Batman: Arkham Knight

• 1. Introduction

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  Batman: Arkham Knight is a 2015 action-adventure game made by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It opens on Halloween night, as Gotham City's six million civilians are evacuated. Only criminals remain behind, and Commissioner Gordon's police force is badly outnumbered. The game was the fourth main entry in the Batman: Arkham series. It followed the 2013 prequel Batman: Arkham Origins and picked up directly from Batman: Arkham City, which appeared in 2011. Its story takes place nine months after that earlier game. This documentary asks how a studio rebuilt Gotham around a drivable Batmobile. It asks who the masked soldier called the Arkham Knight really is. And it asks why a game that earned glowing reviews on consoles caused so much anger on Windows.

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• 2. Rocksteady's Finale

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  Work on Arkham Knight began in 2011, right after Rocksteady finished Arkham City, and it took four years to complete. The studio had held a finale for the series in mind since that earlier game. Warner Bros. supported the plan, but both sides felt that three years was too long a gap between releases. WB Games Montréal was therefore given the task of making Arkham Origins to fill the space.

  In August 2012, Paul Dini, writer of the first two Arkham games, said he would not be involved in a sequel to Arkham City. He had also not written the story-based Harley Quinn's Revenge add-on for that game. Dini said Warner Bros. and Rocksteady had suggested he accept other work if it was offered. Rocksteady chose to use its own writers, led by game director Sefton Hill and designer Ian Ball, with script elements from Martin Lancaster. Comic book writer Geoff Johns served as a consultant on the plot.

  The game was publicly revealed in March 2014, after marketing material leaked at the end of February. Kevin Conroy returned as the voice of Batman. At the 2013 Dallas Comic Con he had said he was working on "the next Arkham". Fans guessed he meant Arkham Origins, but Roger Craig Smith voiced Batman in that game.

  Rocksteady decided early to make Arkham Knight only for the then-upcoming generation of consoles. That choice let the team use system resources fully, without holding back ideas to suit older machines. The game allows up to five times as many on-screen enemies as Arkham City. Riots can feature up to fifty enemies who smash items and spray graffiti. Cutscenes are rendered in real time in the game engine, where earlier games used pre-rendered video. Lead character artist Albert Feliu said one character model could hold as many polygons as the entire environment of Arkham Asylum. It is also the first game in the series to use the Apex physics engine, so cloth such as Batman's cape reacts to movement and wind.

  Unlike Arkham Origins, this game has no multiplayer mode. Hill said the team knew the single-player game would take its full effort, with a "focus on making the best single-player experience we can." He added that Warner Bros. backed that decision from the start.

  Nick Arundel, who scored Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, returned for the music. His partner on those games, Ron Fish, was replaced by composer David Buckley. Arundel wanted to keep the Batman theme consistent while tailoring it to this story, with a Scarecrow element woven in. Buckley worked within Arundel's existing music, using the Arkham Asylum score to build new variations on its chords and melody. Frank Sinatra's "I've Got You Under My Skin" appears in the game. Muse's "Mercy" and Nine Inch Nails' "The Wretched" were used in trailers, with Trent Reznor consulting on the "Be the Batman" trailer. A limited edition vinyl record of the soundtrack carried fifteen songs chosen by Arundel.

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• 3. A Gotham Built For Driving

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  During early development, Rocksteady placed a prototype Batmobile inside the existing Arkham City map. The test showed that a claustrophobic city built for gliding and grappling was a poor place to drive. Gotham was redesigned with wider streets, room for other traffic, and taller buildings so the car could eject Batman upward. The finished city is roughly five times the scale of the open-air Arkham City prison.

  Play centers on three islands named Bleake, Founders, and Miagani. Bleake Island has shorter buildings, shabby neighborhoods and abandoned docks. Founders Island is a modern district of skyscrapers rising over the ruins of Gotham slums. Miagani Island is an older metropolis with Wayne Tower at its center. Smaller districts include a neon-tinged Chinatown and an industrial shipping yard.

  Art director David Hego said the added details gave the experience a feeling that was "a little out of time". No one could pinpoint whether the city belonged to twenty years ago, the present, or ten years ahead. Neon lights, billboard advertising and American-style cars sat beside invented shops in a grimy, dystopian setting. The designers wanted a world that was "rich, vibrant, dense" rather than one that was merely large.

