Summary

• Arkham Batman games are some of the best superhero video game franchise works, with Arkham Asylum being a classic revitalizing Batman's mythology.
• Arkham Asylum's gameplay may not be as advanced as later games, but its immersive atmosphere and world-building are arguably unparalleled.
• While the Arkhamverse has evolved into open-world sequels and a live-service shooter, Arkham Asylum's elegance as a tighter Metroidvania entry remains satisfying and influential.

Few superhero games have attained the same upper-echelon rank as the Arkham Batman installments. Not every Arkham game has been fully beloved, particularly its spin-off companion pieces Lockdown and Blackgate for Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Origins respectively, but the series as a whole is undoubtedly some of the best work in a superhero-related video game franchise, let alone superhero-related media overall.

None of that would have been possible if Batman: Arkham Asylum wasn’t a classic revitalizing the World’s Greatest Detective’s mythology once more for a new audience, and everything that makes it a brilliant adaptation of Batman: The Animated Series through a 3D Metroidvania lens in a unique setting is even more appreciable a decade and a half later. Batman: Arkham Asylum’s gameplay may not be as all-encompassing as later games in the series and yet the amount of character, world-building, and atmosphere it evokes makes it instantly distinguishable from the rest.

Batman: Arkham Asylum’s Gloriously Gothic Atmosphere is Unmatched a Decade and a Half Later

Arkham Asylum’s treatment of Batman’s rogues’ gallery behaves like an Animated Series continuation without any of the baggage needed to know who any of them are. If Arkham Asylum has proven anything in the last 15 years it’s that its world-building is phenomenal and plunges players into a deep well of lore by insisting that Batman has fascinating relationships with a handful of colorful villains already.

Batman escorting an apprehended Joker to Arkham Island is one of countless times he’s probably had the pleasure of doing so, and how every villain incarcerated at the asylum responds to Batman illustrates the state their dynamic is in at the tail-end of the Caped Crusader’s sixth year of hunting criminals. This is where the rewarding collectible hunt for glowing green question mark trophies, scannable riddles, and chattering Joker teeth began, as well as the gruesome and enigmatic Chronicles of Arkham that unravel a mystery within the asylum’s walls and are exclusive to the titular game.

Interestingly, Arkham Asylum’s relatively truncated map debatably makes the pursuit of its collectibles more enjoyable due to them not being scattered over an open world, and the fact that they’re all tied to gadget-specific exploration, Easter eggs, or lore gives them substance. Moreover, the way lore is implemented is piecemeal and nourishing via patient interview tapes players can collect regarding each featured antagonist in Arkham Asylum.

The gloomy, archaic atmosphere baked into Arkham Asylum’s island courtyard, looming architecture backlit by an enormous moon, and dungeon-like facilities is complemented by a beautifully interwoven and artistic UI that future Arkham games would neglect for a more technology-focused aesthetic resembling the Batcomputer and Batman’s cowl capabilities. This is unique to Asylum and its art style, allowing it to remain an uncontaminated, singular, and timeless entry in the Arkhamverse that gushes with character in a way no other Arkham game quite has—yet, anyway.

Batman: Arkham Asylum’s Gameplay Doesn’t Hold a Candle to Its Successors, But It Doesn’t Need to

How players might receive Batman: Arkham Asylum’s gameplay today is another question entirely and almost fully dependent on their fondness and memory of the sequels that followed it because Arkham City, Arkham Origins, and Arkham Knight adopted open-world formulas with dive-bomb gliding and grapnel-boosting to traverse interconnected maps. Arkham Asylum is far more linear in its approach to objectives, what destinations players can or must reach, combat being simple with fewer gadgets and mechanics at Batman’s disposal, and Detective Mode investigations being more elementary.

Of course, Asylum is also the original Arkham game and needed to plant its roots without an already seminal foundation to blossom from in subsequent Rocksteady releases and happened to do so with a fluid and gratifying freeflow combat system, an overwhelmingly immersive and engrossing atmosphere, and level designs heavily inspired by The Legend of Zelda in its 3D Metroidvania approach. Before its sequels could elaborate on combat further, Rocksteady’s rhythmic freeflow system in Arkham Asylum was already galvanizing and emergent enough to inspire innumerable games that followed it.

Rocksteady doesn’t have a patent on its iconic melee combat design; however, not many games can achieve anything as excellent without there at least being a mild, inescapable point of comparison to the Arkham games. Even Camouflaj’s upcoming Meta Quest 3-exclusive Batman: Arkham Shadow, knowing how paramount it is to the formula of an Arkham game, is making a deliberate effort to adapt Rocksteady’s freeflow combat as well as every other feature that is intrinsic and invaluable to the Arkhamverse’s signature.

So with only Batman’s fists, a cape stun, batarangs, and a Batclaw, Arkham Asylum’s elegant combat does a whole lot with not much and to this day feels as satisfying as Arkham City’s with tons of bone-snapping and knuckle-bruising finisher animations of its own.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is an Unrecognizable Shade of What the Arkhamverse Has Become

Today, the Arkhamverse is nothing like its humble beginnings at the decrepit psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. It would be a far cry from what Arkham Asylum was even if the Arkhamverse had ceased at Arkham Knight thanks to the latter’s highly advanced freeflow, seamless Dual Play companion team-ups, and a fully functional and drivable Batmobile, too, but Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has shifted Rocksteady in another direction completely.

There are remnants of Rocksteady’s work on the Arkham games in Suicide Squad, such as its famous blue counter prompts. Unfortunately, because the live-service multiplayer shooter is insufficiently tethered to Arkham Knight’s events with hardly any exposition, it’s difficult to understand how the franchise landed where it is now as opposed to how it began. Arkham Shadow is thankfully shaping up to be a faithful return to what makes the Arkham games great; that said, it’s unlikely another game will ever recapture what makes Asylum rare and authentic, though that hasn’t prevented studios from trying for the last 15 years.

As long as Batman is popular, the Arkham games will endure as a testament to how terrific Asylum is. Its influence is arguably as strong today as it was in 2009, which is demonstrative of how almost everything in Arkham Asylum worked in its favor between heavyweight acting talent, world-building supporting an original Batman canon to this day, and gameplay that has been echoed in myriad corners of the industry since.