Scarecrow's nightmare sequences in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham Knight have given Rocksteady's series some of its creepiest and most memorable moments. Scarecrow's introduction in Arkham Asylum helped set the tone for the rest of the series, providing creative nightmare sequences for the Dark Knight to navigate. After sitting out Batman: Arkham City and Arkham Origins, Scarecrow made his long-awaited return as the main villain of Batman: Arkham Knight, creating some of the most terrifying and awe-inspiring sequences in the franchise.
While Scarecrow was only in two of the four main Batman: Arkham games, he stood out among the rest of Batman's villains. His toxin-induced nightmare levels in Batman: Arkham Asylum were one of the highlights of the entire game, and his upgrade to the main antagonist of Batman: Arkham Knight over the Joker, who had resided as the primary villain for the previous three titles, shows just how imposing and terrifying the character can be. While there are many other memorable villains throughout the series, Scarecrow will always be within the top margin due to what he brought to the franchise.
While Scarecrow wasn't the only villain to create hallucinations, with Mad Hatter creating magnificent wonderlands to torment Batman with in multiple Arkham side missions, Scarecrow's fear toxin put him on a whole other level. Even after Joker's death in Batman: Arkham City, Scarecrow's fear toxin was strong enough to create a walking imagination of Joker in Batman's mind for the near entirety of Batman: Arkham Knight. Being able to bring villains back to life in Batman's mind may be the most unique ability of Scarecrow's fear toxin, but his use of it on a larger scale is where the most terrifying nightmares come from.
The Creepiest Scarecrow Levels In Batman: Arkham Asylum
While traversing deeper into Arkham Asylum's corridors and districts, Batman comes across a room full of people screaming for their lives from fear toxin, setting up one of Batman: Arkham's best openings for a quest. After moving further through the building, he finds his own parents dead on a coroner's table, but they come back to life and torment Batman, pleading as to why he couldn't save them that night in Crime Alley. After this manipulation, Scarecrow makes his presence known and subjects Batman to arguably the most unique set of levels in the entire game. The Dark Knight is transported to a broken amalgamation of Arkham's corridors, and he must make his way through the level to reach a spotlight and shine it onto Scarecrow to break the nightmare, all the while having the Master of Fear loom overhead with his monstrous gaze beaming down.
These sets of levels not only present a psychological challenge to Batman, but they create an interesting paradigm for the player with its intricate level design and having to stay out of Scarecrow's glowing gaze. They also instantly cemented Scarecrow as one of the all-time best Batman: Arkham villains. Later on in the game, before Scarecrow seemingly dies at the hands of Killer Croc, his final nightmare actually breaks the game itself and pretends to hard crash the client, sending the player back to the beginning, but this time with Batman restrained and the villains in charge. This nightmare was so well executed that it tricks the player into thinking that the game broke itself, something that Rocksteady mirrored when it announced Batman: Arkham Knight to the world and had the demo crash on purpose to reveal Scarecrow's new appearance. Scarecrow's nightmares in Batman: Arkham Asylum are a shining example of how to terrify the character and the player at the same time, with his tactics carrying over into Arkham Knight, only this time on a much larger scale. Batman: Arkham Knight's ending saw Scarecrow defeated, but at the cost of Batman's identity being exposed to the public, showcasing just how big a threat he was.
Scarecrow Almost Destroyed Gotham City In Batman: Arkham Knight
The opening of Batman: Arkham Knight sees Scarecrow threaten to gas all of Gotham with fear toxin if the city isn't immediately evacuated. After this threat is met, and Gotham is overrun by villains and gangs, Batman realizes that evacuating the city wasn't going to help, as Scarecrow has taken over a chemical plant to disperse his fear toxin along the entire coast of the country. This is a massive step up from Scarecrow's plan in Batman: Arkham Asylum, where his intention was to poison the water supply of Arkham with the toxin. Much later in the story, Scarecrow partly succeeds with his plan and disperses his toxin across all of Gotham for a short period of time, until Batman can reverse it. During these events, Scarecrow showcases the full effect of his fear toxin on Batman, his fellow Arkham heroes, and those remaining within Gotham, displaying why he's such a menacing foe.
During the toxic city sequence, Batman envisions Joker all around him, creating a city of Jokers trying to stop Batman from progressing. At the end of Batman: Arkham Knight, Scarecrow injects Batman with so much fear toxin that it locks him within his own mind, battling Joker in his subconsciousness and eventually overcoming him and winning control back over his body. After dealing with many other hallucinations throughout the game, such as envisioning the death of Barbara Gordon, Scarecrow is captured after he reveals Batman's identity to the world, leading to him getting locked up in the GCPD with the rest of the villains from earlier in the story. Since Scarecrow doesn't die, he could potentially return again in a Batman game after Rocksteady finishes Suicide Squad.
Scarecrow dominated his time in the Batman: Arkham franchise and became the biggest threat to Batman's career. He utilized his fear toxin to bring out the Caped Crusader's darkest fears in Batman: Arkham Asylum and partnered with other villains to conquer the entirety of Gotham in Batman: Arkham Knight. With Rocksteady still actively taking the franchise in new directions, focusing this time around on the Arkhamverse villains in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, it could be that Scarecrow will return again, and bring his terrifying nightmare sequences with him.