Batman: Arkham Shadow Addresses a Long-Unanswered Arkhamverse Question But Doesn’t Close the Book on It

One of the greatest elements of the Arkhamverse’s storytelling is that it has never wasted precious time regurgitating Bruce Wayne’s childhood, at least not in a way that redundantly retells how his parents were gunned down in Crime Alley. The series makes ample use of this tragic and catalytic event’s imagery, but thankfully no Arkham game has chosen to exhume those details at the cost of whatever enticing plot was unraveling in the present day. Interestingly, though, Bruce apparently never knew what happened to his parents’ killer or their whereabouts thereafter.

Not knowing what happened to Joe Chill worked in the Arkhamverse’s favor since it has been easy enough to write him off as any anonymous criminal whose bones have been broken by Batman since, allowing him to drown in a sea of petty muggers and further embolden Batman’s plight. That said, Batman: Arkham Shadow has chosen to unearth some stones and paint this picture a little more clearly. In Batman: Arkham Shadow, Joe Chill is discovered and his role serves as a narrative crux tied intrinsically to Bruce’s perception of depravity in Gotham City.

Batman: Arkham Shadow’s ‘Joe’ is None Other Than Joe Chill

Bruce, as Irving “Matches” Malone, gets close with a commissary vendor named Joe throughout Shadow without realizing who the man is that he’s speaking to as he spends a significant portion of the game in disguise at Blackgate. Of course, any Batman fan who hears the name “Joe” might instantly put the pieces together themselves, especially when the name is associated with an elderly inmate whose last name is purposefully omitted and whose backstory is obscured.

Joe is even given a touch of empathy as he’s outwardly apologetic and grief-stricken about his enigmatic past. Still, Shadow makes it abundantly clear that Batman is blinded by rage and his objective of locating the Rat King at this point, and therefore the billionaire orphan probably wouldn’t have clued into Joe’s identity regardless.

How Joe Chill Distills Batman: Arkham Shadow’s Theme of Empathy

Joe is a perfect representation of Batman: Arkham Shadow’s overarching themes by illustrating that not every criminal is the spitting image of evil and that not every classic do-gooder is a stainless saint. It’s understandable why Batman would be so hardened by Gotham since its criminal element is known to be quite irredeemably malevolent, but how the Rats, GCPD, and TYGER are perceived throughout Shadow does a wonderful job of demonstrating how few characters in the Arkhamverse are black and white in their morals or ethics.

Players may be accustomed to henchmen being trivial punching bags if not comedic relief. While goons certainly maintain their sense of humor in Shadow, Rats are far more empathetic in their plight, which in turn shows how massive Batman’s blind spot is toward them when they target Dr. Leslie Thompkins and District Attorney Harvey Dent.

Batman: Arkham Shadow Ends Before the Dust Gets a Chance to Settle

At the end of Batman: Arkham Shadow, Harvey Dent calls Bruce to tell him he’s captured Joe Chill, the man responsible for Bruce’s parents’ deaths. Batman arrives at the scene soon after and sees Joe on his knees before Harvey/Two-Face, and when Bruce unmasks in front of them both he surprisingly tells Joe to leave in a moment of unprecedented warmth.

Joe apologizes to Bruce and Shadow concludes fairly abruptly after this sequence without offering clear closure as to Joe’s whereabouts or how Bruce is reconciling with this information. Bruce is more concerned with Harvey’s unhinged and distraught state in the moment, and yet it would’ve been great to have this scene simmer longer so any unspoken feelings could be shared more profoundly—perhaps a job for a sequel. It’s wholly possible that Joe might live out the rest of his life rotting in Blackgate with that being the reason why he’s never seen again in the series, but the implication this ending makes is that Bruce has made some semblance of peace with the idea of Joe while never being capable of forgetting what happened to his parents.

Batman’s goal is the same as it always has been, to protect Gotham City, and regardless of whether his presence spawned the likes of Joker his perspective of common criminals, as well as the human condition, is likely a bit different after having unknowingly faced his parents’ murderer and gotten to know him as a human being.

It would be great to have Bruce reflect on Joe, not unlike how, in Shadow, Batman reflects on Origins and Blackgate’s events. That said, if Joe is never spoken about or heard from again, Shadow does a commendable job of expressing how Bruce might perceive him due to the conversations they shared as Joe and Malone, and there are certainly more horrific and threatening individuals to concern himself with in his upcoming years as the World’s Greatest Detective.

Systems

Franchise

Batman: Arkham

Released

October 21, 2024

Developer(s)

Camouflaj

Engine

Unity

ESRB

T For Teen // Violence, Mild Blood, Language

Supported VR Headsets

Meta Quest 3

OpenCritic Rating

Strong

PC Release Date

October 21, 2024

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