FANSERVICE OVERKILL
Batman: Arkham City, the popular sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum, is ambitious in several deeply misguided ways. In abandoning the claustrophobic corridors and tightly controlled pacing of the first game in favor of an open-world structure, it sacrifices much of what made its predecessor so effective. Rocksteady crams the game full of content to the point where narrative focus completely collapses, leaving behind something that feels less like a cohesive story and more like a patchwork of fanservice.
Scene after scene, location after location, classic villains parade through the narrative as if Arkham City were hosting the opening ceremony of the Gotham Olympics. We get speaking roles—or at least appearances—from The Joker, Harley Quinn, The Penguin, The Riddler, Catwoman, Two-Face, Ra’s al Ghul, his conveniently seductive daughter Talia, Mr. Freeze, The Mad Hatter, Solomon Grundy, Hugo Strange, Bane, Clayface, Victor Zsasz, and Black Mask. Some of these are only cameos, others feel shoehorned in, and I’m fairly sure I’ve forgotten a few entirely.
This bloat was already a minor issue in Asylum, but here it goes completely overboard. The result is a game so overloaded that I can no longer tell what I genuinely remember and what my brain simply fabricated to make sense of the chaos. “Batman in Gotham” may have been Rocksteady’s design mantra, but “more is more—regardless of coherence” must have been written on the same whiteboard.
As a concept, Arkham City itself is undeniably bold. Gotham’s mayor, Quincy Sharp, alongside the sinister Dr. Hugo Strange, has decided to wall off part of the city and turn it into a sprawling super-prison where criminals roam freely but are forbidden to leave. It’s a plan so catastrophically stupid that Bruce Wayne openly calls it out during the game’s opening press conference—only to be arrested and thrown inside himself, on Strange’s orders. Naturally, everything immediately goes wrong, and it’s time for Wayne to don the cape once more.
Visually, Arkham City is impressive. The map is relatively compact but densely detailed, packed with gothic architecture, graffiti, posters, and environmental storytelling. As someone not particularly steeped in Batman lore, much of the comic-book minutiae likely passed me by, but I appreciated the opportunity to uncover audio logs and lore fragments through side missions and detective work. It’s an environment clearly crafted with obsessive care.
But that care comes at a cost.
From a gameplay perspective, Arkham City feels aggressively overdesigned. Navigation alone often felt like a chokehold. For every alleyway there are multiple dead ends; for every skyline vista, a forest of smokestacks blocks your path. Even the menus—used to upgrade Batman’s abilities—feel like labyrinths. The city is visually dense to the point of hostility.
Traversal is one of the game’s most praised features, yet it never clicked with me. The grappling hook and cape-gliding system are meant to make Batman feel fluid and powerful, but I found them clunky and unreliable. The map does little to help, rarely clarifying whether an objective lies on a rooftop, inside a building, or beneath the streets—and good luck figuring out where the actual entrance is. A massive restricted zone bisects the city, forcing constant detours in a tedious horseshoe pattern. By the end of the game, I must have circled it hundreds of times.
All of this weighs heavily on the pacing.
Narratively, the game sends Batman on a scattershot sequence of errands, initially justified by vague conspiracies before escalating into outright melodrama. The Joker eventually captures Batman, infects him with a lethal virus, and reveals that he himself is dying as well—forcing a grim alliance in search of a cure. It’s a corny but serviceable premise, evoking Escape from New York–style desperation.
And then the game promptly undermines it.
Despite being on a ticking clock, Arkham City bombards you with side activities: Riddler trophies flashing incessantly, optional challenges, detective cases, flight courses, and collectible after collectible. The city becomes a sensory overload of distractions, while Batman’s supposedly imminent death waits patiently in the background. It may be the most accommodating terminal illness in video game history.
Mechanically, much of what worked in Asylum remains intact. Combat is still fluid, predator encounters still satisfying, and the gadgetry undeniably cool. But Batman starts the game already equipped with a substantial arsenal, and continues to accumulate more. Eventually, the sheer number of gadgets and control shortcuts becomes cumbersome, actively interfering with combat flow.
Enemy design exacerbates this. Fights often devolved into prolonged counter-spamming as groups grew larger and more aggressive. Standard attacks felt sluggish, pushing me toward repetitive combo reliance. Later enemies demand increasingly convoluted attack chains, which further slows the pace.
To the game’s credit, side missions are more elaborate than before, often forming multi-step questlines that culminate in memorable villain encounters. Logically, it makes little sense for a dying Batman to indulge in them—but mechanically, they’re often engaging. And the boss fights, overall, are stronger this time around. The standout is the encounter with Mr. Freeze: narratively awkward, perhaps, but mechanically brilliant. It cleverly forces you to use the full breadth of Batman’s toolkit in ways that feel earned and intelligent.
And that contrast crystallizes my issue.
Where Arkham Asylum was a tightly focused triumph with only minor blemishes, Arkham City feels like a sprawling mess punctuated by moments of greatness. A handful of strong boss fights, a clever ending, and some solid mechanical refinements carried me through an experience I otherwise found exhausting.
Had I not known the release order, I might have assumed City came first—an overly ambitious prototype—followed by Asylum as the refined, disciplined sequel that learned from its excesses.
I’ll freely admit I’m not a superhero fan, and the avalanche of fanservice does little for me beyond distraction. But even as someone who generally loves open-world games, I’ve rarely felt so impatient to reach the end of one so packed with content. Now that I finally have, what I feel isn’t satisfaction or admiration—just relief.
And that, more than anything, is why I’m closing the book on Arkham City for good.
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