The Arkhamverse’s gameplay formula is timeless, and its rich worldbuilding enables it to have as long a shelf life as possible as there are interesting layers to peel back on a remarkable character, setting, or event.Batman: Arkham Shadowis fascinating for a handful of reasons; for example, it provided a devastating origin story for Harvey Dent’s Two-Face, debuted a sympathetic enemy faction with the Rat King’s Rat loyalists, and finally revealed the Arkhamverse’s Carmine Falcone in-game.BetweenBatman: Arkham Origins,Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, andBatman: Arkham Shadow, the Arkhamverse has thoroughly and successfully demonstrated the value of prequel entries.
Rocksteady is reportedly working on a newBatmangame now that the dust has settled onSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueand, while it could reasonably be a prequel game itself, it’s expected to continue pushing the Arkhamverse forward in the present day—perhaps even leaping ahead to the future for an adaptation ofBatman Beyond. Either way, if there are to be sequels toBatman: Arkham Shadow, developed by Camouflaj for VR and/or by other studios for flatscreen platforms, they will hopefully all take their sweet time and not hurry to reachBatman: Arkham Asylum’s point in the timeline so thatArkhamgames in the prequels can milk that precious era of the franchise for all it’s worth.
Batman’s Arkhamverse Prequels Should All Be Tight-Knit for Longevity’s Sake
Batman: Arkham Shadowtakes place three months afterBatman: Arkham Origins Blackgateand six months afterBatman: Arkham Origins. In this time, it’s exceptional to see how much character development is afforded and this shorter, more granular pace is considerably easier to follow than the disjointed and distanced nature ofBatman: Arkham Asylum,Batman: Arkham City, andBatman: Arkham Knight’s connective tissue.
The Arkhamverse has shown how much can occur in a single night on Batman’s watch, and yet the prequels’ overall span of only half a year is microscopic compared to the two-year span of Rocksteady’sArkhamtrilogywithSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguethen jumping ahead five years afterKnight. It’s this solidarity that creates an interconnectivity and sense of immediate continuity between each prequel game, whichShadowis incredibly faithful and beholden to as it, too, is set almost entirely within the questionable confines of Blackgate.
The issue with a sequel jumping too far ahead now from whenShadowtakes place is that it would unavoidably overlook or dismiss a paramount event. There are stillyears betweenShadowandAsylum, but those years are all sacred and ripe with installment potential. Indeed, some of the most profound narrative beats that occur in this gap include:
Batman’s Arkhamverse Needs to Pick Its Battles Carefully and Not Progress the Timeline Idly
The Arkhamverse would miss out on a gargantuan opportunity and attempt to depict all of these beats with their own games in order to maintain a steady heartbeat for the franchise for the foreseeable future. How Batman and his enemies interact with one another inAsylumsuggests that there has been quite a long time between when he first encountered them and when the game takes place.
Not every act of crime a villain commits may be epic or significant enough to warrant its own representation in a game—Two-Face’s bank robberies inKnightarguably wouldn’t have been worth their own game, for instance, whileHarvey Dent’s elusive and short-lived reign as the Rat Kingcertainly was.
Still, any new entry into this franchise should hope to flesh out the timeline’s gaping chasms meaningfully. Otherwise, the sooner the Arkhamverse’s prequel well dries up the sooner the franchise truly will have overstayed its welcome unless Rocksteady is able to bring the series into a brand-new era with whatever it’s working on now. Therefore, a sequel taking place shortly afterShadowwould be wonderful since it could tie up that game’s loose ends and still have its own plethora of authentic stories to tell.
