Arkham Shadows had a good reason for ending like that

There are major story spoilers ahead
Batman: Arkham Shadow
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Batman's Arkhamverse is littered with boss battles against the Dark Knight's game-changing villains. Batman: Arkham AsylumThe mutant Titan henchmen and Bane himself would provide a framework that any other brutal enemy in the franchise could follow. Batman: Arkham CityMr. Freeze would include all dynamic and cerebral attacks available to players; Batman: Arkham Origins would double me City's epic Ra's al Ghul encounter for a cinematic parry skill check against Deathstroke; And Batman: Arkham Knight would finally allow players to pick up Riddler after solving 243 puzzles in the Pinkney Orphanage.

Batman: Arkham Shadow is a much more linear and narrow experience than what that Arkham Games immediately evolved into after that asylumbut that works hugely in his favor Shadow takes a slower, more emotional approach to Arkhamverse storytelling. Batman: Arkham Shadow features three boss fights – two of which involve the use of new gadgets that players receive beforehand, and the other of which requires players to rely only on their fists – and, unlike all other entries in the series, does not end with a boss fight. Something instead Shadow achieved is the nuanced climax of the story it tells.

Batman: Arkham Shadow lacks a main antagonist in the traditional sense

If District Attorney Harvey Dent/the Rat King/Two-Face had been a lesser character, it might have been easy to assume how a boss fight against that character might have turned out. Of course, later in the Arkhamverse, Two-Face has no problem letting a coin decide the fate of others and carrying dual pistols, and Batman has no qualms about violently subduing him either.

However, Batman: Arkham Shadow chronicles a much more insightful and tragic portrayal of Harvey, revealing that he and Bruce Wayne grew up together and became family to each other. So while Shadow There was almost a boss fight for Harvey, as Camouflaj Game Rant's Ryan Payton said in an interview. The idea has never been as black and white as boss fights players have experienced in the franchise: “We've had conversations and prototypes and playable versions of different iterations” about what you might call a Harvey Dent boss fight. None of them were the traditional “Batman who beats up Harvey Dent” – his foster brother, someone he cares about and loves.” Payton continued:

At the end of the game, we're obviously not dealing with a Harvey Dent boss fight for two reasons: First, from a scope perspective – we just put as much into it as we could with the time and resources we had were able to do this project; and second, because you zoom out the story and see where Batman is as a character at the beginning
Batman: Arkham Shadow
And as you can see where it ends, I'm really proud that at the end the players face the big bad and Batman doesn't throw a punch.”

Batman: Arkham Shadow's Ending serves the character development of Bruce Wayne

It's probably the lack of a boss fight that makes the difference Batman: Arkham ShadowThe end of the emotional resonance and the sight of Harvey grappling with his alarming prognosis as Two-Face is born hits him harder than any blow Batman could have dealt him. The fact that Bruce Wayne does not embrace Harvey and certainly not Joe Chill with anger or revenge is rather a high point for the protagonist and shows how much he has learned over the course of the game. As Payton notes,

“He shows compassion, and I think he shows that he's willing to understand someone he might not agree with or be very angry with.

This applies not only to Harvey Dent, but also to the man who killed his parents, Joe Chill, who was standing right in front of him, and I thought the way we communicated that was really important, so For me it's a kind of traditional end-of-video game boss fight.”