I see Batman Arkham City GOTY is on sale on Steam. Is that one objectively better than the others?
Arkham Collection as a whole is worthwhile purchase IMO. It nails the mood and atmosphere of Gotham. While emphasizing on Batman’s ability as a detective as an important factor to the gameplay.
Arkham City is a sequel to Arkham Asylum. I say go in order.
I’m currently making my way through the series again after achieving 240% in Arkham Knight. So all are pretty fresh in my mind.
All the games have their strengths and weaknesses:
• Asylum is extremely linear but has some amazing sequences and really feels like you’re in an episode of the animated series. • City has a fantastic story and is more open world compared to Asylum. It definitely looks a bit dated these days and can be clunky to control at times. It is considered the best of the series for a reason though! • Origins is the prequel black sheep of the series. It wasn’t developed by Rocksteady and doesn’t have Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as the voices for Batman and Joker. The story is extremely short, but the boss battles are a ton of fun. It’s definitely worth checking out for at least one play through. Especially around the holidays! • Knight is the most polished and best looking of all the Arkham games. The story is a bit more generic / predictable than the rest, but the ending really wraps up the series nicely. The main issue people have with Knight is the Batmobile sections. While it does get overused, it’s not as bad as some make it out to be.
All the games tie into each other. Even events from Origins are referenced throughout Knight. I would recommend starting with Asylum and going from there. That way you get the full story. If you start with Knight right away, you might be confused at a lot of big events that are directly related to the other games. The opening cutscene to Knight completely spoils the ending of City as well!
TLDR: All are great in their own ways. For continuity, start with Asylum and work your way up to Knight.
Man Origins boss fights were great. I remember being in awe when fighting Deadshot. That fight was the definition of a slobberknocker. I don’t remember much else from that game but that fight stuck with me.
@followthewhiterabbit I’m not sure if it’s out of your price range, but the whole Arkham Collection (all 3 games) is on sale for $9 right now. It’s definitely worth the extra $4 to get two more games. And they’re all great for different reasons in my opinion.
Hey, somehow I didn’t even notice this?
I think you saved a lot of pondering, and made this whole post a bit pointless! Thanks so much, I just got it!
Now, I might as well start at the start!
@followthewhiterabbit glad I could help. Enjoy! And it’s still a good comparison thread.
Arkham City was for a long while considered the best, but age has arguably been kinder to Asylum (thanks to storytelling) and Knight (thanks to streamlining/modernization).
I don’t think there is any question on how to answer the literal post, though. If you could only get one of them, it’s Asylum.
Also, I would not recommend binging these games unless you are REALLY feeling it when you finish Asylum. The chief complaint about them was always that they did not change the formula around enough between games. I have to think playing them back to back exacerbates that.
Actually looks like I’ll only be playing through Asylum and City. Bought all three on my Steam Deck, but for some reason Knight is unsupported on there.
But, I’m happy to start with the original and enjoy it from there!
You could still give Knight a go. The folks over at protondb seem to be reporting that it runs just fine even without official Deck support.
But Asylum and City are both great games so definitely play those first.
