Growing up, I was never a child at the cutting edge of gaming. While my friends rejoiced at the screen resolution on their new Xbox 360, I quietly enjoyed playing the early Harry Potter games on my PlayStation 2. That all changed in 2009 when Rocksteady and Warner Brothers released Batman: Arkham Asylum on the PlayStation 3. I needed it. Maybe it was The Dark Knight releasing a year earlier, or maybe it was something deeper, but whatever the need, I couldn’t rest until I played this game.
So, when I did finally get my hands on it, I couldn’t let go. The fluid mechanics, the varied playstyles, and an open world so densely packed it felt like a render of a real place kept me hooked for years. Then, in 2011, along came Batman: Arkham City. It was bigger, bolder, and better in almost every way. Arkham City remains my most-played game ever, having completed the core story and most of the side missions no fewer than two dozen times. Again, I was happy to be behind the curve of gaming, I had my happy place. Then they did it again, and Batman: Arkham Knight became my sole reason to buy a PlayStation 4.
All this to say, I love the Arkham franchise. I’ve lost months of my life in that universe with not a single regret.
That said, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was a massive disappointment. Some of the mechanics were fun, and the sequence in the Batman Museum is objectively a work of art, but something was off. The loss of Sefton Hill was an enormous loss to the project, and as an aspiring writer and fan, even I noticed a steady stream of job adverts in Rocksteady’s story department. Something inside Rocksteady broke.
Now, their version of Metropolis is just as stunning, packed, and unique as anything they’ve produced in the past. As game makers, they remain the reigning monarch. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s problem wasn’t on the screen; it was on the page.
Whatever went wrong, whoever is to blame, it’s all superfluous now. It’s over. As the dust settles, the fine keyboard journalists, bloggers, and ‘super-fans’ (myself included) are all speculating: what happens next?
Kevin Conroy has passed, and Mark Hamill has repeatedly stated his Joker belongs to Kevin. The creative team at Rocksteady is fundamentally altered. I’m sorry to say, but the ‘Arkhamverse’ is dead. Something in my childhood hates me for writing that, but it’s true. In order to ‘fix’ what went wrong, the only course is to start again.
But how?
People want more Arkham. They want more hiding in the shadows, gliding over rooftops, and some absolute maniacs want more bat-tank. How can they get all that if Rocksteady put the Arkham-verse in the ground and move on?
As I say, it’s not what’s on the screen that’s the issue. It’s what’s on the page.
Let’s get this out of the way first, shall we? If the cape and cowl never appeared in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, we would still recognise the foreboding voice threatening the squad at every turn as that of Batman. Kevin Conroy voiced Batman for over twenty years. From Batman: The Animated Series to his last outing in Rocksteady’s most recent venture, Conroy is Batman. If Rocksteady were to continue the Arkham franchise, they would need to do so without their greatest icon and asset. Continuing with Arkham games would force the studio into one of two options; replace Conroy with a similar sounding actor or use AI to mimic his voice. Let’s be fair, both are mired in controversy. Just look at how the outstanding Alien: Romulus received backlash for its AI cameo.
Without Conroy, there’s also no Joker. Mark Hamill would never return to voice the Joker without Conroy as his cowled foil. Technically, the Arkham-verse has a new Joker in JP Karliak’s Elseworld incarnation, but there’s little validity to the argument that he would hold up in a future Arkham game. He’s too embryonic to be any meaningful threat to the caped crusader.
Of course, the Arkham-verse could continue through another member of the Justice League, or even through another member of the Bat Family, but each potential continuation still throws up that key issue. Where is Batman? And, if he’s there, why does he sound like that?
Without Batman, any future Arkham outing is forced into the same narrative corner that plagued Gotham Knights found itself before release. It’s impossible to tell a Gotham story to a casual audience without Batman.
Narratively, the Arkham Batman survived the events of Kill the Justice League, but here in the real world, we lost one of the greatest Batmen ever to wear the cowl, and to continue that story without him would be nothing short of disrespectful story suicide.
Without a Batman, what is Rocksteady supposed to do? The appetite for an Arkham game hasn’t gone away, despite their recent shortcomings, but how do they do it? Do they reboot? Do they go back to Arkham Asylum, and expand the story to a modern system? Maybe they add the final island and lighthouse they were forced to cut from their original version?
Doing this would likely fall into a similar trap as continuing the story without the original cast. It would likely end up being the gaming version of the ‘live action’ Lion King retelling. Audiences would walk away, if they even finish the game, feeling like they’re getting a pale imitation of something they’ve played already.
No, instead, Rocksteady needs to ditch the word ‘Arkham’ altogether. Start from scratch, using the principles that made Arkham Asylum so iconic.
To those unaware, Batman: Arkham Asylum is heavily based on a 1989 comic, Batman: Arkham Asylum – A Serious House on Serious Earth. The source material was liberally adapted using more familiar iconography from the Batman: Animated Series, including much of the cartoon’s cast. The comic follows Batman as he is forced, for the first time, to enter the asylum where he sends his most dangerous foes. As the hunt for Joker takes him deeper into the asylum, he is forced to face the fact that he is always one wrong move away from becoming an inmate himself. It’s a dark, brooding, often humourless look at how patients are treated, exposing malpractice and serious short fallings at every turn. That bleak setting is visually and atmospherically abundant in the Arkham franchises maiden voyage. The fact that this atmosphere is manifested through the voices of the children's cartoon only further drives home just how dark this asylum truly is. The mechanics built on top of this story are outstanding, but they’re nothing without these narrative foundations.
