A Rant Fit for Arkham
Nocturnal Complaints on Arkham Knight
Let me be very clear - I usually write posts on this Substack when I am moved to do so. When I am enthused to such a degree as to discuss something. This is largely why there are so many months long hiatuses on this newsletter. It isn’t really a common occurence, being possessed in this way by a topic.
So before I launch into this rant, I would like to thank everyone who does read these posts. New and Old.
Ok, let’s set the scene.
This’ll do.
I awoke near midnight and I began to text a group of friends about Batman. This gives a little insight on what it is like to be my friend. That day, I had bought Arkham Knight cheaply of the PlayStation Store. A deal is a deal, and I like deals. I’ve been somewhat starved for the exact cocktail of superhero gameplay that I longed for, so I bit the bullet and bought Arkham Knight.
A little context, I have the previous two mainline Arkham Games and I beat them thoroughly. Almost 100% on both games, unfortunately due to shenanigans I didn’t cusp that final percentage. The point is - I really like those games as games. I would sometimes put on a podcast and play through the combat or stealth arenas, honing my skills in the Arkham Combat and Stealth Systems, using these levels like playgrounds.
(Side Note: I do not have access to Arkham Origins due to its lack of availability on the PS Store, although I would like to play that game. It will be mentioned below - but keep in mind, I’ve yet to personally play it.)
But I am not blind to their flaws. Flaws which at first are odd but largely inconsequential but build and build until we get to Arkham Knight.
Now I would like to state here, that my critiques and my opinions are my own and they are not damnations on Rocksteady or DC or crucially anyone who likes or loves these games. They’re an Internet Ghost’s grumblings and misgivings, but even so I appreciate you reading it. Furthermore as stated above, this were the ramblings of someone who just woke up and chose violence.
OK…
My issues with the Arkham Knight are threefold.
Gameplay
Characterisation
Story
We’ll start with gameplay first. As stated above, I love the gameplay of the Arkham games. I think in terms of character action (which is already a loose genre and I think some feathers might be ruffled by my inclusion of the Arkham games in it) and stealth, these games are very good examples of their craft. I’ve spent hours with them and I know I’ll spend hours more because they feel great.
I also think that the setting of Arkham Knight is a very clever one. As a finale the previous three games need to be one upped. A besieged Gotham is a wonderful idea if
IF
It is populated. The reason a siege is dramatic is there are people in the sieged fortress and they’re in danger. A city is not merely buildings and roads and intersections and the occasional monument, those are the backdrops. A city is its people. Arkham City did not feature many civilians in its map as textually Arkham City itself was a large private prison. But there were political prisoners and the occasional airborne Vicki Vale. It wasn’t just the gangs of prisoners let loose and the PMC (Private Military Corporation) Tyger.
Arkham Knight almost immediately evacuates Gotham, leaving it for those aforementioned gangs and the new PMC in town and the Emergency Response Teams of the GCPD and GCFD. The map also undergoes a massive update from City and even Origins. This however is a double edged sword. A huge map with very little human life in it is empty.
Thousands or millions of NPCs is an unreasonable ask, but perhaps holdouts of people Gothamites who stayed and are struggling in the siege. Someone like Leslie Thompkins or the TKDR Sons of the Bat, there are many choices of people who would stay and fight. Having that be a main side quest: taking back the city! That’s Batman’s crusade in a nutshell. That’s a very intriguing alternative to a vast hollow place that you’re only able to engage with via traversal and combat.
Speaking of traversal, this issue is futher compounded by the real star of the show:
The Batmobile.
The map of Gotham is designed around using the Batmobile for the majority of the game. So the already hollowness described above is spread out to necessitate the Batmobile, exacerbating the issue.
It is a gimmick the puzzles and levels are largely built around, so much so the Riddler is making race tracks now. And yes, being able to use the Batmobile largely freely is cool. The fact you can swap its skin is cool too. But... the way the Arkham Batmobile moves and also fights is not really in line with the Batmobile’s image.
This is not actually what we wanted. Not what I wanted at least. You've made a serviceable if not fun tank combat game... But yeah... that's a tank.
Not the Batmobile. Of course there are many Batmobiles which are tank-like or tanky, but they are not literal tanks. Aesthetic ideas of the Batmobile aside, its central focus in the game means that we don’t actually see a War Time Batman per se.
Who on Earth wins a war with a suped up car?
We know this Batman has at least 2 versions of the Batwing, as well as multiple Batcaves. The Batcycles, the Batboats, even the Bat-Blimp - they could’ve all made appearances against the Arkham Knight’s the siege of Gotham. Origins used the Batwing as fast travel between Assassin Creed style liberated zones of the map. But that game also suffered from the emptiness that Knight exaggerates by making Gotham a place to drive past.
