I played Asylum, waited years, and then finally played City roughly two years ago. I thought it was a fine game - a nice improvement on Asylum and quite a bit of fun, but now I'm Batman-ed out for at least another few years.

City is a much better game than Knight is, I know some people aren't hot on the more open world it takes place in but all of the actual gameplay changes are fantastic and make it feel a lot smoother than Asylum did and give you way more options in both combat and stealth. Knight on the other hand fumbles a lot of things and I would say is the overall weakest in the series outside of Origins, still a fun game but not one I ever feel the need to replay. Origins is just a poorly made Arkham City expansion pack and isn't worth playing.

City is my favorite of the series, but I know I'm an outlier on that (for some reason... c'mon, guys, that game is AMAZING).

But yeah, you should play City first, as the story is very much meant to be played in order. You certainly wouldn't be lost if you started with Knight, but some story beats would have a lot less impact.

Then play Origins after Knight if you get around to it, I guess. It's a fine game, but it's the definition of "unnecessary". I'm glad it exists as a diehard Arkham fan who can't get enough of it, but if you end up having had your fill of Batmanning about, then Origins is the one to skip.

In my opinion Knight strikes the perfect balance between the interior stealth of Asylum and the outdoor traversal of City. Also as much as people complain about the Batmobile it's actually not that big of a deal - they lay it on thick in the beginning as they tutorialize you through the different abilities it has, but after that it's a lot more evenly spread out.

That said I am one of the people that thought City was a step back for the series that diluted the formula over an unnecessary open world design that this particular series never really needed.

I loved Knight. I'm a sucker for a good story, and that one was great.

City in my opinion is the best of the series, but that was back when it first came out... now we have tons of open world games so the market is a bit over saturated. That being said, I think Knight's open world is probably better, but I just did not like the story that much or the side story content. City just feels more satisfying to me story and gameplay wise. Also the Batmobile tank segments that are forced onto you in Knight are really annoying.

I think Knight is better but City is the sequel. If you like City then you'll have Knight to play but it might be weird going back to City after Knight.

Origins is stealthily the best Batman game to me. I genuinely believe a lot of people that hate on it never gave it a chance.

City was a great game and worth a play through. Origins was shit on unnecessarily, it is VERY similar to city no doubt but the villain encounters and the overall story were a lot of fun. I don't have a lot of love for knight, the world and combat were great, but the over use of the batmobile as a mobile weapons platform was boring and the story was really weak in my opinion.

In order of preference by story (gameplay doesn't really change)

Asylum

Knight

Origins

City

Play city, but IMO origins had the best story and boss fights.

You should play City and the Knight. They both are great.

Depends on if you want more open world or less. I preferred Knight over City because I really don't need Batman to be an open world game, but City is probably the better game if I try to be more objective about it.

Origins is probably my favorite of the Batman games as well. Didn't realize people hated it, though.

Anyway, if you don't go with Origins I'd say City is your best bet.

You want to play City somewhat regardless. The narrative of Knight hinges on the events of that previous game.

EDIT: Also, both games are great. I actually prefer Knight of the three entries, though clearly that's an uncommon opinion.

@mindbullet: Origins probably has the best story of the lot but despite being set in the Arkham universe it used the characterisations from the Nolan films. Also the controls were super sloppy in the way that other games feel when they're trying to do Batman combat.

City is the next one in the series...so play that one and then play Knight, the third one.

There's debate about this? Just simply play the trilogy in order. There is a continuous story after all. Don't really see why this is a question.

Arkham Knight is a direct sequel to Arkham City in terms of the story so you'll want play City, watch a playthrough, or at least read the plot to City before jumping into Knight.

Also, while you don't need to do any of the side content, some of the side quests have stories that continue from City into Knight.

Beyond the story, only skip to Knight if you don't plan on playing City ever.

If you want more of that Batman, then play City. If you end up liking City, then play Knight. If you still crave more Batman afterwards, then try Origins.

Honestly I liked how condensed Asylum was, and wasn't that big a fan of the two sequels. I was really irritated by some of the story beats of Knight, and thought some of the boss fights at the end were way too video gamey. To each their own, though.