  The Batmobile was something Rocksteady had wanted in earlier Arkham games, but technical constraints blocked it. Working with DC, the designers evolved their own Arkham Asylum version instead of copying models from comics and media. Hill said they did not want the car to be so good that players stayed in it forever. Nor did they want gliding to be so strong that the car went unused. Challenges were spread across the map's vertical and horizontal planes to push players toward both. There is no fast travel, because the designers saw traversal as part of the experience. Buildings hit by the car suffer only cosmetic damage and do not slow it, since stopping at a corner would spoil the fantasy.

  In play, the bulletproof Batmobile can be summoned to the player's location, or to meet Batman as he lands from the air. It can jump, boost, rotate on the spot, smash through barricades and trees, and fire missiles that immobilize enemy vehicles. Batman can eject and start gliding at once. Most enemies flee at the sight of it, and automated tasers subdue those who attack it. A winch lowers an inaccessible elevator, and the car can be driven indoors to solve puzzles. The Batwing delivers upgrades.

  The car has two modes, Pursuit and Battle. Pursuit is for crossing the city and finishing driving challenges. In Battle mode the car becomes a tank that can strafe in any direction. Its weapons include a Vulcan rotary cannon, a 60mm hypervelocity cannon, anti-tank guided missiles, and a non-lethal riot suppressor. Upgrades raise the missile count to 10 and add an EMP device that stuns drones. A "drone virus" lets the player override enemy vehicles and turn them on each other.

  Batman's own armor was redesigned to match the car, with the same shapes and material textures. Shoulder armor now covers the formerly exposed cape, making it more believable that the cape could hold his weight in a glide.

  Critics split on the tank. Dan Stapleton of IGN called Battle mode "weird" and "about as un-Batman an activity as he could imagine", yet found the tank battles good fun. Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot called Battle mode a delight. He still noticed the clash between Batman's no-kill rule and the car's talent for destruction.

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• 4. Combat And Gadgets

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  The combat system is called Freeflow. Strikes, counters and dodges chain together so Batman keeps attacking as he moves from one enemy to the next. The system lets players add attacks against prone enemies without breaking a combo. Batman can throw an enemy into others for more damage. He can also disarm a thug with a baseball bat and swing it at several foes before it breaks.

  Enemies have grown more varied. Some carry shields and shock batons, while armed gunmen hurt Batman badly. Larger enemies charge and tackle, and precisely timed dodging or a batarang can stop some of them instantly. Newer types include medics who shield allies in electrified fields and revive the unconscious. There are also sword wielders and brutes who resist damage and must be stunned first. Brutes with Gatling guns, tasers or blades need extra steps to defeat.

  Enemies also counter Batman's habits. They deploy landmines, control hovering drones, and disable vents if he is caught using them. They can detect his location if he stays in Detective Vision for too long, and some carry devices that block it. The Remote Hacking Device can turn certain drones against their allies.

  A new feature called Dual Play lets the player switch control to Robin, Nightwing or Catwoman during certain events. The switch happens inside Freeflow combat, which begins after an uninterrupted streak. The combat score carries across every controlled character and earns double-team takedowns at higher totals. Another addition is the Fear Takedown. While undetected, Batman can subdue up to five enemies in a row, and time slows after each one.

  The gadget set returns the grapnel gun, line launcher, batarangs and Detective Vision. The Disruptor is now a rifle that disables or detonates enemy weapons and drone turrets. It can also booby-trap weapon crates and tag vehicles for tracking. A new Voice Synthesizer imitates figures such as Harley Quinn and the Arkham Knight to lure thugs into traps. Gliding allows longer flights, steeper dives and higher climbs, and the grapnel gun can switch direction mid-glide. Combat earns points called "WayneTech points", which pay for gadget abilities, combat moves and health upgrades.

