(This review is based on the PS4 release of Arkham Knight. I initially purchased the PC version, but the port is so bad that Warner Brothers had it pulled from retailers)
Of all the games releasing this year, Arkham Knight was probably my most anticipated. The Arkham series was one of my favorites of the last console generation, a franchise that expanded greatly between its first and second release. Arkham Asylum was a terrific take on the “Metroid-vania” gameplay genre, set in a gorgeous and original version of Arkham Asylum. The level design was superb and both primary gameplay types, combat and “predator rooms,” were rock-solid.
Two years later, Rocksteady released Arkham City, which took the core gameplay components of its predecessor and worked them into an open-world scenario. The result was terrific, with Rocksteady incorporating a “grapnel boost” into Batman’s grapnel gun that, combined with his ability to glide, created a zippy and satisfying way of exploring the city. Warner Bros. followed this up with Arkham Origins two years after, which was more of a step sideways than forward. Few were bothered by this, though; Origins was created by Warner Bros. Games Montreal while Rocksteady prepared their next-gen Batman game, so it was pretty clearly a stop-gap release. The hope was that the next true evolution in the Arkham series would come with Rocksteady’s follow-up.
So here we are, in 2015, and Rocksteady has finally released Batman: Arkham Knight. Is it the huge evolution of the series that fans have been hoping for since Arkham City? Well, no, not really. The major change to the series is the inclusion of the Batmobile, which I’ll talk about more below, but Arkham Knight is essentially a bigger, prettier, slightly-refined Arkham City. That’s not necessarily bad thing. Like City (and, I would argue, Origins) Arkham Knight is an utter blast to play, and the small tweaks that Rocksteady made generally improve the game. Combat is both more complicated and more responsive, the FEAR take-downs (allowing Batman to take out up to 5 armed enemies at a time without taking any damage) make you re-think the predator challenges, and the greatly improved grapnel boost makes traversal even more pleasing than before.
This last bit about the grapnel boost, however, clashes with the games big new inclusion: the Batmobile. Rocksteady really went all in on the Batmobile, as it gets incorporated into nearly every element of the game. If you’re fighting near it, you have special Batmobile finishers you can use on enemies. If you’re going for Riddler trophies, a significant number of them require the Batmobile’s abilities (how kind of him for waiting to introduce them until this game!). But when it comes to the purpose for which a Batmobile actually makes sense, traversal, it’s a redundant piece of technology. The Batmobile is forced to obey roads and open areas, while Batman can soar over the city at a far greater speed with complete freedom. It’s like giving a Ferrari to Spider-Man; sure, it’s a Ferrari, but what use does he have for it?
This is a significant departure from the progression shown with Arkham City. In City, Rocksteady changed the context of the world but in a way that felt like a natural progression of the core gameplay. In Arkham Knight, to justify the existence of the Batmobile in gameplay at all, they had to fill the city with tanks and give the Batmobile itself a tank mode. This seems to be the most divisive element of the game, with a large segment of the fanbase proclaiming the tank sequences (a very significant portion of the game) to be unfun.
I think that might be a bit harsh. I thoroughly enjoyed the tank combat in its own right: the Batmobile feels good to control, the additional power-ups are satisfying, and the core gameplay conceit of dashing out of the line of fire and returning cannon shots is satisfying. The problem, I think, isn’t the gameplay itself so much as its awkward inclusion in the package. The tank/Batmobile stuff simply doesn’t gel with the rest of the game, and being so frequently forced to stop “being the Batman” to blow up a bunch of tanks is poor game design.
The insane amount of tank combat also robs the game of other moments that may have been more powerful. For instance, a confrontation with Deathstroke is continually hyped up, but when it happens, it’s just a tank battle. Yawn. The same goes for the challenges, which were a highlight of previous games. Aside from the “Training Challenges” (which are just tutorials), 15 out of 23 of the challenges in the game are Batmobile challenges. That’s 65%, and it’s completely ridiculous. Arkham City had 12 combat challenges and 12 predator challenges, plus several “campaigns” that ran through combinations of those challenges. Arkham Knight has 4 of each. There’s no denying that the Batmobile takes over Arkham Knight’s content.