I haven't played Arkham Knight but i heard bad things about it.

and im playing Arkham City now too and i like it.

I mean, Asylum is the best one so you already reached the pinnacle.

If you want the story I guess City is next but if you don't you should probably just skip to Knight.

I'd say City, followed by Origin with Knight being dead last in my personal priority list.

City is an incredible experience with a lot of very apparent love and care put into it. The story is superb, the combat and stealth refinements from Asylum are great, and the attention to detail in the hub world is marvelous. Oh, and yeah... it has more of a hub world than an open world. The hub world links together the different dungeons and is small enough that they were able to cram Easter eggs and clever references all over it. If you're only going to play one of the other three Arkham games, it should arguably be this one.

Origins gets a lot of flak, predominantly because it's more of the same with a little less polish. It was kind of a stop-gap game between City and Knight to keep interest up, and Warner Bros. Montreal made it instead of Rocksteady. It has the same combat system as Arkham City (with a rage mode tacked on and a few new quirks here or there), re-uses the hub world from Arkham City (sans the walls) with a southern island glued, and emphasizes The Joker yet again for a third time. The thing is though, it works. The combat is still fun, the new island emphasizes verticality in ways that are surprisingly refreshing, the dungeons are very well-designed, the art aesthetic is art deco in a maniacal way, and the story is quite good. I personally love it and wholeheartedly recommend it to you.

Knight... I hated Knight. One of the major problems with Arkham Asylum's follow-ups is that each one felt the need to go bigger and bigger and BIGGER, to the point that Arkham Knight is a full fledged open world game... warts and all. It has oodles of copy-and-pasted side quests peppered across the map that repeat the same general things ad-nauseam and exist solely to pad out length. There are now over 500 Riddler challenges, all of which have to be completed for the real ending. The world's increased size means that all those loving touches from previous Rocksteady entries are spread out too thin across it (breadth, but no depth). Oh, and all the island layouts are designed for the Batmobile to easily traverse without getting caught on things, so all the buildings are oddly too far apart and the streets a bit too wide for a city that is meant to feel claustrophobic, old, and menacing. Who knows, though? Maybe Bruce rebuilt chunks of it to accommodate his ride. *shrug*

Speaking of the Batmobile, Knight crams it in to nearly everything it can... to the detriment of pacing and narrative sense. You'll continually be forced back into that stupid vehicle, often to do incredibly stupid things. Sometimes you'll have to grapple up the side of a building in your multi-ton tank because... reasons. Many other times, you'll be made to fight dozens of drone tanks that all look the same and lack any personality whatsoever. Horribly enough, each island is built as a bat-tank battle arena and is used as such in... bat tank stealth sequences. Yes, you have to stealth in a heavy tank covered in bat decals and shoot heavily armored enemy tanks from behind in their glowing, illogically unarmored weak points. Bat tank stealth sequences. Just let that roll off your tongue and wonder how it weaseled its way into the game. Bat tank stealth sequences.

Oh, and the dialogue and story are rubbish. They didn't bring Bruce Timm back, and the lack of his presence shows. Batman's lines give him all the personality of a mannequin, the main villain is arguably defeated two hours in and then things just drag on hours thereafter, the identity of the titular Arkham Knight is telegraphed from half a continent away, it recycles The Joker a fourth bloody time, and the closest thing to witty dialogue that Riddler is given is a text rant about Gamergate (though can you really fault him? He had to make 500 plus riddles and three race car courses that he had to convince himself were riddles too. Man is overworked). I honestly can't recommend Knight to you, but there are plenty of people that love it. Who knows? You might get a lot more mileage out of it than I did. It made me miss the narrative quality, focus, and structure of Arkham Asylum. I'd rather have a 12 hour long high quality experience than 30 plus hours of fluff with some main quests sprinkled sparingly about... but I'm apparently not the kind of gamer that Knight is targeting. *shrug*

Good luck choosing! :-)

I'll second this, I played them all fairly close together and City was easily my least favourite of the four.

Play them all in the order of release!

