Arkham Shadow may tease the return of a penguin staple

Batman: Arkham Shadow will be released later this month and it seems pretty clear what players can expect from the Dark Knight's latest prequel caper as they pursue the Rat King and potentially experience other super-criminals in the making. The pool of possible antagonists Batman: Arkham Shadow boast is great because it mixes iconic, well-known characters with ones that players may know nothing about because they've either never been seen before in the Arkhamverse or only come from a specific outlet in Batman's source material history.




There are secrets that Camouflaj is keeping that will probably be kept tight to the chest until the exclusive Meta Quest 3/3S launches and that would be for the best. It's true that any number of other villains can make a small appearance, albeit as a voice on an answering machine, payphone, or radio broadcast in Batman: Arkham Shadowbut only a short time will tell. Likewise, while Oswald Cobblepot's penguin has yet to be teased or confirmed, Camouflaj wouldn't need to introduce the arrogant crime lord to repeat his most notable gimmick in Arkham game: battle arenas.

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Batman: Arkham Shadow's director discusses challenge maps, narrative direction and more

In an interview with Game Rant, Batman: Arkham Shadow's game director Ryan Payton talks about challenge maps and how the story intersects with the game.

Batman: Arkham Shadow features an epic Penguin-style battle arena layout


In both Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham OriginsPenguin's respective museum and boat “dungeons” house battle encounters in a large room flooded with enemies. These moments are different from any other combat encounter as they are meant to throw massive waves of Penguin's thugs at the player and the scene each takes place in sets them up as epic arena-style battles. They are memorable because of the way they test players' fighting skills in a way that few other encounters do early in City and Originand held as gladiator spectacles for other lackeys to bear witness to.

Batman: Arkham Knight
features Penguin and does not continue this notable trend, though Penguin is also only briefly introduced in the main campaign and his optional “Gunrunner” Most Wanted side quest thereafter consists of intermittent combat encounters featuring a playable Nightwing.


Batman: Arkham Shadow's Lock-Up Boss Fight suggests a possible battle arena

To lend credence to the idea that a battle arena could be featured, two enemy factions have been confirmed with direct ties to two of Batman: Arkham Shadows core villains: The Rat King's devoted rat followers and Lock-Up's TYGER guards. Lock-Up in particular is the only antagonist to actually have his boss fight shown at all, with players able to wear shock gloves against him while dashing left and right to avoid the electric whip that Lyle Bolton wields.

But what's as exciting as the boss fight itself is where it appears to take place – an arena that bears a striking resemblance to the one on Origin' Final offer with NPCs cheering and spectating behind a thick, gated wall. Although not the identical arena aboard Penguin's ship, it would be sensational too Shadow to have his own battle arena to pit Batman against a swarm of TYGER guards.


Plus, like how OriginThe arena encounter begins with a fake gimmick boss fight against Electrocutioner and eventually pulls players back into the same arena to have a legitimate boss fight against Deathstroke, there's a decent chance something similar happens with Lock-Up wherever his boss fight takes place. Batman: Arkham Shadow certainly doesn't need to stick one-on-one with the franchise's established formula, nor does it need a battle arena sequence to prove its fidelity. Still, the layout of Lock-Up's boss battle arenas could be the perfect set-up for such an encounter to take place.

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