Arkham World

About

Arkham World is the name of a fake video game created by users in the /r/BatmanArkham subreddit to discuss in lieu of a new Batman Arkham game. In the meme, people invent an aspect of Arkham World and present it as real, with commenters continuing the gag by offering their opinions on the fake aspect. The practice is similar to what FromSoftware fans did with Fake Elden Ring Lore while waiting for the game's release.

Origin

On August 2nd, 2022, Redditor FrozenInIce248 wrote a joke post in /r/BatmanArkham,^[1] starting the trend. The post read, "One year ago today, Batman Arkham World was released. What is this sub’s opinion on the game?" The post gained over 2,800 points in three weeks (seen below).

The name Arkham World was inspired by a 2011 cutscene created for an awards show in which Joker accepts the prize for "Best Character" in a fictional game called Arkham World (shown below).^[3]

Spread

Over the following days in early August 2022, users in /r/BatmanArkham kept up the trend of discussing Arkham World as though it were a real game, mimicking common discussion topics in video game forums. For example, on August 3rd, 2022, Redditor Nandogus posted a video of a mod showing the character Alfred acting as Batman, writing, "Unpopular Opinion: I actually didn’t mind the Alfred missions in Arkham World. Anyone agree?" The post gained over 3,400 points in 20 days (shown below, top). On August 9th, Redditor unhappyworker77^[2] posted a photoshop of Batman fighting Darth Vader, claiming it was the "hardest fight" in Arkham World, gaining over 1,900 points in roughly two weeks (shown below, bottom).

The trend was later covered by multiple gaming publications, including Kotaku,^[3] Comicbook.com,^[4] Rock Paper Shotgun^[5] and others throughout August 2022.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References