  Side missions called "Most Wanted" feature prominent figures from the Batman universe. The Riddler alone sets 243 optional challenges. They involve hidden trophies, timed races, and traps and barriers that the Batmobile can disable. Batman can also investigate murders by reconstructing crime scenes, or use a Tissue Scanner to read a victim's skin, muscle and bones. Finishing the story opens a New Game Plus mode that keeps every gadget, ability and Riddler collectible. Back at headquarters, the police department's evidence room fills with criminal memorabilia from missions and earlier games.

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• 5. Fear Toxin And The Joker

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  Batman is struggling to cope without the Joker, his archenemy, and with an uncomfortable sense that the two shared a bond deeper than either could admit. Gotham's citizens have never felt safer, and crime has dropped sharply. That calm gives Penguin, Riddler, Two-Face and Harley Quinn a chance to unite against Batman. At the center is Scarecrow, whom Batman defeated in Arkham Asylum. He now has a newly created strain of fear toxin and bombs planted across the city.

  Batman first rescues Poison Ivy, who had refused to join the other rogues. Oracle traces the toxin to Ace Chemicals, where Batman finds a large militia led by the mysterious Arkham Knight. Scarecrow has turned the building into a toxic bomb meant to engulf the entire Eastern Seaboard. He reveals that he has kidnapped Oracle, then escapes. Batman limits the blast by exposing himself to the toxin, and the Joker confronts him.

  A flashback explains why. Before the Joker died, his infected blood was used in transfusions that infected five people, Batman among them. Batman concealed his infection and imprisoned the other four, who were changing physically and mentally into the Joker. The Joker now exists as a mental projection produced by the blood and the toxin. He appears again and again to taunt Batman and twist his view of reality.

  When Batman warns Gordon about his daughter's kidnapping, he admits that she aids his vigilantism. Gordon feels betrayed and leaves to search alone. Scarecrow has recruited the business mogul Simon Stagg to build the Cloudburst, a mass dispersal device for the toxin. Aboard Stagg's airship, a dose of toxin lets the Joker's persona briefly take control of Batman while the Arkham Knight extracts the Cloudburst. Later Batman watches Oracle shoot herself after exposure to the toxin. That scene proves to be a hallucination, and she is alive.

  Harley Quinn seizes Batman's makeshift base inside the Panessa film studio to rescue the Joker-ized patients. Batman and Robin capture her and the infected, but one patient kills the others and then himself. He believes Batman will become the perfect Joker. Robin realizes Batman is infected and tries to imprison him, but Batman locks Robin in a cell instead, for his own safety.

  The Arkham Knight activates the Cloudburst and floods the city with toxin. Batman destroys the tank carrying it, then persuades Ivy to empower an ancient tree that can neutralize the toxin. She saves Gotham but dies from the exertion. Her sacrifice strengthens the Joker's hold on Batman, because his own exposure continues.

  To save Robin and Gordon, Batman surrenders to Scarecrow and is taken to the ruins of Arkham Asylum. Scarecrow unmasks him as Bruce Wayne on television. He then injects Batman repeatedly with toxin to break him in front of the public. Inside Batman's mind, he and the Joker fight for control. The Joker tries to weaken him by showing what surrender would look like. Batman triumphs and locks the Joker deep away, forever to be forgotten, which is the Joker's only fear.

  An unexpected rescuer helps Batman subdue Scarecrow with his own toxin. After making sure Gotham is safe, Batman watches Gordon send the police to reclaim the streets. He then activates the "Knightfall Protocol" to protect his loved ones. Surrounded by reporters, he returns to Wayne Manor, where Alfred greets him. As the pair walk in, the manor explodes.

  Sometime later, Gordon, now the Mayor of Gotham, prepares to attend the wedding of Oracle and Robin. Elsewhere, two muggers attack a family in an alley. A nightmarish figure resembling Batman confronts them.

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• 6. Villains Old And New

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  Art director David Hego said returning characters were redesigned to stay interesting for players who had seen them several times already. The autumn setting also demanded a change from the winter clothing of Arkham City. The Penguin lost his long coat, looked dirtier, showed sweat and food stains, and had his head shaved. Two-Face needed little change, so designers stressed his disfigured flesh, using references of burnt flesh as inspiration. The Riddler kept his green shirts with question marks, but his costume changes during the game as he modifies it in response to the plot.

