How Batgirl’s Oracle Duality Would Make for a Dynamic Arkham Game

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home April 2, 2025 6 Views 5 Min Read
How Batgirl’s Oracle Duality Would Make for a Dynamic Arkham Game



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Batman: Arkham Shadow is an excellent examination of Bruce Wayne’s character regarding how Dr. Leslie Thompkins holds a mirror up to his many masks. Meanwhile, Batman: Arkham Shadow thankfully doesn’t shy away from the Bat-family that Batman has established later on in the timeline as there are few gaps left in the series for its members’ origin stories to be told. As such, Shadow features an inspired and intrepid Barbara Gordon after she was last seen in Batman: Arkham Origins, and it’s in Camouflaj’s Meta Quest 3-exclusive Arkham entry that Barbara is knighted as Oracle.

The Arkhamverse and its chronological timeline would next see Barbara in Batman: Arkham Knight’s “A Matter of Family” Arkham Episode DLC, which is probably an accurate distillation of what an Arkham Batgirl game might look like. However, Joker shooting and paralyzing her would occur sometime later and confine her to a wheelchair for the entirety of Rocksteady’s Batman trilogy. So, while a game centered around Barbara may be more inclined to follow her exploits as Batgirl due to the possible limitations that her exploits as Oracle would entail, it would be pertinent to ensure that Barbara has her heroic dichotomy represented fully nonetheless if she was to receive her own Arkham game.

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Mr. Freeze’s story has been told so succinctly and thoroughly in the Arkhamverse that another prequel appearance could seek to ruin it.

A Batgirl Game Would Be a Too-Near Shade of Batman’s Gameplay

Like Batman: Arkham Knight’s “Matter of Family” DLC and even Gotham Knights demonstrate, Batgirl is the most fluid way that players could be onboarded to a Bat-family game sans Batman as she retains the World’s Greatest Detective’s cape-gliding traversal as well as a lot of the gadgets he’d equip on his utility belt. Batgirl is arguably more agile, employing more kicks into her moveset as unique animations, and yet she is more or less a reskin of Batman in many ways.

The main distinction that Knight makes note of is how she’s more tech-savvy—a remnant trait of her early Oracle days and a means to depict her intelligence.

Disappointingly, that’s only exemplified via her use of the Remote Hacking Device, which requires no effort for the player to use skillfully. That’s why, if Barbara had her own Arkham game, it could take place anywhere within the Arkhamverse timeline and would hopefully incorporate an equal amount of Batgirl and Oracle gameplay as that pairing of skill sets is what makes her special.

A Batgirl Arkham Game Can’t Compromise Oracle’s Genius in Gameplay

‘Oracle’ being such a defining and inseparable gradient of Barbara’s character ensures that her gameplay in a feature-length game could lend a unique perspective to the Bat-family dynamic that’s merely been teased beforehand and shouldn’t be taken for granted. For example, it would be fascinating to play a Batgirl-led Arkham game where at least half is played with Barbara on active field duty and then the game takes a dramatic and traumatic turn with her spinal cord being severed, allowing the last chunk of the game to be played as Oracle at a Batcomputer.

As Oracle, it would be brilliant to finally be the person monitoring, aiding, and communicating with Batman (or maybe even Robin) with Alfred there in the Batcave to speak to, almost as if her playable sequences are elaborate, fully interactive Detective Mode challenges. Plus, it would be neat if players were the ones to load gadgets or Batsuits into the Batwing and have them deployed at Batman’s location.

Otherwise, if that’d be too jarring of a transition so late in the game, Oracle could be Barbara’s primary role with her adventures as Batgirl being playable in intermittent flashback sequences. Either way, both Batgirl and Oracle are instrumental to who Barbara is and a future Arkham game with her as the lead would need to comprehend and respect that balance somehow.

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