Batman: Arkham Shadows Had a Good Reason for Ending The Way It Did

Batman’s Arkhamverse is littered with boss fights against the Dark Knight’s seminal villains. Batman: Arkham Asylum’s mutated Titan henchmen and Bane himself would provide a framework for every other brute enemy in the franchise to follow; Batman: Arkham City’s Mr. Freeze would incorporate all of the dynamic and cerebral attacks players have at their disposal; Batman: Arkham Origins would double down on City’s epic Ra’s al Ghul encounter for a cinematic parry skill check against Deathstroke; and Batman: Arkham Knight would finally let players put hands on Riddler after clocking 243 riddles in Pinkney Orphanage.

Batman: Arkham Shadow is a much more linear and tight experience than what the Arkham games immediately evolved into after Asylum, but that works tremendously in its favor as Shadow takes a slower and more emotional approach to Arkhamverse storytelling. Batman: Arkham Shadow features three boss fights—two of which employ new gadgets players obtain beforehand and the other only allows players to rely on their fists—and, unlike every other entry in the series, does not end on a boss fight. Instead, what Shadow achieves is the nuanced culmination of the story it tells.