Gaming Against Stigma Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum is an action-adventure game that presents players with a third-person perspective on Batman’s journey through the Arkham Asylum facility. Originally developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Eidos Interactive and Warner Bros. Interactive in 2009, the game uses impressive graphics and animation to present the famous comic book characters in a more dimensional and interactive way. However, despite these feats, the overall game design does a poor job in how it represents mental health institutions and patients of these facilities. This review will provide a brief analysis of these design choices and assess the negative impacts of them in order to avoid repeating them in newer games.

As mentioned previously, the story follows Batman as he traverses the different rooms and sections of Arkham Asylum. The Oxford Dictionary defines asylums as “institutions offering shelter and support to people who are mentally ill.” Though these days asylums are more commonly referred to as mental health institutions, these facilities all have one goal: to protect and welcome people who struggle with mental illnesses. However, in this game, Arkham Asylum is described as a “secure facility for the criminally insane.” This description falsely depicts asylums as places that house dangerous and criminal individuals. Furthermore, the actual design of the asylum misleads players into thinking these institutions are unsafe and scary. Upon entering, Batman is greeted with dark and dirty conditions. Most rooms have been abandoned, leaving nothing but blood stains on the walls and syringes all over the floors. Every security guard in the facility is armed with large weapons, making the space seem more like a prison or a battlefield. On top of that, the goal of the game is for Batman to fight all the patients of the asylum in order to escape it. This creates the false idea that these institutions are traps and that the goal is to flee them. These are just a few examples of how this game lacks accurate representation of mental health institutions.

Ultimately, this misrepresentation has detrimental effects on how players learn about people with mental illnesses. If players are consistently presented with false imagery that asylums host violent individuals, they may incorrectly conclude that people with mental illnesses are threatening and aggressive. This idea that they should be contained and separated from society is harmful and completely inaccurate, yet many video games continue to use this portrayal. Batman: Arkham Asylum is just one of many examples that we need to learn from to ensure that mental health and mental health institutions are more accurately depicted in future video games.

For graphics and animation, this game gets a rating of 4.5/5. However, when it comes to mental health representation, I would rate this game a 1/5.