Summary
Almost every time the Arkhamverse’s eponymousArkhamgames are referred to it’s solely with Rocksteady in mind. Indeed, Rocksteady did create the Arkhamverse and put in all of the work to establish its world-building, lore, and characters in an original trilogy, but it is often forgotten thatBatman: Arkham Originswas a fourth entry black sheep arriving betweenCityandKnightas a prequel to the whole series.
Batman: Arkham Originswas developed by WB Games Montreal, not Rocksteady, while Rocksteady would go on to developKnightin the meantime. Now, with each passing yearOrigins’ cult status grows larger in popularity as an underrated gem in the Arkhamverse.
WB Games Montreal Earned Its Place in the Arkhamverse with Arkham Origins
Formidable as It is, Rocksteady Shouldn’t Get to Hoard the Arkhamverse to Itself
Rocksteady has definitely earned the right to most of the praise the Arkhamverse receives. Its rich character portrayals,Freeflow combat and predator stealth, and gloomy atmosphere are all signatures of Rocksteady, withOriginslacking in a few of those areas when compared directly.
Of course,Originswas never going to be a wholly original stamp on the serieswith many ofCity’s assets and foundations carried over into the prequel. This is clear when grapnel-boosting and cape-gliding around a familiar open world, though it does have a lot of new landmarks and environments such as Pioneer’s Bridge. The most obvious wayOriginsscalpsAsylumandCityis in its boss fights, which are almost all comprised of ideas and mechanics from Rocksteady’s titles.
Origins’ Deathstroke and Copperhead boss fights parallel the bones ofCity’s Ra’s al Ghul boss fight, for instance, and at the same timeOrigins’ Firefly boss fight seems original aside from some inspirations fromAsylum’s Poison Ivy boss fight. Still, what WB Games Montreal was able to achieve on its own, having the responsibility of depicting Batman’s first encounters with many of the Arkhamverse’s most iconic characters, was phenomenal and its cutscene work was terrific.
Originsarguably has one of the better stories throughout the Arkhamverse and, withRocksteady continuing the franchise’s continuity throughSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, it deserves to tell another.
WB Games Montreal Should Get to Develop a Modern Arkhamverse Game
The knee-jerk idea would be for WB Games Montreal to put together another prequel, perhapsa trilogy ofArkhamgames set beforeAsylum. There are still roughly 10 years of Batman’s crime-fighting career not directly covered by theArkhamgames betweenOriginsandCity, giving it more than enough room to stretch its legs and feature a ton of exciting stories and characters.
However, if the series is effectively moving on from Batman and expanding to include the wider DC mythos, it would be great to seea WB Games Montreal Arkhamverse gamethat takes place alongsideSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueinstead. Maybe it takes the nextSuicide Squadinstallment followingKill the Justice Leaguewhile Rocksteady returns to single-player action-adventure, or maybe WB Games Montreal takes those reins itself if Rocksteady’s going to be swamped by live-service endeavors for the foreseeable future.
To be fair,Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguehas already demonstrated that it is on a much different level of quality thanGotham Knightsas a current-gen game and it’s unknown if WB Games Montreal would be able to keep up with that standard of fidelity and gameplay in a contemporary era as opposed to a decade ago.Either way, the Arkhamverse thriving without WB Games Montreal would seem unjust and wasteful considering how greatOrigins’ piece of the pie was and, thoughGotham Knightswasn’t everyone’s cup of tea as an original DC continuity, a return to the Arkhamverse’s well-established canon could boast another excellent entry from the developer.