Knight is a good game but City is imo the best in the series (from both a gameplay and story perspective). Also unless you've already been spoiled on the plot going into Knight would also ruin stuff for City, so you should probably start with City to be on the safe side in case you decide you fancy more than one.

I just finished Origins for the second or third time last week. Origins is super dope. The game had too many bugs at launch but it's super solid now.

As far as the open world Arkham games... City ≥ Origins > Knight

I would go Arkham City, mostly because of my dislike for forced Batmobile missions in Knight. Also I found most of the villain missions in Knight kinda weak.

I still think Asylum is the best. I felt very "Batman" in that game. City was wonderful and so was Knight. They are both sort of the same game. I think Knight's narrative is a little more engrossing, so it's a toss up. Origins is a fantastic title people shat on for reasons only the internet can truly understand. So...

I'd go with City, Origins, then Knight. Why not play them in release order?

You could just play through all 3 Rocksteady games a dozen times like I have!

But seriously, go with City. Knight references directly a lot of things that happened in City and City is a fantastic fucking game.

Came to say the same thing.

You bought the games, play them.

Thanks y'all. I think I'll tackle AC for now. I was leaning towards AK 'cause I only my bought PS4 last year and playing on multiple platforms, I really haven't spent enough time on the system and wanted to get more use out of it but I do care about story stuff and didn't know they were tied. Hopefully I'll want to get to AK sooner than later afterwards.

Origins is a really good game. People think it's bad because it was made by a different team and they likely didn't bother playing much of it. I liked Origins more than Knight, I'd say it's equal to City too.

The only Arkham game I'm not a fan of is City.

City is the better game (and, in my opinion, the best in the series).

The only real gameplay change Knight added was the batmobile, and they worked really hard to justify it at every turn: there are platforming sections with the batmobile, puzzles, combat, races, collectibles, boss fights, escort missions, and even stealth. If you tried to play it as a regular Batman game (as I did at the time), you were pretty much screwed because you were forced into that tank for long sections of the game.

Origins is not garbage, but it was made by another studio and it shows. It lacks a lot of the polish of the other games. It was buggy (it froze to me a couple times, some missions didn't trigger at random), the difficulty curve was all over the place and, being a sequel, it lacked a lot of the most iconic characters, instead going to a whole list of C-listers as your antagonists (with one, highly telegraphed, exception). Also, it was too close to the other games and gameplay wise added almost nothing of note, so it feels like "too much Batman" at the time of release.

Am I the only person that felt like Arkham Asylum was the only genuinely good game out of them all, and that everything released afterward was a bit too try-hard in the same vein as Matrix Reloaded was to the original Matrix?

From what I've heard people say, City was a good game, but I didn't enjoy a second of it. The world was a bit too open, and most of the stuff that you could do in that open world felt menial and unimportant. There was also something a bit...uneven?...about the overall arch of the story. I don't know. I can't pinpoint exactly what it was that I didn't like. Asylum just felt like this tight, concise experience, and maybe I just don't feel like they can honestly top that.

City is great. Not as good as AA but still awesome. Arkham Knight is a bad game

I am with you 100%. I enjoyed City, but it didn't do much for a sequel (and the ending was trash). I loved Knight - I didn't understand the Batmobile complaints at all, and I really wish open world games would streamline sidequests in the way Knight does it.

City is cool and you can get the batman beyond skin for it which is cool.

Get the city...you'll thank us later.

Very dissapointed by Knight. City is the better game

City is better, also Knight leans into the events of City pretty hard. That being said CIty is a game that is significantly better on NG+ since it keeps the Riddler trophy bullshit progress between saves meaning you don't have to pick up 850 trillion collectibles to move through all the narrative content, keeps the flow of the story much more consistent. If you get it on PC where it's $5 just use cheat engine or something to unlock all of that crap after you get a few so you know whats up.

@mems1224: City is actually the worst one of them, and I'm counting Origins.

Oh the Penguin built huge military grade radar dishes in the sewers? In this super jail? Get outta here..

City is easily the best game in the franchise. Definitely recommend it.

@humanity: that's way better than the riddler building giant intricate "races" under Gotham because video games.