Batman has been a central figure to many stories. Where he has really shone in recent years is in the Arkham game series. Having the opportunity to play as the dark knight made for a lot of sleepless nights as fans tackled each mission for hours at a time. The expansive worlds for games made each story better as subsequent editions rolled out.
With each medium, Batman’s tales have shared several underlying elements. These are things that are central to the character, and without them, it doesn’t become his story. However, the games have taken a few liberties that stray significantly away from the comics.
10 Titan Serum Is Unique To The Game
Bane’s body enhancing serum, or venom as it’s properly named, has been known to the Batman universe for quite a while. It was only in the first of the games, Arkham Asylum, where someone had thought of the idea to extract it from Bane to make a more extreme version of it.
The effects of titan were extreme. They immediately caused the user to mutate into a much larger size, and it greatly enhanced their strength. After the Joker uses it on himself to fight Batman, it's discovered that it also causes users to be extremely ill. This was central to the story in the game’s sequel, Arkham City.
9 The Introduction Of Arkham City
Gotham City is already infamous for its extremely high crime rates. It’s rife with mobsters from various families. Dozens of villains have made their names known by feuding with well-established bosses within the city. It’s a bit peculiar that a city that already sees so much law-breaking decided to section off a portion of the city specifically for that.
This is exactly the premise of the game. For the villains involved it makes sense: if someone is trying to get rid of all possible competition, why not just gather the herd and slaughter them all at once? Of course, when this plot is revealed, Batman needs to do whatever he can to stop this. In his eyes, even villains have the potential to do good, and not everyone deserves that harsh of a punishment.
8 Copperhead Is A Woman
It makes sense that DC would dig back into old editions of their comic for character inspiration. Copperhead is one of those characters. The original criminal was a male contortionist who wore a costume that resembled the snake he is named after. He started off as a thief, but then graduated to assassination, specifically using contortion and the tail of his costume to squeeze his targets to death.
The female version in the game holds many of the same traits, except a tail. She still manages to use attacks that wrap and constrict Batman when they fight. While Larissa Diaz was introduced as Copperhead in the live-action series, Gotham, she has yet to be seen in official continuity.
7 Mister Freeze Is Not A Self Driven Criminal
When Joker falls ill from the titan serum, he begins searching desperately for a cure. He had Mister Freeze cook up some medicine to help cure him, but as luck would have it, he ended up disappearing. Batman finds him and discovers that he is actively researching a way to make it stable so that everyone can recover.
In the comics, Freeze is typically focused on one main motive: to find a cure for his sick, frozen wife. Before this, he had turned to a life of crime in order to feed his own desires. In both situations, he was very much a self-led man. He is hardly ever commissioned by anyone to do anything for them, and he is not likely to take those jobs unless it highly serves either of those motives.
6 Robin And Oracle Are Dating
Dome long-time fans of Batman will remember that Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon were once inseparable. It may have come as a bit of a shock to discover in Arkham Knight that Tim Drake ended up replacing Dick as Barbara's life partner. It’s a bit strange to think of Tim getting engaged, but kids grow eventually up right?
In the comics, there would have been a pretty large age gap to consider between the characters. Not to mention that she had also previously dated Dick Grayson in their early crime-fighting years. The video game seems to retcon all of this with the two characters more or less meeting in the middle with their respective times on earth.
5 Tim Drake Is Bald
Robin has changed his look fairly often throughout the comics. It's definitely not an expectation that he should look exactly the same when compared to the comics. However, the game designers decided to give special attention to his hair—or lack of it.
Tim makes a brief appearance in Arkham City but wears a hood. It’s not until the events of Arkham Knight that fans get to see why he was hiding his head under his cowl. Simply put, his head must have got cold in the winter air. Either that or still had yet to see the Bat-barber for his new buzz cut.
4 Its Arkham Knight, Not Red Hood
When Jason Todd is finally introduced in the game it is as the titular character, Arkham Knight. Sporting armor, guns, and a Batman shaped helmet, he presents himself almost as an evil mirror image to the dark knight.
It’s not until his reveal that he removes the outer shell to his helmet, revealing the red-tinted dome below it. He doesn’t label himself by name, but fans would very much recognize the transition in his character at that moment.
3 The Joker Is Already Dead
In the original reveal of the Red Hood, Jason Todd ends up kidnapping the Joker. He presents him to Batman with two options against his morals: he can go against his code and kill him as he deserves, or let him live which proves to Jason that he cares more for his life than anyone else’s. The Joker being physically present is central to his origins in the comics.
The game changes this. Having succumbed to illness caused by the titan serum, he ends up dying, but appears as a haunting hallucination after Batman is pumped full of Scarecrow’s fear toxin. Nevertheless, he still becomes a vigilante by the end of the story.
2 Batman Reveals His Identity
As events would turn against him, Batman surrenders himself to save the captured Time Drake. While in captivity, Scarecrow orders Commissioner Gordon to remove his cowl in front of a camera that is being broadcast throughout Gotham City. Unfortunately, the plot armor is not thick enough to prevent his face from being seen by everyone.
In the comics, Batman’s identity has been discovered more than once. And it was only fairly recently that he revealed his identity public, but willfully. It has yet to happen in the comics that he is held against his will and forced to broadcast his alter ego as Bruce Wayne.
1 Jim Gordon Becomes Mayor Of Gotham City
Probably one of the happier conclusions to come from any telling of Batman’s story, Commissioner Gordon decides it's time to hang up the gun and badge and start running the city. It's probably the best decision he could make, after all the rough and tumble he went through as a policeman.
Gordon has yet to make a move into politics in the comics. It could be that he loves his job too much, or it may also be that he feels that he can best serve the city on the ground in this way.