10 Things All Superhero Games Can Learn From Batman: Arkham

3. Don€™t Give Sidekicks The Boot

Throughout the years superheroes have enjoyed a plethora of supporting characters, both super and not, and they definitely have their uses when it comes to gaming. Sidekicks and other supporting characters add a number of elements to a title, including new gameplay features and story opportunities alike. Even though Batman€™s iconic sidekick Robin was absent from Arkham Asylum, he encountered a colourful supporting cast including Barbara Gordon and her father, Commissioner Gordon. Whilst comics are inhabited by some of the most intriguing of personalities, it isn€™t always possible for them to carry a title on their own. Characters like Daredevil, Green Arrow, Spider-Man and Hellboy all have varied and captivating sets of supporting characters, who at times are even able to steal the spotlight away given the appropriate script. As briefly noted before, when playable these characters also present unique gameplay opportunities to the player - shaking up the formulae and alleviating potential boredom from repetition. Whilst previously these have been shoehorned into playable €˜re-skins,€™ hopefully developers begin to heed the lessons that Rocksteady provide and start constructing them from the ground up. Utilising new fighting styles, mission structures and weapons, a good supporting cast is invaluable to the enjoyment of a comic book video-game.
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.