The other disappointing element is, unfortunately, the story. While there are arcs within Arkham Knight that could have been quite interesting, they fail to pay off in a satisfying way. Meanwhile, there are other major storylines that are underserved, tangential, or outright unnecessary. I will delve into the story more below in the “spoiler” section, but know that, aside from some unexpected and formally-interesting moments, it does not reach the heights of Arkham City.
Despite the over-reliance on the unnecessary Batmobile and some story mishaps, is Arkham Knight worth playing? Absolutely. In terms of gameplay mechanics, this is still one of the tightest and most polished titles of the year. Arkham Knight absolutely lives up to its marketing as a Batman simulator, giving you complete access to every ability the Dark Knight is known to have. It’s just a bit of a letdown compared to its predecessor.
SPOILER SECTION: TREAD CAREFULLY
The most common complaint about Arkham Knight’s story seems to be the reveal of the Arkham Knight himself: Jason Todd, the second Robin who supposedly died at the hands of the Joker. People’s disappointment seems to stem from a comment Rocksteady made that the Arkham Knight is a completely original character when, in actuality, he’s just the Red Hood with a different name and (initially) mask. These complaints are valid, but for the most part, the Arkham Knight’s story works within the context of the game. A spotlight is shined on Batman’s allies and their own potential downfalls, so it’s no wonder that they brought Todd into the fray as a physical manifestation of Batman’s guilt.
But despite its thematic relevance, the Arkham Knight’s story never really gels with the Scarecrow plan that drives most of the narrative. The two characters are supposedly working with one another, but their goals are at odds and it never makes sense why they formed an alliance in the first place. It feels like Rocksteady wanted to tell various different stories in their (supposedly) final Arkham title, so they just smashed the two together. It’s quite inelegant.
But the most problematic story in the game is the one that Rocksteady did not advertise ahead of time: the Joker blood. The conceit, that the Joker’s blood was given to people through blood transfusions and the TITAN virus is causing them to literally turn into the Joker, is complete nonsense from the start. It’s nonsense that I’m willing to forgive if it pays off in an interesting way, but it’s ultimate purpose, to explain why Batman keeps seeing the Joker throughout the city and fears losing control of his body to the Joker, is unnecessary and redundant. Scarecrow’s fear gas is already affecting Batman and it makes perfect sense already for him to fear his commonality with the Joker.
In addition to muddling a perfectly clear storyline, the “Joker virus” nonsense completely falls apart at the end of the game. After the characters (including Batman himself) continually insist that the Joker virus is completely incurable, Batman essentially beats it after Joker takes over by…being Batman? The game is never particularly clear on this point. One could argue that it is his strength of will that overcomes the virus, but that makes little sense. The Joker blood rewrites its victims genetic makeup to replicate the Joker, and having a strong will isn’t going to do much against that. It would be fine if Batman were simply inflicted with a large dose of Scarecrow’s fear toxin, but not with the Joker virus.
Even the “strong will” argument falls apart due to a sequence shortly before the Joker temporarily takes over. Batman imagines a fight in an alleyway against an entire gang of Jokers, and it ends with a command telling the player to repeatedly hit a button to “Kill The Joker.” This bugged me right off the bat, because it presents the scene as if the player is in control of Batman’s actions, but they aren’t. I didn’t touch the kill button, and Joker tried to convince me to kill him for about a minute. Eventually, he ran out of dialogue, went silent, and after 30 seconds it was clear that killing the Joker was the only “choice.”
This kind of thing could theoretically work, if the whole point of the scene is that Batman’s will is finally broken, that he has gone against his most important rule and therefore no longer has the power to fend off the Joker. But following up that scene with a sequence that posits Batman’s re-emergence as an inevitability completely contradicts the mandatory murder of the Joker minutes before. Even discounting the obnoxious Joker Virus story, the narrative logic falls apart at this stage.
The rest of the ending is also disappointing. Scarecrow reveals Batman’s identity to the world, and if you can defeat a certain number of the “Most Wanted” villains in Gotham City, you can activate the “Knightfall Protocol,” in which Wayne goes home and blows up his house to publicly fake his own death. The game never insists that he’s still alive, and Gordon seems to think he’s dead in the “True” ending of the game, but Rocksteady’s not fooling anybody. No body, no death.
It’s not all bad. Having the Joker around throughout most of the game is neat, and some of the trippy fear toxin (or Joker Virus) sequences elevate the game. But the story definitely plays second fiddle to the gameplay.