Arkham games are video games in the Batman franchise by various developers. The main trilogy of games (Arkham Asylum (2009), Arkham City (2011) and Arkham Knight (2015)) were developed by Rocksteady and a prequel story Arkham Origins (2013) was developed by WB Games Montréal. There are also mobile and VR games but nothing remarkable.
The games in general were received with praise from both players and critics and still are really good games even on 2026 standards.
Arkham Asylum
The story starts when Batman helps the GCPD to capture Joker and escorts him to Arkham Asylum, a mental hospital and prison on Arkham Island outside Gotham City. Joker escapes and takes over the island, leaving Batman to fight thugs and classic DC villains while trying to stop Joker and Harley Quinn.
Arkham Asylum introduced us to many great mechanics of the series that other games improved upon: the freeflow fighting system, detective mode and stealth mechanics are all hallmark features of the series. In addition to many ways of fighting enemies, Batman naturally has access to a ton of fun gadgets used to solve environmental puzzles.
Riddler has his own fingers in the puzzle as well as there are a ton of Riddler Trophies in the game to collect and different challenges to complete. I never found them that compelling though because through puzzle gaming, I’ve discovered my brain is not wired to figure out the clues or think outside the box to find alternate routes to find my way to hidden-in-plain-sight trophies. For others, they are one of the best part of the game.
Batman is a superhero when it comes to hand-to-hand combat but gets completely overpowered by enemies with guns which plays into the stealth mechanics. While you can sometimes go aggressive — especially once you’re down to 2 or less enemies — it’s usually smart to instead use the environment to get around the enemies and surprise them silently: takedowns while hanging from gargoyles, grabbing them while hanging from a ledge, punching them through weak walls or catching them by surprise by jumping from a tunnel in the ground.
Another controversial part of the game are Scarecrow sections that change the game completely: I absolutely hate them but some others once again praise them as one of the best sections in the game. What I don’t like about them is that the game’s controls are slightly clunky and in these sections if you’re spotted even for a split second, you lose and need to reset and each reset goes back to a retry menu and it’s bit too slow to my taste. Give me an instant retry like some other sections and I’d be much happier.
Overall, the game is fantastic. The main story is roughly 12 hours and if you want to go all in, you can sink much more time finding Riddler Trophies and completing other challenges. I find that quite perfect length for such a game.
One of the annoying bits is that it can occasionally get hard to navigate the narrow and sprawling hallways of the buildings. Not too many times but occasionally I got really irritated by finding myself back in the previous spot when I thought I was making some progress.
Another very small negative is that while the game has a “skill tree” type of thing where you can upgrade different aspects of Batman’s abilities and gear but eventually you’ll pretty much unlock them all. I really think these kinds of upgrades make more sense and are more enjoyable when you don’t get all of them but have to prioritise what type of character and skill set you want to play with.
Arkham City
Arkham City is a direct sequel to Asylum and achieves something quite remarkable: without missing a beat of its original charm and mechanics, it moved the gameplay from tight corridors of Asylum to an open world of City.
While doing so, the game improved pretty much every bit: they made combat flow even better, they made movement quicker and smoother and my favourite improvement is how much better it feels to use the grapple and move around the city. Especially once you unlock the first upgrade through the AR challenge #1 — highly recommend completing it as soon as it appears because it allows a smoother traverse as you can boost yourself to a new flight directly from a grapple rather than stopping every time.
Batman starts the game with most of the gadgets from Asylum and gains some more. I think there are a few too many given the controls of how they are selected. In some tight sections, it can be hard to remember where the desired gadget is in the dual d-pad wheel. Not the end of the world but clearly a small lapse in game design in my opinion.
The story improves also from the first game. It adds some stakes and builds on the relationship of Batman and Joker that started in Asylum. Of the villains, Hugo Strange is on the more boring side and you’d barely notice if he was replaced with pretty much anything else. Side missions bring in more classic DC characters to explore.
When I was finished with the main story, I had completed the game at 36% so there’s a lot of side missions and collectibles for those who care about them.
The DLCs bring in more playable characters that are really well made. They mostly function the same as Batman, especially in combat but have their own unique aspects that make the gameplay fun and varied.
With Catwoman Bundle, you get Catwoman whose storyline is mixed up in the main story and you alternate between controlling Batman and Catwoman. They both mostly do their own things but their stories also overlap a bit. The basic gameplay is the same but she has her own abilities like sticking to the ceiling and using a whip in combat. It’s different enough to be fun without being distracting. The one downside I have with her is that since she can’t glide in the air like Batman, traversing the open world is slow and cumbersome — luckily there aren’t too many sections like that. She also has her own Riddler trophies spread around the map.
With Harley Quinn’s Revenge, you get a new short post game storyline where you get to control Robin who’s attempting to rescue Batman who got caught by Harley Quinn a few weeks after the events of the main story. Robin has a stick and a shield which somehow makes the fight sequences feel different through the animation even though it’s the exact same button smashing. The use of the shield in environmental puzzles is cool though.
Arkham Knight
The final act of the trilogy, Arkham Knight is the magnum opus of Rocksteady. It improves on everything the other two games built. The combat is even smoother and I was really excited for the ability to keep punching downed opponents, reducing the downtime present in previous games. Flying around the city feels even better in all aspects. Riddler’s secrets evolved from simply finding trophies to full on puzzles, car races in tight underground tracks and co-op sessions with Catwoman.
Batmobile is the new addition to this game and while the car feels amazing to control and manouver around, there’s bit too much of it. The car has two control modes: a “regular” car with driving, drifting and boost and then there’s combat mode where you can strafe freely and fire different weapons when fighting against enemy tanks and drones.
There’s one major downside though. Rocksteady completely overhauled and changed the controls (at least in Playstation 4 with which I played all these). All the muscle memory of maneuvering in tight spaces and intense fights is working actively against you because of the different keybindings. Also, almost every other video game with cars has right trigger for acceleration and left for brakes but not this game.
What I love about this series is that the team grew the story and characters in the series little by little. Asylum is very contained, basically just Joker and Batman; City expands the environment and story and finally Knight tells the Gotham story this series deserves. It’s one of the best video game stories in my opinion. It’s not quite The Last of Us level of storytelling but incredible nevertheless.
I really enjoyed the main trilogy and the time I spent in Gotham. Batman is definitely in top 3 all-time best super heroes and while modern media (like DCEU with Justice League or Batman (2022)) doesn’t really do him justice, this series definitely does.