Batman: Arkham Shadow Confirms Surprise Actor for Scarecrow

Key Takeaways

• Elijah Wood will play Scarecrow in Batman: Arkham Shadow.
• The game is set after Arkham Origins with young Bruce Wayne and iconic villains.
• This is Wood’s first major motion capture work for gaming, bringing Scarecrow to life in VR.

The newest upcoming Batman game, Batman: Arkham Shadow, will see Elijah Wood take on the role of the villainous Dr. Jonathan Crane, better known as Scarecrow, following a recent reveal. The casting announcement came just days before Batman: Arkham Shadow is set to release on October 22 exclusively for the Meta Quest 3 and 3S platforms.

A fan-favorite superhero universe is making a major return with Batman: Arkham Shadow, which will see players take on the role of the caped crusader in virtual reality, putting the fate of Gotham directly in their hands. The game is set shortly after the prequel title Batman: Arkham Origins and sees a younger Bruce Wayne return to take on some iconic bad guys like the Rat King and, of course, Scarecrow.

Now, as Batman: Arkham Shadow gears up for release on the Meta Quest 3 and 3S on October 22, fan-run YouTube channel Batman Arkham Videos revealed in a Q&A video that Elijah Wood will be taking on the role of Scarecrow in the game. While many of the game’s voice actors, like Roger Craig Smith as Batman and Troy Baker as Harvey Dent, have been known for a while, Scarecrow’s casting surprised many due to his iconic status in Hollywood.

Eiljah Wood Makes His DC Debut as Arkham Shadow’s Scarecrow

Wood is perhaps best known for his role as Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, along with many other major Hollywood roles, though he does have a decent tenure as a video game voice actor as well. Most notably, he portrayed the titular protagonist in the Legend of Spyro trilogy, which began in 2006, and he has even reprised his role as Frodo in multiple Lord of the Rings video games in the mid-2000s.

In any case, however, Scarecrow will seemingly be a much larger role for Wood, as he mentioned in his brief segment of the video that it was his first time doing motion capture work for a major gaming project. The video even provided a brief clip of the actor donning full motion capture gear as he seemingly taunts Batman in what appears to be one of the iconic scenes that play when the player is defeated in the Batman: Arkham series.

While the “Arkhamverse,” as fans have dubbed it, went on a long hiatus following the release of Batman: Arkham Knight in 2015, it made a controversial return in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League earlier this year. Now, however, fans have a chance to jump in again as the Dark Knight, as Batman: Arkham Shadow brings the fan-favorite universe back once more, putting players in the shoes of Bruce Wayne in first-person virtual reality.