This "Batman through the eyes of NPCs" video makes me yearn for a game about being a petty criminal in Gotham

Reader, I am about to venture into that terrible ninth circle of videogame journalist cringe known as pitching your own game in an article. A while ago, I mused aloud on Xitter that a Batman game (or offbrand spiritual homage) from the perspective of people trying to commit petty crimes in Gotham City would be Interesting and/or Countercultural.

You could portray Batman himself as both a lone vigilante and a pervasive environmental factor – a morbid, hallucinatory tendency of the architecture itself, gradually provoked and intensified by tiny acts of larceny and vandalism. Kind of like the Eye of Sauron, but it’s the Bat Signal, and instead of fighting the urge to wear the Ring, you’re stealing candy bars and writing on toilet walls.

The above “Batman but it’s the pedestrian POV” video from Gaming with Griff Griffin – disclosure, he’s an old colleague of mine from my time at Future Publishing in the early 2010s – isn’t really what I’m talking about. It shows Batman: Arkham Knight from the perspective of random civilians, spectating on fights (with the usual slowmo) or watching the Caped Misbehaver glide and zipline through the cloudy night.

Still, it’s close enough to my Twitter concept that I’m going to sue the pants off Griffin. Or burst through his window in a latex suit and delete all his browser tabs… then open and close the browser again so that he can’t restore his previous webpages. With any luck, he’ll become the Joker and we can have a proper vendetta. It’s at least two years since I last had one of those.

The accompanying voiceover and editing elicit the quickfix reaction energy of TikTok and similar shortform video platforms. It works well enough, not least because Arkham Knight’s city is so sheeny, dirty and convincing. But it leaves me hankering for a longer video or write-up with fewer changes of POV – perhaps *ominous roll of thunder* a diary series like the ones we used to read on RPS before half the writing team got Thanos-snapped or rode off triumphantly into the sunset. I’m thinking of coverage akin to role-playing a peasant in Skyrim, treating it like a medieval life sim. But perhaps what I’m really thinking of, again, is a standalone game.

How would it feel, to be remotely anti-social and rebellious in a city prowled by Batman? You could lean into the Adam West absurdity of Bruce chasing after kids for sticking chewing gum to park seats. Or you could give your character more of a backstory, and embrace pathos. Maybe you’re breaking into a pharmacy to get medicine for your mum.

You could also use the format to play with the idea that Batman is, you know, kind of a big dirty fascist and one-man militia, deploying his billions to terrorise poor people who are always characterised as loudly dressed freaks or irredeemable hooligans in vests. You could investigate the idea that Batman is absolutely off his rocker, and that his derangement pervades the very stones and skies of Gotham City, sharpening the spires and filling the sewers with bats. You could play with the thought that we are all trapped in Batman’s terrible dreams.