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.
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.