It mischaracterises both the Batmobile and Gotham in doing so. Which leads up neatly to the second issue I have with the Arkham Games, their characterisation.
This is less Arkham Knight’s fault, but Arkham Knight is left to pick up the pieces. Throughout Asylum and City there are some odd bits of dialogue and actions, choices made which irked me. The occasional very harsh out of character words from Batman (often aimed at Harley Quinn), the weird distant way the Bat Family is written (less partners and more soldiers), and the juvenile "adult" style of writing crime and criminals. They all add together in Arkham Knight in 3 details…
Detail 1 - Robin
Robin gets the raw end of the stick in this game. For a majority of the game he is largely absent or kept in the dark and disrespected by Batman. He is also given a horrendous haircut, meant to channel ideas of MMA fighters and such, but ends up making him look far older and bald.
Brief aside: The art style of Arkham Knight has a really gritty and pseudo realism thing going on which I personally dislike. The Unreal Engine run Arkham Asylum and City have major issues in their art style, notably the design of women and how fucking huge everyone is. But there was cohesion in the look of the universe, until Knight.
A detail about this Robin is he’s the third to hold that mantle. That makes him Tim Drake. That's cool, that's groovy! And he's engaged to... Barbara Gordon... That's... no.
I don't think that this game has an obligation to be 1:1 with the comics or BTAS. Even though they deliberately make that connection with their choice of VAs and writers (I'll get to writers). That's not my issue. My issue is the relationship swapping Barbara Gordon is subjected to. It's not cool and I don't like it. It reeks of “we can't write women unless they're love interests” or an inability to have Batgirl not be with Robin. Regardless of who the Robin is.
Or who the Batgirl is or was. There are dynamics and relationships already created that one could have added in, but they all would’ve necessitate Batgirl and Robin being a priority. Which is just not the case.
Detail 2 - The Larger Bat Family
Please watch this for context.
Annoyingly, this trailer and a few others like it, marketed a Bat Family focus. Nightwing, Robin, Oracle, Catwoman, Azrael and Alfred, etc.
You can technically
TECHNICALLY
Play as them. But only for short battle segments in side quests in team up fights DLC and in bonus content. You cannot free roam natively, mods and their wonderful modders have rectified that mistake. They are supplemental. Put a pin in Azrael for me, we’ll return to him.
Detail 3 - The Arkham Knight
This is a funny little anecdote. When I first saw the trailers for Arkham Knight I immediately clocked the Arkham Knight as Jason Todd. Because it is obviously Jason Todd and everyone who knew Batman lore clocked him. But no -
According to the press releases prior to the game’s release, that is untrue. It is a new original character!
So theories began to swirl on the true identity of the Arkham Knight!
No… it was Jason Todd. Like everyone thought it was. The game itself is not subtle about that either. There’s a new masked villain out there Batman, but first... tell us about your dead son. It is almost insulting how thick the foreshadowing is. There is only ever one real candidate for who is under the mask.
Now Jason Todd is a wonderful character. His death and his return are equally dramatic events that shake the Bat Family to their core and force them to relive their mistakes and their grief over a son/grandson/sibling’s death. What does it mean when a family member is taken away too soon? What does it mean when they come back? This is assuming of course that the Bat Family is a focus of your story.
You spend more time with the Batmobile than the Bat Family in Arkham Knight.
Now we move onto story.
As already covered, the Siege of Gotham is a wonderful idea. As is the haunting of Batman by the ghost of the Joker. There is a more grounded excuse for it in-game, but let’s call a spade a spade. That’s a ghost. The plot thread of the potential return of the Joker and Batman trying to stay sane while being possessed by this idea of the Joker is great. Even the different aspects of the Joker, represented by the infected pseudo-Jokers is a terrific idea. It is in the execution where they falter. Firstly, why were the pseudo-Jokers not a larger side quest? Perhaps something for Robin to actually actively do and investigate. They’re just in the cells at the start and then escape and then die. The brief of Ghost Joker, Ghoker, if you will isn’t fulifilled really. Sure we get impossible multiplying disappearing Joker, in a very theatrical way. But that’s not the same as a horrifying as say… the burning skeletal undead remains of Joker haunting Batman. Similar to how Paxton Fattel appears to you in the very flawed FEAR 3 or Jack Goodman in An American Werewolf in London. Especially given you cremate the Joker in Arkham Knight, the idea of a charred Beetlejuice like Joker is potent and also darkly comedic.
But those are small stakes compared to the Siege of Gotham.
Scarecrow is the main villain of Arkham Knight and I am only now mentioning him. I love Scarecrow, I believe he is an underrated by premiere Batman villain. They got John Noble, famed actor of screen and stage to play him. He delivers a chilling performance, with a breathy disdainful drawl. Scarecrow is also the best part of Arkham Asylum. The surreal game breaking stuff they did in that game is legendary. Harkoning back to Eternal Darkness and its inspired Sanity Mechanic. But it’s just... they don't commit to having him be a genuinely big bad. Sure Scarecrow is responsible for the events of the game but he isn’t… present.
