Rocksteady is continuing its Arkhamverse franchise with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League in the present day, though the franchise’s focus has smartly swapped to feature criminals and villains alike as its protagonists this time around. The Arkhamverse has always done a great job at representing both heroes and villains and their perspectives, but Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will finally be an internal commentary from the villains’ side. Building off this concept, another prequel entry following Batman: Arkham Origins should be considered with a new protagonist of its own.
Batman: Arkham Origins is often forgotten as an entry in the Arkhamverse due to it being the only mainline game in the tetralogy not developed by Rocksteady. Instead, Batman: Arkham Origins was developed by WB Games Montreal, who recently launched the ill-received Gotham Knights. Batman: Arkham Origins was a wonderful attempt at a prequel story with origin stories depicted for multiple characters and relationships, and its reveal of the Joker sets the character up to be an incredible protagonist in a deserving crime-filled sequel if Rocksteady wanted to look to the past.
Kevin Conroy’s Passing Shouldn’t Mean the End of the Arkhamverse
Because Kevin Conroy had recently passed away, nobody would fault Rocksteady for wanting to leave the Arkham franchise shelved and fully close the book on that chapter in the Batman mythology. However, besides the fact that Conroy’s Batman does appear again, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League demonstrates that there are many other engaging characters who can become protagonists themselves, even if they are technically criminals or villains.
Indeed, the Arkhamverse’s future might now be contingent on Task Force X and the myriad roster permutations that it could compose itself from. Still, there is a large enough gap between Batman: Arkham Origins and Batman: Arkham Asylum that could result in a ton of prequel stories for the Arkhamverse.
Hopping back into the past would mean that Batman would need to be present or at least still around in Gotham City, but thankfully Batman: Arkham Origins had already featured Roger Craig Smith as its Batman, demonstrating that even the franchise’s most iconic character could be recast for prequel entries while Bruce Wayne was a bit younger and more inexperienced.
A Batman: Arkham Origins Sequel Could Feature Joker as Its Protagonist
Otherwise, Batman: Arkham Origins is an origin for the Joker more than anyone. Joker’s playable nightmare sequence depicts his and Batman’s first encounter and him dropping into a vat of acid, thus becoming the Clown Prince of Crime.
Batman: Arkham Origins’ conclusion is a stepping stone for the antagonist and fans know he becomes one of Batman’s most prominent adversaries thereafter, which is the perfect makings of a Joker-led sequel. Now that the Arkhamverse is being led by villains with ambiguous moral compasses in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, it would be incredible to see the Joker as a revolver-totting protagonist in his own game as he orders henchmen around and commits heinous acts of villainy.
This sequel could feature Batman as an antagonist like he is in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, where players try to flee him, the Bat Family, and the GCPD in numerous narrative quests. Of course, Batman: Arkham Origins’ multiplayer modes offered this same sort of experience, but it is deserving of its own game whether that had a story-driven single-player mode or multiplayer modes wholly.
Either way, Troy Baker’s Joker is well-worth his own installment. Joker may be oversaturated in the Arkhamverse, and fans could be put off by yet another reprisal. However, a hypothetical sequel's biggest selling point is that it would be another single-player Arkhamverse game with Freeflow combat returning alongside the potential for third-person shooter mechanics.
Batman: Arkham Origins is available now on PC, PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360.
