The Batman: Arkham series is an emotional one, and there are many depressing side quests along the journey to protect Gotham City. Rocksteady’s superhero series is a masterful reimagining of Batman’s lore, taking players through an intense saga as the Dark Knight struggles to overcome both his deadliest foes and personal demons across four games.
At his core, Batman is a tragic character. After all, his story begins with his well-meaning parents being gunned down in front of him when he is just a small boy. The Batman: Arkham series doesn’t shy away from this heartache, nor the countless other tragedies that come in the wake of Bruce Wayne’s crusade against crime in Gotham. Throughout the complete Batman: Arkham story and timeline, the deaths of Batman’s parents constantly haunt him, as well as the deaths of Talia al Ghul and the Joker, the return of Jason Todd as the vengeful Arkham Knight, and the fear of failing to protect allies like Alfred, Oracle, and Commissioner Gordon.
The Batman: Arkham Series Has Some Truly Tragic Side Missions
Batman: Arkham’s dark tone carries over into many of the series’ various side quests, which often task players with tracking down some of the Caped Crusader’s enemies or solving smaller crimes. This also means that players can re-experience the tragic backstories of villains like Mr. Freeze and Man-Bat, along with being just too late to stop killers like Victor Zsasz from murdering innocent people and uncovering dark and tragic secrets surrounding Gotham’s oldest families and institutions. The majority of these sad moments come from Arkham Knight’s “Gotham’s Most Wanted” side missions, but all of the Arkham titles feature subplots that can cause even the most hardened crime fighter to shed a tear.
Arkham Origins’ Final Casefile Hits Close To Home
Part of Batman’s duty as a protector of Gotham City involves solving murder cases, which can often remind him of the tragedy that started him down the path of a vigilante in the first place. The final Casefile side mission in Batman: Arkham Origins is a prime example of this, and it is even named “Crime Alley Shootings” to drive home how similar it is to the death of the Waynes'. Batman gains wind of a double homicide taking place in the same alley his parents were shot in, and it turns out that the victims were a newly married couple that Bruce knew personally.
As he analyzes the crime scene using his signature Batman: Arkham Detective Mode vision, he begins to note just how similar the gunshots are to the ones that took his parents’ lives - to the point where he even has a hallucination about that tragic night while proceeding with the case. Batman eventually deduces that the killer is a man he had thrown out of a Halloween party for harassing the bride-to-be - and apparently he murdered the couple out of jealousy. The Dark Knight tracks the culprit down to a steel mill, where he takes down the gunmen’s mob associates before interrogating him.
As Batman pins the cowardly killer against a fence and growls about how he is petty and selfish, the player can feel the anger and pain in Batman video game actor Rodger Craig Smith's voice. Not just for the loss of his two friends, but for the memory of his parents’ final moments, a grim reminder that he became the Caped Crusader to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. It’s a small moment in Batman: Arkham Origins, but one that highlights the sadness that drives the game’s hero on his never-ending battle against evil.
Killer Croc Is A Surprisingly Tragic Victim In Arkham: Knight
While Killer Croc spends most of the Batman: Arkham series as a frightening enemy out for the Caped Crusader’s blood, it can be easy to forget that his backstory is surprisingly sad. After all, Waylon Jones didn’t ask for the genetic disorder that slowly mutated him into a reptilian monster that is mocked and feared by all. Though it doesn’t excuse his more overtly evil traits and criminal actions - and one can’t help but feel sorry for Croc even as players fend off his vicious attacks in both Arkham Asylum and Arkham Origins.
Killer Croc’s third and (to date) final appearance in the Arkham series is during Batman: Arkham Knight’s “Beneath the Surface” DLC mission, which begins with Nightwing telling Batman that an Iron Heights Penitentiary airship has crashed in Gotham Bay. The duo arrives at the wreckage site to find Killer Croc, now more monstrous than ever and holding the ship’s Warden Ranken hostage in hopes that the science team onboard will cure his growing condition - but to no avail. Upon further inspection, Batman and Nightwing discover that Ranken and his crew have been experimenting on Croc and the other prisoners to replicate the former’s healing factor.
Batman and his former Arkham Origins multiplayer sidekick are able to apprehend Croc and the corrupt Warden, locking the latter in the same cell as Croc as punishment for his unethical experiments. However, while Killer Croc is largely an antagonist during this Arkham Knight “Season of Infamy” mission, all he wanted was a way to undo the terrible condition fate left him with and try to gain something resembling a normal life, only to be met with abuse and false hope instead.
Man-Bat’s Arkham Knights Origin Is Terrifying And Heart-Wrenching
Dr. Kirk Langstrom, aka the monstrous Man-Bat, has had quite a presence in video games over the past few years. Before his posthumous role in Gotham Knights, he appeared late in the Batman: Arkham series; and his designated Arkham Knight side mission demonstrates just how frightening and tragic the scientist-turned-rampaging-bat creature can be.
While grappling along the rooftops of Gotham, Batman can come across a nightmarish bat monster in a jump scare that continues to frighten Arkham Knight players seven years later. This starts Arkham Knight’s “Creature of the Night” side mission, which tasks the player with subduing the creature long enough for Batman to collect a blood sample. This sample leads Bruce to Dr. Langstrom’s underground lab, where he uncovers records of Kirk’s dangerous experiments - as well as the dead body of his wife Francine. She had been assisting her husband in his attempts to cure deafness using vampire bat DNA, and was killed by Man-Bat after he transformed.
Batman is able to create a cure for Langstrom’s mutation, and he reverts to his human form after the Dark Knight chases Man-Bat across Batman: Arkham Knight's open world Gotham and isters two injections. This is only the beginning of Kirk’s nightmare though, as he is heartbroken to discover that he killed the woman he loves as a monster. This is sad enough, but if the player has their console’s date set to Halloween, Langstrom escapes from his cell in the GD lockup and reverts to Man-Bat; meaning that Batman's efforts to save the good doctor were ultimately in vain.
Mr. Freeze Gets A Bittersweet Ending In Arkham Knight’s Season of Infamy
Victor Fries is already one of Gotham’s most tragic villains, and this continues to ring true in the Batman: Arkham series. His heartbreaking backstory from the beloved Batman: The Animated Series was reenacted in Batman: Arkham Origins’ “Cold, Cold Heart” DLC, and his efforts to cure his dying wife Nora served as the backdrop to his story arc in Arkham City. On top of this, fans would finally see a sad and bittersweet conclusion to Mr. Freeze's heartbreaking story in the “Season of Infamy” side missions.
At the start of the “In From The Cold” DLC side quest, Batman receives word that Mr. Freeze is still in Gotham City, taking refuge in an old ship that is being attacked by the Arkham Knight’s militia. Once the Dark Knight makes his way inside the ship, Freeze explains to him that the militia is holding Nora hostage. Even worse, without the ship’s cryo generator powering it, Nora’s life-preserving cryo-chamber is failing. Batman eventually locates Nora, but the powerless machine deactivates and releases her - and what happens next caps off Batman: Arkham Knight's most tragic love story.
No longer frozen, Nora reveals to Batman that she was conscious for the entire decade that Victor had her on ice - itself a rather tragic fate as she was forced to watch as her beloved husband become a criminal in her name. Freeze begs Nora to return to the cryo-chamber, so he can resume his research, but she insists on spending whatever time she has left with the man she loves. Victor reluctantly agrees, and the doomed husband and wife decide to leave Gotham in one of the Batman: Arkham series’ saddest moments.
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