There isn’t much connective tissue between Scarecrow and a large scale military operation.
Lack of commitment as a flaw returns when we look back to Arkham City’s sequel hooks: Hush and Azrael. The Hush storyline is one of my favourite side quests in Arkham City. A serial murderer harvesting facial features from his victims in order to become the spitting image of Bruce Wayne! That’s certainly a problem for Batman. Not really… that side quest is barely a fight in Arkham Knight. Now Azrael in Arkham City is cryptically hints at a dark future for Gotham (as if its present is all that cheery) and Batman’s fall. Azrael is used in the trailer for Arkham Knight for this purpose. But he is similarly largely irrelevant to the overall plot of the game. At least you get to play as him in these training sequences.
This is especially frustrating because a new PMC was written for the Arkham Knight and Scarecrow to command. When the Order of St. Dumas were already established. They could've easily made Azrael the herald of this army. A modern fanatical Crusade vs the Caped Crusader. Maybe even incorporate Jason Todd as another Azrael, another indoctrinated vulnerable soldier for this never-ending crusade. A nice foil for how the Robins are often dismissed.
This piece of art, from Batman: Curse of the White Knight, were created after Arkham Knight so it is a tad unfair to allude to them but they illustrate this militant idea.
The big question is why? Why is this the case? For my money as an idiot who knows nothing and is writing a post at an ungodly hour, there are 2 reasons. Who made the game and who the game was made for.
I have no insider knowledge on the inner workings of Rocksteady when Arkham Knight was in production, but I can read the writing credits. There is a Paul Dini shaped hole in the writing team. Now a game, much like a movie or TV show, is a large collaborative effort - it is a lot of people working together. That being said the absence of a veteran Batman writer of the calibre of Paul Dini is felt. Keenly felt in my opinion.
The threads from the last game might’ve been sewn up into something more fitting for a finale had a master seamster been among the crew.
But from my reading of the Arkham Games there is a greater culprit to the state of this story - the intended audience.
Now I fear that sounds rather elitist or like an old man shaking his fist at the youth. But stick with me. This is related to the larger zeitgeist of how superheroes are viewed, what kept the Hugh Jackman out of the blue and yellow for 20 years. The Batman Arkham Games when you really look at their storylines and their priorities isn’t that brave or bold. They are rather run of the mill Batman stories, meat and potatoes done very well but still rather basic. That’s not inherently a bad thing, most of BTAS is regular run of the mill Batman stories. Rocking the cart does not immediately make a good story. But it does mean there are elements which lean towards toothlessness.
In my opinion, the fact the game is somewhat afraid to lean into the weirdness and zaniness of Batman and comic books writ large. It is cool, first and foremost. Specifically the 2010s Mainstream Gamer Interpretation of cool. Allow me to demonstrate…
ahem
“Batman is cool but Robin isn't. He's gay. He's lame. Batman should be a loner and distant and remind me of my Dad! What...? Gimme that Monster!
chugs
Superman? He's boring. Why would I want him in my cool Batman game? Just because he’s mentioned a few times and we also know this universe has a Justice League - they’re not COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!”
Now this is a very insulting (albeit accurate) impression of the main market for Triple A games in the 2010s. The illusory average man of the gaming industry at that time. It is disappointing that I feel this way from these games which I spent a great deal of my youth watching videos of before earlier this year finally being able to play them. Comic books are silly and they are weird. The adaptions of them must contend with those facts and be able to look themselves in the mirror and ask…
Am I proud of who I am?
All of it? All the weird stuff, the bad stuff, the fun stuff and the fucking awesome stuff?
Am I willing to embrace it all?
In my opinion these games don’t have it in them to embrace their own heritage and history. They can nod to the past, but that’s all you’ll ever get - a passing nod. What saves it, the whole series is
Kevin Conroy’s Batman.
Who imbues the script and the proceedings with a gravitas, an aura and a sense of true pathos. Because he’s motherfucking Batman. Present tense, time and mortality does not negate how truly excellent Kevin Conroy was. Him and Mark Hamill’s dynamic alludes to their tenure in the DC Animated Universe of the 90s into the early 2000s. A universe which did embrace all of its heritage and with it told inventive and bold tales that resonate powerfully across the ages. Both the ages of time and the ages of those who watched it, young and old.
Perhaps it is unfair to expect this level of self acceptance from this piece of media because another related piece did it prior. But I am human not a fully coherent machine. Also if you allude to something metatextually, its fair game.
That’s all I got…
The orderlies are putting me back into my cell.
And just to be annoying, I’ll use a piece of Moon Knight art to sign off with.
Thank You For Reading.