  The ensemble cast is large. John Noble voices Scarecrow, and Mark Hamill returns as the Joker, who appears as a hallucination. Troy Baker voices Two-Face, and Kevin Conroy also voices Hush, who impersonates Bruce Wayne. Allies include Robin, Nightwing, Catwoman, Barbara Gordon as the hacker Oracle, Alfred Pennyworth, Lucius Fox, and the holy warrior Azrael, who aims to replace Batman as Gotham's protector.

  The game's namesake, the Arkham Knight, was created for it by Rocksteady with Geoff Johns and DC co-publisher Jim Lee. Hill said the studio wanted an antagonist who could challenge Batman on equal terms. The character is a militarized Batman, with the "A" logo of the Arkham Asylum facility on his chest. Troy Baker voices him. The suit has short antennas resembling bat ears, meant to mock Batman. An angular chest plate deflects the batclaw, and the utility belt hangs low, unlike Batman's. The gauntlets, boots and armor borrow from the lightweight design of a fighter aircraft. A holographic helmet hides his face and uses a robotic voice synthesizer, giving a ghostly impression. His visor also lets him monitor his militia on a heads-up display. His camouflage pattern mixes dark greys with dashes of red, to blend with Gotham's shadows and neon.

  Marketing producer Dax Ginn called the Arkham Knight "completely original" and a figure Batman had never met. He described the chance to create such a character as "terrifying", while the developers relished leaving a lasting mark on the property.

  The story then reveals the Knight to be Jason Todd, the former second Robin, who was tortured and seemingly murdered by the Joker. Todd blames Batman for abandoning him and escapes after refusing an offer of help. Critics were divided. Stapleton and Sam Roberts of GamesRadar objected to selling the Knight as original, since the character behind the name is not. Stapleton argued that any moderately knowledgeable fan could guess the identity. GamesRadar added that the torture flashbacks and the Red Hood story pack made the twist predictable. Andrew Reiner of Game Informer and Simon Miller of VideoGamer.com found the mystery and the reveal satisfying.

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• 7. Delays And Rough Launches

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  The game was first scheduled for the 14th of October 2014. It slipped to the 2nd of June 2015, then to the 23rd of June 2015, when it arrived on PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. After the first delay, Rocksteady marketing manager Guy Perkins said the studio wanted to be sure it was "absolutely nailing it 100%." A quality assurance tester later said that getting the game to work on consoles was impossible for months. According to that tester, Rocksteady was unprepared for how hard the new hardware would be.

  In February 2015 it emerged that the game had received a "Mature" rating from the ESRB, where earlier games in the series held "Teen". Hill said the team had not aimed at any rating and caught them off guard. He said no gratuitous blood or swearing was included, but the finale takes players to dark places. A ratings analysis by Warner Bros. had flagged certain key scenes, and the team chose to keep them. The ESRB cited scenes where players can shoot unarmed characters and a hostage. It also cited torture scenes on a bloody operating table and with a vehicle's wheel.

  Marketing began early. DC presented the "Cape/Cowl/Create" exhibit in London in June 2014 and at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2014. Artists painted a cape and cowl designed by Asher Levine and based on the game's batsuit. In May 2015, a life-size Batmobile replica by West Coast Customs appeared at MCM London Comic Con. From the 8th of May 2015, Rocksteady released weekly "Arkham Insider" videos. The series ran until December 2015 across 11 episodes.

  Retail editions brought their own trouble. The Limited Edition included a Steelbook case, an 80-page concept art book, an Arkham Knight issue #0 comic, alternate costumes and a Batman statue. The Batmobile Edition swapped in a transformable Batmobile statue. On the 17th of June, buyers learned that edition was canceled over a quality issue with the statue from Project Triforce. They could take a refund or move to another edition. The Limited Edition was also delayed in Europe until mid-July because of a packaging problem.

  The Windows version fared worst. On launch day, thousands of users reported major technical flaws, and some said optimization looked skipped. Steam reviews reported frame rates capped at 30 frames per second and dropping as low as 10 while gliding or using the Batmobile. Even Nvidia's GeForce GTX 970 struggled. Nvidia and AMD released optimized drivers. Rocksteady said it was working with its external PC partner, Iron Galaxy Studios.

