Arkham Shadow’s Rat King Presents a Way Forward for Batman Games

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 23, 2024 6 Views 8 Min Read
Arkham Shadow's Rat King Presents a Way Forward for Batman Games



After nearly a decade of silence, the much beloved Arkham series made its long-awaited comeback with Batman: Arkham Shadow. And despite pre-release fears concerning its status as the only VR-exclusive Arkham game, it’s been a rousing success. Fans had been waiting since 2015’s Arkham Knight for another entry in the iconic series and the team at Camouflaj has delivered in a big way. Not only did the developers prove an Arkham title could work in a VR platform, but they also proved that even after four pitch-perfect Batman games, the Arkham series still has some new tricks in its utility belt.

In the lead-up to the release of Batman: Arkham Shadow, there was much fan speculation as to the identity of the Rat King, a totally original creation of the game. While other longtime Arkham standbys like Gordon and Harvey Dent were known to be featured, the Rat King was the standout in both the marketing and the finished product. Regardless of the character’s true identity, the Rat King may just be the key to the future of Batman games.

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The Rat King Mystery Gives Batman: Arkham Shadow a Mysterious Edge

Why Arkham Shadow’s Rat King Twist Works So Well

The Rat King story presented in Arkham Shadow is an original concept by the team at Camouflaj. The story shares some narrative beats with a couple of classic Batman capers, namely The Long Halloween, but for the most part, the story is wholly original and the mystery of the Rat King’s identity keeps the player engaged throughout most of the runtime. And when the reveal finally comes out, it feels like a well-thought-out and completely earned plot twist.

The Rat King mystery inevitably draws comparisons to the bemoaned Arkham Knight twist in the last game. On paper, they sound exactly the same: an existing character in the Batman mythos adopts a new masked identity and wreaks havoc while Batman tries to stop them and piece together who they are. The main difference is that the Rat King reveal has been largely well-received and the Arkham Knight twist is still met with eye rolls nearly a decade later.

The reason for this is that the Arkham Knight twist is nearly a 1:1 adaptation of Under the Red Hood, maybe one of the most famous Batman stories ever. Arkham Shadow‘s originality is one of its biggest strengths; it takes enough cues from existing Batman adventures to be familiar, but it’s not afraid to try new things to keep fans guessing. Characters and/or identities like the Rat King are the key to keeping Batman games exciting and preserving Arkham Shadow‘s freshness moving forward.

Batman’s villains are some of the most iconic in comics, but they might be a little too popular for their own good at this point. Batman is the World’s Greatest Detective, and it’s really hard to have a good mystery story when the audience knows every possible villain’s identity, motivation, and MO after decades of stories with Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, and the rest.

By allowing those characters to hide themselves behind new, unfamiliar gimmicks like the Rat King (and to a lesser extent, the Arkham Knight) Camouflaj and other developers can craft more suspenseful stories where players can work as detectives alongside Batman to piece out the mystery. And with recent rumors that Rocksteady is delving back into Batman games, maybe it can redeem itself after the underwhelming twist of Arkham Knight and the overall misfire that was Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

This isn’t to say that Batman stories can’t keep a compelling narrative using the classic characters. Matt Reeves’ The Batman managed to keep viewers on the edge of their seats, despite the fact they knew from the start that Riddler was the primary antagonist. And of course, Arkham City told one of the most praised Batman stories of the last decade without creating a single new character. Rocksteady and writer Paul Dini instead crafted a new and exciting story using the established rouges and Bat Family members.

But it’s really not fair to expect every single Batman game to be an Arkham City. Sometimes a new character concept like Rat King is exactly what a story needs to give it a jolt of new life and fresh energy. And there can be no denying that there’s a certain satisfaction in solving a mystery alongside the World’s Greatest Detective.

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