This is my video game review of Batman: Arkham Knight for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. My review for this game is bittersweet, so don't hate me for trashing it through most of the review. Also, this review contains ***SPOILARS***. You, my friend, have been warned. Let's start.
I've been a huge fan of this series since its beginnings in Arkham Asylum. At the time, Asylum was an ambitious project; licensed superhero games were, and still are, quite hit-or-miss. Asylum disregarded the dubious history of its genre, though. It synthesized the very best of the franchise with a cast of characters that included Batman and many of the favorites among his rogues gallery, cameos for even more of the non-major ones, nods to the comics all over the place, fan-preferred voice actors from previous adaptations (KEVIN CONROY), and plenty of action. The game world was moody, the story was fascinating, and both the action and stealth gameplay proved equally up to the task of totally immersing the player in the role Batman. Arkham City was a true sequel in that it built upon just about all of that. The game world was five times bigger and fostered a sandbox feel, the mechanics were deepened with more gadgets and combat variety, and probably the biggest shortcoming of its predecessor, the boss fights, became unique and interesting.
Fast forward a few years (past Origins, a solid but nonessential prequel title). Rocksteady announces Arkham Knight, boasting it to be the definitive Batman experience. A similar expansion comparable to what City did with Asylum. A new villain slated to be the ultimate nemesis.
And then it came out.
Following the fallout from the Arkham City incident, Gotham is at relative peace. Scarecrow decides this can't last and, pooling together resources with other Bat-villains, hires a private army to hold the city hostage, prompting a mass evacuation, while he plots a large-scale release of his fear toxin. Batman isn't having any of this, and heads off to confront him - soon butting heads with the guy in charge of said private army and other main antagonist, the eponymous Arkham Knight. The Knight has a vendetta against Bats and his pursuit of it drives most of the story forward. Without actually spoiling too much of the story, I will say that it follows series tradition in saturating itself with as much Bat continuity and as many memorable twists and confrontations as possible. The delivery is wonderful as well: the issues lingering in Batman's psyche are dealt with masterfully and in a unique way that forgoes angst in favor of being legitimately interesting; the voice acting is still top notch; enemy chatter is actually amusing and provides a surprising amount of soul. The identity of the Knight is a central plot point, and those who are fans of the comics mythology will know it early on in the game (even those who had never previously touched a Batman story of any kind will be able to pick up on it before it's "revealed") - but even though it's entirely predictable for the player, it becomes more about the impact on the characters involved. And all while this main conflict unfolds, numerous other crooks and villains, returning and new, take advantage of the crisis, giving Bats even more to worry about.
Mechanically, I was not disappointed. The degree of innovation on the previous title is perhaps not quite as meaningful as the previous jump from Asylum to City, but there are still plenty of new tricks to use. I don't think it's ever been more fun to glide around the city, and the Fear Multi-Takedowns do wonders for the pacing of predator encounters, which also integrate gadgets better than ever and feature more intelligent and less frustratingly random enemies. Freeflow is similarly polished (as I would hope after 2.5 previous outings) and more rewarding than ever when the ins and outs are paid proper attention. Neither of these have been ruined from last time, so it's not a tough sell; it's all about the enemy configurations, which change up enough to make you pay attention to what you're doing. And then... the new piece on the board, the Batmobile. I have to say, I was expecting it to be implemented much less gracefully, but I almost never had an issue handling it (a rare exception for vehicle-based gameplay), and the tank combat was as painless as I could've wished for. The boss fights are sadly much less of a presence, probably the one area in which it is a direct let-down from City. Most "bosses" are just bigger tanks for the Batmobile to fight (however, the climactic confrontation with the Arkham Knight is, in spirit, very much like the much-beloved Mr. Freeze encounter of yore). I'm reminded a bit of Uncharted 3's abandonment of bosses as a mechanic, but where that game thrived on a bit more realism, Arkham Knight is about Batman and could've done with less of it where bosses were concerned.
Otherwise, Arkham Knight does not set out to fix what isn't broken, but that doesn't mean any of it is badly done. Once again, the Riddler presents a slew of puzzles - largely optional and internal to his own sidequest (concept art and character models provide a meager incentive for most of them), but many cleverly designed. Once again, the bonus challenges are well-presented and mostly irrelevant, though they do provide upgrade points as incentive to not completely ignore them this time. And once again, there's no small amount of content overall.
It's worth noting that I did have just a couple of gripes with this game: first off, the Batmobile is well-executed, but perhaps pushed a little bit too much. The early game is almost choked by it. I think this is also related to the lack of boss fights; at least a couple of the tank battles in the game could have been cut in favor of more interesting encounters and taken advantage of mechanics that benefit from an entire series' worth of polish. Even Origins had more and better boss battles, and that's lamentable. Another [minor] issue that reminded me of its existence a few too many times was that the auto-aim on gadgets and combat moves seems to have been downgraded this time without reason - just... occasionally I had trouble Batclawing a Riddler trophy, or died because Bats simply refused to do an aerial attack on a riot shield enemy when I did what should've been the right input. And, a slightly bigger-in-nature gripe: I played the PC version. I won't get too much into it as an actual problem here, because it's only relevant to one of the three platforms on which the game is available, and has already been noted and noted again everywhere else. Even so, despite some frame and lag issues, the experience was not overly marred.
Arkham Knight is fantastic, at least as good as City. All the right mythology nods are still there. The writing has probably never been better, especially between Batman and . The sense of immersion has definitely never been better. You might think the gameplay would be repetitive, but there's still life in dem bones, and the Batmobile was far better than I was concerned it would be. If you want a good action/stealth/puzzle game (with none of the three ever feeling out of balance with each other) set in a sprawling urban environment with all the tools to conquer those elements and feel accomplished, you should probably check it out (obviously PC gamers will need to wait on that). If you want that kind of game, and you're a Batman fan, you need to play it.
I give this game a 3 out of 10.