. I can deal with that. I then head for the red circle on the map again when it suddenly changes to a new location. Well, damn. Altering course, I finally arrive at the Bank – which is misleading, because it's not the bank that the hero's use. It's a civilian bank. Which makes sense, as what moron would rob a bank full of super heroes? I find a police barricade out front and enter the blue highlighted door.

Right on, this must be the place. Lobby is full of black masked goons. I begin to work them over, heading deeper and deeper into the vault system. Yes, vault system. There are multiple areas with giant, cliche vault doors leading into yet more rooms. Humorous when one contains what appears to be a lobby. You know, so, when the villain is robbing the place, he has a place to relax while his henchmen pry open the door. I arrive at the final room and defeat the last group of goons, only to find a super villain named Nighthawk. We scrap, but he's not very difficult. Just a straight up brawl, which I don't mind. Defeating him drops “Concrete Evidence.” Ah. Looking at my quest tracker, the bank is checked off.

Rinse repeat two more times, make sure you have the 10 circumstantial's and head back to Defender. You'll notice the other to Nighthawk's use vastly different powers, animations, and body sliders. Obviously, Nighthawk is being impersonated.

After talking to Defender, I head due East (surprisingly to me as I've only been working Westside up to this point) and arrive at the door of Frank Stone, who owns a ginormous building. I try to enter, but am greeted with a LFG menu. Queuing up, I wait around a minute before I'm invited to join an event. Alongside four other heroes, we storm the main lobby and come across hordes of goons. Hordes.

 For those that knew me on Virtue, that might be a Genesis Grim walking alongside Nighthawk.

We take them all out, head up an elevator and confront the impersonator. Also joining us is the real Bat-Nighthawk. Nighthawk talks like a bad Christian Bale Batman impersonator. He's very Batman. Not as Batman as this, but more Batman than this. Yes, there is a scale for these things. Stone escapes when a HUGE gunship hovers alongside the window and rains bullet hell at us. We all duck and are spared, but Stone boards the gunship and flees. All is lost, until real Nighthawk reveals he just happened to bring along enough Nighthawk fighters for our group to chase him. Convenient. I won't complain, because what happens next is brilliant.

Wow. So, our group takes to the sky and dodges laser drone grids, takes out engineers supporting Stone's gunship, blasting his hull with munitions and trying to stay alive. It. Is. AWESOME.

And conveniently, the Prototype Nighthawk fighters are cash shop items at $16.50 (I think) a pop, coming in three flavors. Brilliant marketing on someone's part. Introduce an awesome mission, have a cool gimmick at the end and hey, if the players love the gimmick, they can buy that item at your store for permanent use.

Brilliant.

That wraps up the Nighthawk event. When I first ran it, there was a daily chance to earn Nighthawk costume pieces or possibly a fighter, but that's since been removed. Limited, etc. You still get Questionite as a reward, and if you don't want to pony up cash for a fighter of your own, lets you play with an awesome vehicle for a short time.

I highly recommend this event, and hope that Cryptic keeps making content along these lines.

- @Epsicon