15 Years On, Batman: Arkham City Is Still Batman’s Last Gaming Masterpiece

Batman: Arkham Asylum arrived in 2009, an era when superhero games were mostly treated as throwaway movie tie-ins. A few, such as X-Men Origins: Wolverine, were decent, but the majority were either forgettable or outright dreadful. Arkham Asylum broke the mold. It was built on an original concept from Paul Dini, the acclaimed Batman writer behind Batman: The Animated Series. The game was excellent, and it laid the groundwork for an even stronger sequel in 2011.

Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham City launched on Oct. 18, 2011. Fifteen years on, it remains one of the finest games of its kind, and its influence still echoes through other superhero titles. It is also, almost certainly, the last Batman game that nearly everyone adored.

Where Arkham Asylum kept Batman confined to the eerie halls of a psychiatric facility, Arkham City throws the doors open. An entire district of Gotham becomes his hunting ground, where he can beat criminals to within an inch of their lives. The world is packed with chance enemy encounters, entertaining one-off boss fights, and a staggering number of collectibles (so many damn Riddler trophies). With that formula, Rocksteady effectively wrote the playbook that later superhero games, such as Insomniac’s Spider-Man series, would follow with great success.

Those Spider-Man games, along with non-superhero action titles like Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, borrowed liberally from the Arkham series. They’re best known for fluid, counter-driven, combo-heavy combat, with Batman gliding across the battlefield to snap elbows and slam fists into thugs’ faces. Stealth is just as rewarding in Arkham City, letting him stalk henchmen from the shadows. Add a few gadgets to the mix and, honestly, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 plays much like Arkham City, even though it arrived 12 years later.

Image: Rocksteady Studios/WB Games

Although Arkham City sits at the head of the superhero genre, it’s somewhat startling that no Batman game has truly challenged it since. That doesn’t mean we’ve had nothing good. The 2013 prequel Arkham Origins, built by a different studio, WB Games Montréal, was a competent entry, yet it felt like a frostbitten copy of what made Arkham City special.

The last Arkham game came closest to dethroning its predecessor, though it had its share of faults. The first two games used Joker as the main villain, but Batman: Arkham Knight keeps him around as a hallucination haunting Batman’s mind, as if Rocksteady were afraid to make a Batman game without him. Then there was the letdown of the title character, the Arkham Knight. Rocksteady hinted at an original creation, but he turned out to be a predictable retread of Jason Todd/Red Hood. The result was a game without truly gripping antagonists.

Image: Rocksteady Studios/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

It also leaned far too heavily on the Batmobile, which behaved more like a tank than a car and clashed with Batman’s strict rules against guns and killing. The vehicle fit much better in this summer’s Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. That game is the best Batman outing since the Arkham series, largely because it emulates what made those titles great, only it’s, well, family-friendly and made of Lego bricks.

Still, as wonderful as Legacy of the Dark Knight is, it may leave you longing to return to Arkham City and its mature, gritty, grimy vision of the Caped Crusader. In nearly every respect, it outdoes the many successors and imitators that followed.

Arkham City was so adored, and sold so well (it reportedly sold more than 12 million copies), that it’s baffling Rocksteady and publisher Warner Bros. mostly shelved the franchise after Arkham Knight, apart from a couple of VR spin-offs. WB Games Montréal, the studio behind Arkham Origins, went on to make the poorly received Gotham Knights, while Rocksteady spent ages on the live-service flop Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Image: Rocksteady Studios/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

In 2025, reports suggested Rocksteady was working on a single-player Batman game, and rumors say it could star Terry McGinnis as Batman Beyond. Whether it’s another Arkham adventure or a trip to Neo-Gotham, the mere thought of Rocksteady returning to the Dark Knight is enough to thrill any fan.

Until Rocksteady’s next Batman game arrives, if it ever does, we can always replay Arkham City. No other superhero game quite reaches its heights.

Source: Polygon