Major story spoilers ahead for
Batman: Arkham Shadow
.
Batman: Arkham Shadow accomplishes a lot storytelling-wise and the fact that it’s all as coherent and faithful to extrapolated series lore is highly commendable. The narrative is much longer than previous Arkham games, considering that it takes place in a little under a week with a structured day and night system while other titles sustain themselves within single nights. Batman: Arkham Shadow itself wraps up nicely with a conclusion that would feel abrupt if not for how much character development it establishes earlier on, and yet some lingering questions or teases may not be left to players’ interpretations for long.
Indeed, Bruce Wayne only locks eyes with his parents’ murderer for a minute or so at the end of Batman: Arkham Shadow, but because of how much time he has spent with Joe Chill for the past week in-game it is clear what is meant to be relayed in Bruce’s reaction and reconciliation. Still, in an interview with Game Rant, Batman: Arkham Shadow game director Ryan Payton divulged how future updates are going to continue putting meat on the game’s bones, particularly in terms of story beats that Camouflaj wants to flesh out more, including one involving a Rat whose identity seems all but transparent already.
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Batman: Arkham Shadow’s Boldest Choice is Not Making Bruce Wayne the Only Playable ‘Character’
Batman: Arkham Shadow pulls no punches with a novel portrayal of Bruce Wayne in the Arkhamverse and its story is all the better for it.
Batman: Arkham Shadow is Keeping Its Lingering Questions Close to the Chest
Batman: Arkham Shadow players will surely notice what is possibly one of the most novel decisions made when developing an Arkham character, which is that a certain character may or may not make an appearance as the Rat whom players tussle with at the Monarch Theatre. Interestingly, while all signs logically point toward this Rat being positively identified as Dick Grayson, Payton elected to remain cryptic as Batman: Arkham Shadow has more in store for them:
“I can confirm that there’s a Rat in the projector room…I can confirm that Bruce Wayne had a minute to reflect on what happened with that Rat, and then asked Leslie to reach out to him, and that is a thread we placed into the game over the credits. I’ll give this one, I’ll give you this: while we’re not doing story DLC, we are adding more content to the game, and we will tie the bow more significantly before we’re all done developing and updating the game.”
“..As for how we’re going to provide more information about that specific Rat, I don’t want to spoil that too much, but more content is coming that I think will satisfy some peoples’ curiosity about the identity of that character.”
Batman: Arkham Shadow’s Continued Development Promises New Story Content
Batman: Arkham Shadow will not have additional story content in the typical form of post-launch DLC or expansion, and it is still unclear precisely how players will be engaging with some of the story content that Camouflaj has planned. Payton explained that the team is aiming to add more dialogue options with Joe at the Commissary as part of December’s patch, for instance, and that development on the game is Camouflaj’s priority for the next several months with some massive updates and features that are in the works.
“The update that’s coming out has thousands of changes in it and I’m so eager to get that out there, and then the subsequent update, which is going to come out sometime in December, 1.2. That’s where we’ll actually be adding a lot more content to the game, including the character viewer, more challenge maps, and also we’re going to be adding localized voiceovers for all of the non-English languages.”
“…We’re not completely confirming it, but signs are looking pretty good that we’ll be able to add New Game Plus early next year. Perhaps another difficulty mode—“I am the Knight” mode from
Origins
is a highly requested feature from users that we’re actively looking into right now and trying to add sometime next year.”
Payton stated that the projector room Rat’s storyline bookend “won’t make it in time for December, but that’ll be one of those early 2025 updates.” Therefore, by early next year, Batman: Arkham Shadow will probably look like a whole new game with a ton of supplementary content atop a rich campaign.
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