How Arkham City is as Much Catwoman’s Story as It is…

Summary

Batman: Arkham City deserves praise for its impressively short development time and open-world gameplay improvements.
The addition of the Bat Family as playable characters in the game's DLC extended the Arkhamverse lore and provided new perspectives.
Catwoman's role in the game, while not prominent in the base game, became more integral and narratively impactful in the Catwoman DLC.

Batman: Arkham City deserves the praise it gets to this day for a multitude of reasons. It’s uniquely impressive how Rocksteady was able to take Arkham Asylum and craft Arkham City atop its bones in such an alarmingly short amount of development time, for example, and what it would achieve in comparison helped ingratiate it to fans with an open world and exceptional gameplay improvements. Arkham Asylum’s story is also much more elementary in terms of having a plot, whereas Arkham City is full of twists that keep players on edge throughout. That said, one of Arkham City’s most rewarding narrative beats occurs when fans aren’t even playing as Batman.

Arkham City extended the Bat Family lore of Rocksteady’s universe by debuting Tim Drake’s Robin, who was only seen briefly in the main story but had his own limelight in the game’s Harley Quinn’s Revenge story DLC. Arkham City’s Robin was a great addition that allowed the story to not be told exclusively through Batman’s perspective, which was arguably stoic and uninviting. Robin granted that perspective in a small window of time through his own conversations with Oracle, too, but Selina Kyle’s Catwoman truly stands out as a playable protagonist interwoven into Arkham City’s main story.

Catwoman’s Role in Arkham City Follows Selina Kyle’s Overused Trope

Catwoman doesn’t appear often in Arkham City’s base game, though she is certainly integral in specific moments. With Catwoman strung up and in need of rescue at the courthouse, Batman’s first goal in Arkham City after suiting up is meeting up with her to learn more about Protocol 10. She doesn’t have any answers, though, and heads off on her own afterward with players not seeing her again until after Joker’s funhouse caves in on Batman.

Catwoman saves Batman this time around by prying him out of the rubble he’s buried beneath, and once again she leaves but is not seen again. It was still great to have Catwoman around as another NPC for Batman to bounce dialogue with, but it wasn’t until Arkham City’s Catwoman DLC that her role became much more apparent and integral to the story. If fans play the Catwoman DLC, Selina becomes playable and her opening sequence of unlocking a safe and being ambushed by Two-Face now has a playable combat segment before the cutscene starts.

Like Resident Evil 4’s Separate Ways DLC with a playable Ada Wong, Arkham City’s Catwoman DLC then goes on to fill in the gaps of Catwoman’s exploits in Arkham City, scattered intermittently and seamlessly throughout Batman’s own adventure. The only disappointing part of this DLC is that Catwoman’s ambitions are solely set on robbing Dr. Hugo Strange’s vault before ultimately deciding to help Batman, but it’s exciting that players get to interact with Poison Ivy and can choose to abandon Batman—a choice that results in credits rolling as an alternate ending to the game.

Catwoman and Batman’s Back-and-Forth Make Them an Important Duo

So while Catwoman experiencing an inner conflict about being an antihero or a selfish thief is a perennially tiring trope, having her be a playable protagonist in Arkham City gives the story much-needed intermissions that are still narratively impactful. These sequences usually transition in and out from when Batman is unconscious and help to make up those time lapses. Rather, one divisive decision made here is that Catwoman is held captive by Ivy for a considerable amount of time, while more playable sequences could have helped to make her feel even more present.

Catwoman and Batman are obviously always flirtatious, but it’s also great to see Batman exchange sly jabs with Catwoman in these moments. Knowing how Batman and Catwoman interact in this way also aids in establishing their relationship before Arkham Knight, where Catwoman is thrust into yet another femme fatale/damsel-in-distress role and needs to be rescued.

It is arguable that Rocksteady never gave her a chance to fulfill a more important role in the Arkham games, but her prominence throughout Arkham City’s story was at least a great way to make it feel like her goals were equally important, even if Selina never needed to worry about possessing Joker’s blood and urgently searching for a cure. Arkham City then concludes with Catwoman exacting revenge on Two-Face, wrapping the game’s narrative up in a nice bow.