In an interview with Popcorn & Shield, Kevin Conroy discussed the unique and collaborative nature of “Batman: The Animated Series” in comparison to his work on “Batman: Arkham” 20 years later. Recording for the television series, Conroy said, was “so exciting, it’s such an electric atmosphere.” By contrast, the experience of recording for the “Arkham” games was exhausting and, due to the need for clean audio of each individual voice, done in isolation:
“You do four hours a day alone, in a booth, in a vacuum, creating the character, keeping the character’s voice alive, and then creating the situation for each line, and then they want it three times. You know, ‘Give it to us angry! Oh, keep that anger and give it to us with a little irony! Oh, we love the anger and we love the irony, now just sweeten it with a little bit of love.’ By the time you get out of there you’re pulling out your hair, you’re going, ‘What the f*** do they want me to say!?’ So you do that for four hours, and then you get an hour for lunch, and then you do four hours more! And that goes on for a week, just you.“
Conroy’s efforts were well worth it in the end, if you ask this longtime Batman fan. Moreover, at least his experience doing the video games let him see “Batman: TAS” from a new perspective. The animated series was special: a rare moment when an adaptation helped define the character for decades to come. But the “Arkham” games have their own identity that made the hard work Conroy put into it a dream come true for fans. Players were able to be the Batman, including his skills as the World’s Great Detective, all while listening to the definitive voice of the character.