Batman Arkham Knight Review
Batman has long been one of the best, if not the best, comic book heroes over the past few years. Between Christopher Nolan’s take on the caped crusader in film, and Rocksteady’s take on Batman in the Arkham games, we have been served a variety of Batman stories over the past few years. Batman Arkham Knight is the latest entry in the Arkham games and features new and exciting storylines for the caped crusaders. While the main storyline can be at times very predictable, there is plenty around the main storyline that gives the story some agency.
The main story revolves around the villain Scarecrow who is trying to unleash a large bomb of his fear toxin onto the city of Gotham. The city has been entirely evacuated save for the various criminal gangs and a large militia force led by a mysterious figure named the Arkham Knight. Throughout the story, Batman is trying to piece together who exactly the Arkham Knight is while dealing with the looming threat of Scarecrow. If you are a fan of Batman and know a decent amount of Batman lore, you can probably piece together who exactly the Arkham Knight is. That part of the story I found to be very predictable and didn’t really sit well with me. However, there is another part of the story that gives Batman some amount of vulnerability and agency. I won’t say what it is now for fear of spoiling it but you will know what it is when you see it. Overall the story is very good with some decent twists aside from the Arkham Knight stuff.
The big new change to the gameplay is the addition of the Batmobile. The Batmobile is a feature that the fanbase seems to have been clamoring for and we are finally getting it in Arkham Knight. For the most part the controls for the Batmobile are very akin to other vehicles in open world save for the tank mode. In order to get around the issue of having to aim cannons and other weapons that other open world games suffer from, the batmobile has the ability transform into a tank by pressing and holding the left trigger. You then get access to a fifty caliber cannon that can easily incapacitate the various unmanned drone tanks roaming around the streets of gotham. Having to hold down the left trigger to shift into tank mode is a little jarring having been used to the left trigger being the brake button in other games but I eventually got used to it. My least favorite part about the Batmobile are the Riddler challenge rooms that require the use of the Batmobile. They require a lot of cracker jack timing and appropriate speed use that I find very tedious.
For the most part the hand to hand combat seems unchanged with a few additions. The combat is the same style of chaining together as many hits as you can while avoiding getting hit. It still is one of the best combat systems in a game to date as we see other games like Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor. However, I think that the Batman games have done the best in utilizing the system. The game also features the same stealth system in previous games with some minor but impactful changes. The vantage points you would see in the past games appear less frequently than previous games, but they add new ways for you to hide in the large stealth rooms. However, the enemies have ways of constantly fishing you out of these hiding spots. Guards will now throw flame based grenades in an attempt to fish you out or they will have a device that can detect when you are in detective vision making it harder to track enemies. There is also a new mulit takedown system that allows you to dispatch of multiple guards at once quickly. The core gameplay feels very similar to the past Batman games but to me that isn’t really a bad thing. Its still fun to bash some criminals head in or making poor unsuspecting guards fear for their lives.
At its core, Batman Arkham Knight doesn’t reinvent the wheel in terms of the gameplay. Nor does take the most original direction in terms of story. But no other game puts you in the large boots of Batman better than this. The feeling of flying out of the Batmobile, divebombing on to a group of bad guys and bashing their skulls in is still a very satisfying feeling. If it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it in my opinion. If you want more Batman, then get this game.
4/5