Batman has been around for nearly a century at this point, iconic graphic novels and one-shots are abundant in the back catalogue. To reboot a Batman gaming franchise, Rocksteady need only look at what already exists. The benefit of adapting A Serious House on Serious Earth was more than just the story, it was the setting. Arkham Asylum was a small map for a third-generation console. These days, maps can be as large or larger than actual cities. Imagine, for example, a game set in a brand-new Gotham that adapts the traumatic events of the One Bad Day box set. There’s the Bat family, a roster of villains in segmented stories, and one of the most iconic culminations in comic book history with The Killing Joke. Gameplaywise, this opens a whole variety of new mechanics. If ending with The Killing Joke, why not spend a chapter playing as Batgirl? Build the playability of other characters into the story in the same way that gadgets were in the Arkham games. Need to save a hostage by climbing through a vent? Wait to be able to play as young Jason Todd’s Robin. Need to access an area by hacking? Batgirl’s the character to come back with once unlocked. The story also ends with a victory that doesn’t feel very victorious, which could lead into an incredibly ambitious sequel. Death in the Family, anyone?
Alternatively, why not go down a similarly artistically unique route by using the basic story and aesthetic of Gotham by Gaslight? Already adapted in 2018 as a feature animation, the project comes complete with a distinct art style and cast ready to go. Doing away with the gadgets mechanic and focusing on the gothic theme to build new gameplay styles could revitalise the franchise. Not to mention the fact that the comic doesn’t rely heavily on a packed rogues gallery which could streamline the storytelling. There’s also Batman: Gothic and other darker comics that could be woven into the story to create something completely unique, while staying true to the principles that made Arkham Asylum iconic. Why not borrow from Knights of Steel, or Night Cries? If you’re going dark, go really dark. The principles of the Arkham mechanics can port over for a new generation, being refined and rebuilt in a way that only Rocksteady can, and they can find new and interesting ways to weave gameplay and story together. Gone are the Riddler trophies, and here are breadcrumbs and clues to dark and sinister murders.
The point is, Batman is old. I haven’t even mentioned Knightfall, Year One, or The Court of Owls. Reliance on the ‘Arkham’ brand can and will hurt Rocksteady’s chance to make something truly special.
While discussing the potential adaptation of One Bad Day, I mentioned an ambitious potential sequel in Death in the Family. To those not in the know, the comic begins with Batman relieving Robin of his sidekick duties. Reeling, the former-Robin, Jason Todd leaves Gotham to find his biological mother. Both Batman and Todd travel the globe on their different adventures until the two reunite to fight Joker and Ra’s al Ghul. Todd is kidnapped and supposedly killed by the Joker. As Batman returns grieving to Gotham, Ra’s resurrects Todd and unleashes his rage on Gotham as the Red Hood. Having the jumping off point of this story be the events of The Killing Joke, with the weight of Barbara Gordon's injury's weigh heavily on him from the first game is narratively powerful and mechanically exciting.
Aside from that, the story also features characters like Clark Kent, opening doors more naturally to something fans have wanted for a long time, a shared gaming DC universe. Due to its short story and massive cast, it could be considered that Kill the Justice League was meant to be a backdoor pilot to an ‘Arkhamverse’ of games. But it failed. Creating shared universes cannot be forced. Universal Studios tried when they made The Mummy, and it died harder than Gwen Stacey at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, another franchise that has forced and failed to create a shared universe.
The only way to expand into a shared universe is naturally. Tell stories that naturally include ‘entry points’ for other stories and go from there. I write about this a lot.
After Clark appears in the second Batman game, why not spin-off into a VR Superman game? By the time it comes around, the landscape of gaming will have changed, giving Rocksteady an opportunity to use their expertise to exploit the cutting edge of gaming. From there, why not head to Themyscira with an Uncharted-like adventure for Wonder Woman. Look up, and maybe take a No Man’s Sky type journey through the cosmos with Green Lantern.
From a gaming perspective, as well as narrative, the idea of this Justice League of games is exciting, as it could lead to something never attempted before; a cross-over AAA game. Imagine a game where you can play as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or any other Justice League member within the same experience. Sure, it sounds like a mess now, but so did The Avengers when that was announced. Built properly, and with the same care that made Rocksteady the home of DC games, a reboot could change the face of gaming forever.
Once the Justice League story is told, and it’s time for a third and final outing for the dark knight, why not look to Knightfall and The Dark Knight Returns, and use the gameplay and story built to bring the story of Bruce Wayne to a meaningful and tragic conclusion?
Now, imagine trying all that with the already established Arkham franchise. It can’t be done.
The Arkham universe is dead, long live the Arkham universe.
That doesn’t mean there’s no more Batman games to be made, or that any game would pale in comparison to the majesty that came
before. Rocksteady, when they’re allowed to, create impeccably detailed pieces of art both on page and screen. To do it again, they need to be released from the shackles of the word ‘Arkham’ and all the limiting connotations that come with it. Instead, they need to do what they did in the first place. They need to read the comics, watch the movies and cartoons, and use them to create a brand-new Batman experience that absolutely nobody can see coming.
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