  On the 24th of June 2015, Warner Bros. suspended sales of the Windows version and offered refunds. A patch three days later fixed some crashes. By the middle of July, the company was targeting an interim patch for August. Kotaku reported that Warner Bros. had shipped the game because it believed it was good enough. The first interim patch was released on the 4th of September 2015. It added frame rate caps of 30, 60 and 90, finer settings for motion blur, film grain and chromatic aberration, and more texture options. Sales resumed on the 28th of October 2015, with all earlier updates included. Lingering problems led Warner Bros. to offer full refunds, on the game and its season pass, until the end of 2015. PC Gamer placed the launch among the most problematic in recent years but noticed improvement after the patches. A Linux and OS X version from Feral Interactive was canceled in February 2016.

  The Nintendo Switch version, ported by Turn Me Up Games, arrived in December 2023 to similar criticism. Reviewers cited downgraded visuals, frame rates below 30 frames per second, and glitches that made the game impossible to complete. Stuttering was worst when driving the Batmobile at speed. PJ O'Reilly of Nintendo Life gave the port 3 out of 10 and called it "appalling". Oliver Mackenzie of Digital Foundry called it "painful". Later patches made it playable on the Switch 2 at a consistent 30 frames per second, though Switch 1 hardware still stutters.

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• 8. Acclaim And Aftermath

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  On PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Metacritic scores were "generally favorable", while the PC version drew "mixed or average" reviews. Stapleton gave it 9.2 out of 10, praising the graphics, variety, detail of the open world, and voice acting by Conroy, Noble and Hamill. Justin McElroy of Polygon gave it 10 out of 10 for the ingenuity of its puzzles. Reiner of Game Informer scored it 9.5, calling it a "narrative juggernaut". Miller of VideoGamer.com also awarded 10 out of 10, calling it "the best Batman game ever made". Steve Tilley of the Toronto Sun judged it a satisfying, large-scale conclusion to Rocksteady's series, if a little formulaic.

  Other critics were harsher. Chris Carter of Destructoid found many Riddler challenges tedious, and some lacked any resemblance to riddles. VanOrd gave GameSpot's 7 out of 10 and called the storytelling ham-fisted and the repeated metaphors exhausting. Roberts of GamesRadar found the campaign wonky in places, with hammy dialogue and unconvincing primary villains. He still called the side missions almost universally fantastic.

  The public bought it in bulk. It was the top seller of June 2015 and the fastest-selling game of 2015, beating the record held by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It was also the fastest-selling game in the Arkham series. It passed 5 million units sold worldwide by October 2015 and ranked sixth among the year's best sellers in the UK. Awards included Best British Game, Best Game, and Best Action-Adventure Game, and it appears on many lists of the best games of 2015 and of the 2010s.

  Downloadable packs followed. Harley Quinn leads a story mission in Blüdhaven to rescue Poison Ivy, and Jason Todd as Red Hood faces Black Mask. Carter called the two packs "painfully" and "disgustingly" short, at about 30 minutes and 10 minutes. A PlayStation 4 exclusive, Scarecrow Nightmare, shows a Gotham twisted by fear gas. Batgirl: A Matter of Family, from WB Games Montréal, sends Batgirl and Robin to Seagate Amusement Park, built on an oil rig, to save Gordon from the Joker and Harley. Stapleton gave it 6.3 and Carter 6.5, and Forbes writer Erik Kain thought it should have been free. Four Season of Infamy missions arrived in December 2015 and covered the Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, the League of Assassins, and Mister Freeze. Carter gave that set 7.5.

  Skins and Batmobiles filled the monthly releases. Packs brought cars and tracks inspired by the 1989 film, The Dark Knight, the 1960s TV series, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Free updates added a Big Head mode, a photo mode, and the option to use the original voice cast. A 2016 Game of the Year Edition gathered all the season pass material.

  The story spread to other media. Peter Tomasi wrote a prequel comic released digitally in February 2015, and a six-issue miniseries, Genesis, centered on the Arkham Knight's origin. Marv Wolfman wrote a novelization released alongside the game, and Alex Irvine wrote a 320-page prequel novel, The Riddler's Gambit. The series continued with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, released on the 2nd of February 2024.

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