I had trouble coming up with a good way to start my blog and I decided to begin with what is widely considered to be the best game in the ‘Arkham Trilogy’ (excluding Arkham Origins which was developed by WB Games Montreal instead of Rocksteady Studios). Batman: Arkham City managed to expand on the scale of Arkham Asylum in terms of the open world, story, sound and gameplay.
I understand why you may ask “why list gameplay last?” – let me explain. Rocksteady didn’t need to expand on the gameplay too much for the very highly received sequel. When developing ‘Arkham Asylum’, Rocksteady struck gold with a colour-based combat system that uses bright and flashing colours to tell you when an enemy will attack blended with a variety of combinations of mixing hand-to-hand with gadgets in combat. It really gave you the experience that you truly are The Batman. For Arkham City, they added a small list of shortcuts to quickly use gadgets in combat for a smoother flow in movement and gameplay. Some extra gadgets were added, like the freeze grenade, which gave a better experience with an even wider arsenal of weaponry.
I could have played happily without all of that solely based on the amazing story and soundtrack. The story begins with Bruce Wayne being captured by the sinister Dr Hugo Strange who runs Arkham City, built after the events of ‘Arkham Asylum’ to contain the criminals that the asylum could not. Strange announces he knows how Bruce spends his nights and sends him into the prison gift-wrapped for the inmates. Once you begin playing as The Batman, you already have several mysteries to unravel like “who is Hugo Strange?” “How does he know Batman’s Identity?” “What is Protocol 10?”. The story provides us with a dark trek into Batman’s psyche as he attempts to deal with his own mortality and cheat death to save Gotham and put an end to Hugo Strange’s plans. This rollercoaster of a story is backed up with an amazing soundtrack that sets the scene in a way a script never could. The main theme alone is enough to get the blood flowing and the Goosebumps risen.
Finally, the increase in size of the open world only added more depth to the story and world building. The idea of Arkham City is that it’s an old decrepit section of Gotham city that was turned into a giant prison for the inmates that could not be imprisoned in the asylum from the previous game. Gigantic walls that surround the city close in the map in a way that feels real for this world. A giant and vast looking Gotham surrounds the city outside the prison walls, all of it overlooked by Wonder Tower with it’s own self-sustaining city below it. By making the map larger, the developers could add more optional stories to be discovered the more you explore. You could save political prisoners from harm, find corpses left by a serial killer, track the assassin Deadshot and so much more. The city is also filled with multiple lower grade criminals all surveilling their respective land controlled by major criminals like The Penguin and Two-Face. You constantly hear these criminals speak about things like their thoughts on what’s happening so far in the story, their lives outside of prison, what other stories can be found in the city, etc. All of this adds to the atmosphere, making the world feel that much more real.
The Arkham Trilogy is one of the greatest and biggest achievements in game development. The colour based combat system alone has since been used in countless games due its simplicity and smooth gameplay. The most recent use of this system would be in Insomniac’s Spider-Man. Since it’s inception, that combat system has become slightly tiresome. However, Developers like Insomniac were able to keep it fresh with slight changes in gameplay and changes in the movement of the character. In comparison, Batman is a quick but bulky fighter whilst Spider-Man is a more agile and aerodynamic fighter. The point is, The Arkham Trilogy paved the way for third-person RPG games like Mad Max and Spider-Man both in gameplay and world building. Rocksteady with Arkham City set the standard for what makes these games great.
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