The Batman: Arkham games span back to over a decade ago, and the upcoming installment, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, could bring about the end of the Arkhamverse for good. This is the first game in the series that does not center around Batman, instead placing the perspective on any of four members of the Suicide Squad, including Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, and King Shark. With the objective of the game being to kill the members of the Justice League - which the Squad may very well accomplish - that presents its own problems as to where the franchise would go next.
The Batman: Arkham franchise was already something of a departure from DC Comics, with Batman: Arkham City killing the Joker and then its sequel, Batman: Arkham Knight, exposing the Dark Knight's identity to the public, but Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League appears to be diverging from the source material even further. Rocksteady has adopted its own unique tone for its depiction of the DC Universe, with its new Suicide Squad game featuring mind-controlled versions of heroes like Superman and Flash murdering innocent civilians at the behest of Brainiac. It's a dark but irreverent premise - one typical of the Suicide Squad comics - but given Rocksteady has already killed staples like Joker and seemingly retired Bruce Wayne in Batman: Arkham Knight, further casualties in Kill the Justice League could mean the Arkhamverse would become a near-unrecognizable interpretation of the DCU.
It can also be interpreted from the trailers and promotional material that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will be a significantly larger game than its predecessors, with all of Metropolis taking center stage, along with potentially Brainiac's enormous galactic ship that hovers over the map throughout the game. There are world-ending stakes at play in Rocksteady's new DC game, many more times diabolical than what was seen in the Batman: Arkham games. If Task Force X fails, then the entire planet is doomed. If they succeed and actually manage to kill the mind-controlled members of the Justice League, then the Arkhamverse will have lost DC's most iconic heroes. DC has a history of utilizing legacy characters, and it's even possible that Suicide Squad: KTLJ's Batman could be Dick Grayson, but actually killing all these heroes would limit the Arkhamverse's future.
What Becomes Of Batman: Arkham If The Suicide Squad Kill The JLA?
One of the biggest questions in regards to the game is what will happen if the Suicide Squad succeeds in killing the Justice League. If all of the other DC heroes within the Arkhamverse are killed, then it's difficult to imagine where the series could go next. It would be curious to see if Rocksteady is committed to killing the heroes of the DC universe and putting the future of the franchise in the hands of its villains. While this would be an interesting direction, it would present the biggest departure from the mainstream DCU in a video game. Flashing forward and doing a Batman Beyond-style Arkham Knight sequel would maybe mitigate this, along the lines of what WB Games Montréal had planned with its canceled Damian Wayne game, but it would still largely be unfamiliar territory for a video game.
While Suicide Squad: KTJL is still at least a year away, Rocksteady still has time to finish up its story and leave the door open for future installments, whether it be from the perspective of the heroes or the villains. While all of the previous games have been from the perspective of Batman and the rest of the Bat Family, this is the first time that the story will be led by the antagonists. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will release sometime in 2023, at which point the future of the Arkhamverse should hopefully be made clear.