The Dark Knight Returns

Back in 2011 Rocksteady Studios and Warner Bros Games released the follow up to the amazing Batman: Arkham Asylum with the sequel, Batman: Arkham City. It was a highly anticipated sequel and frankly one of the best games I played back in 2011. It took the Dark Knight out of the confines of the asylum housing his rogues and brought the action to a small subsection of Gotham itself; albeit overrun with criminals. Much like Arkham Asylum, Arkham City proved that it's possible to take a licensed character and make a worthwhile game. However it would be quite some time before we got the follow up to Arkham City. In the meantime, Warner Bros Games treated us to another entry into the Arkham series with a prequel done by a completely different studio. While it maintained a close tie to the series and served as a set up to the world established mainly in Arkham Asylum, it was not as well received by fans as the iterations done by Rocksteady Studios.

Thankfully Rocksteady was hard at work on their next entry into the Arkham series. With the release of Arkham Knight, Rocksteady Studio marks their first foray into the next gen console space and their final entry into the Batman: Arkham series that they kicked off back in 2009. After spending some time with the game over the last day or so I can honestly say that Rocksteady saved the best for last. Arkham Knight takes the tried and true combat system made famous by Rocksteady (and cribbed by various other studios) and expands on their open world gameplay introduced in Arkham City while weaving a captivating narrative starring DC's most popular character. Making all of thise happen is no small feat and Rocksteady must be commended for what they've managed to accomplish with Arkham Knight on a heavily modified Unreal Engine 3 when Unreal 4 is already in play in some corners of the industry. It's really a testament to the work the studio is doing. Lets get down to business though and start talking about what makes this game so good. Beware, spoilers are ahead.

First Impressions - Batman: Arkham City

We all know that first impressions are extremely important. First impressions can make or break any given situation depending on how they go. Despite the success of Batman: Arkham Asylum I still reserved judgement of Arkham City based on the track record of licensed property titles; something I covered in my blog post yesterday. As I stated then, and I'll reiterate now, more often than not a licensed title will end up just being completely terrible. After spending some time with Arkham City last night I can safely say fans of the series will not be disappointed. Without spoiling anything I'll say this; things pick up fairly soon after the end of Arkham Asylum. The inmates of the asylum and Blackgate prison are now confined to a sectioned off portion of Gotham now referred to as Arkham City. Naturally when you assemble Gotham's most wanted into one city state there's bound to be some problems and tensions definitely do run high. 

Of course this requires the dark knight to drop into the thick of things to investigate. Though you're no longer confined to the spaces of Arkham Asylum. Instead a large portion of Gotham City serves as Batman's stomping grounds this time out and to put it simply, it's amazing. While Arkham Asylum allowed Batman to prowl in a small space and usually from within the confines of a building, Arkham City sets Batman loose in his natural habitat. When you take into account how great the visuals in this game are it can be stunning sometimes to just creep along the rooftops of Gotham's unique landmarks, surveying the skyline. It perfectly captures what a dystopian Gotham would look like if all the criminals finally took control and were allowed run amok.