Four
long years after the gates swung shut on Arkham City,
Rocksteady Games has returned with a vengeance to put the cherry on
top of one of the greatest gaming franchises ever conceived. Batman:
Arkham Knight is everything
we've come to expect from a threequel – it's bigger, louder,
ballsier, and DARK like you wouldn't believe – but it's also quite
a bit more. Specifically, it's things a last chapter often isn't:
it's smart, it's complicated, it's bold, and it refuses to coast on
past successes or phone in another easy payday on naught but brand
loyalty. Whether you like the damn Batmobile or not (I'll get to
that), the immutable truth is that the man hours Rocksteady put into
this one seeps from every immaculate pixel. To spend even five
minutes playing it is to know a labor of love. And it is a beautiful
thing to behold.
I
gush. I do. That's because 2008's Arkham Asylum and
2011's Arkham City were,
and still are, two of my favorite platform adventure titles of all
time. That Batman was, and still is, one of my favorite fictional
characters of all time was almost incidental to my enjoyment of those
games; that's how good they were. Every element was inspired: the
brooding uber-gloom of the environments, a delirious melding of
gothic and art deco; the punchy, action-packed stories; the
exceptional voice work; the clever, varied gameplay; and most of all,
the seamlessness of the universe, the Arkham Universe, one that
neither ignored nor pandered to seventy-plus years of Bat-history.
Each game was a story in its own right. Now, with Arkham
Knight, the disparate pieces
unite into a cohesive whole, and the result is something that has
every right to be called a singular, standalone epic.
It
was a long wait. True, between Arkham City and
Knight we had 2014's
ho-hum Arkham Origins,
assembled by WB Montreal and not directly tied with Rocksteady. They
did a competent job telling a story that didn't need to be told,
ultimately offering a modest thrill full of empty calories that added
little to the Arkham mythology (a few of the more inspired elements
from that game have been carried over, credit where credit is due).
There was little doubt when City
pulled down the numbers it did that a final, definitive chapter was
coming eventually, but it was also a given Rocksteady would hold off
until next-generation hardware came along to give Batman the send off
he deserved. They did, and now instead of the claustrophobic walls
of a psycho ward or the cordoned ant farm of an open-air prison, the
lightspeed processors and extra RAM of our consoles allow us all of
Gotham for a playground. And it is a beautiful thing to behold.
When
last we left the Caped Crusader, he had just survived one
excruciatingly long night in Arkham City, the draconian 'final
solution' to Gotham's pervasive prison problem. The walled ghetto
built from the dregs of Old Gotham was supposed house every loony
toon in the city, but it turned into a nightmarish battleground
overrun by Batman's rogue's gallery and a quartet of savage gangs
killing each other Running Man-style.
Hugo Strange, the enigmatic genius overseeing the gulag, turned the
inmates loose on one billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, waylaid by
Strange's men and tossed behind the walls like a common criminal.
Batman saved the day, but not before one final confrontation with his
arch-nemesis, The Joker. The Clown Prince of Crime died –
actually, truly died – in the end, a victim of his own fiendish
poison concocted during the events of Arkham Asylum.
Now the thugs and murders, the cutthroats and wackjobs, are all
free, released on a legal technicality. Gotham is back to Square
One, which is when none other than Scarecrow, the fear-obsessed
madman thought dead after the asylum riot, reemerges with a
vengeance. In the opening minutes of Arkham Knight
he unleashes a horrifying wave of delusion-inducing gas, with a
promise that more will come unless the city empties itself and turns
the streets back over to the armies of chaos against which the Batman
so long fought. In 24 hours the Dark Knight finds himself all but
alone, surrounded on all sides by thousands of vengeance-crazed bad
guys, and a private army led by a mysterious armored a-hole calling
himself the Arkham Knight. Cowls on, dudes and dudettes. Time to go
to work.
But
if you're going to work, you're going to need a car.
So,
yeah, for the first time in Arkham history, you get the
Batmobile. Of all the Dark Knight's iconic weapons and gadgets,
nothing – not the venerable batarang, not the grappling gun, not
the shark repellant – is as instantly recognizable as the matte
black rocket car with the lion's roar. Though it has seen
innumerable iterations through the comics, cartoons, games, and
movies, here it is as close to perfect as I can imagine, essentially
a hybrid of a Ferrari and an Abrams tank.
The generous play map,
which divides Gotham into three huge islands, contains wide, looping
roadways so you can skid, drift, flip, and blow afterburners on a
straightaway to your heart's content. A feather-touch control
switches the Batmobile into combat mode, causing it to sprout cannons
and mini-guns for (non-lethal) crowd control and yardarm-to-yardarm
exchanges with the Arkham Knight's drone tanks.
But more than that,
the Batmobile is an indispensable part of the gameplay. Many areas
are inaccessible without it, many trials unwinnable, and a sizable
chunk of the Riddler's puzzles cannot even be attempted without it.
You'll need to make use of a power winch and electric charger, as
well as the impossibly fun ejection seat, which propels the Dark
Knight like a missile into otherwise unreachable spots. An extended
prologue mission, the contents of which I will not describe for fear
of spoilers, put you through a proving ground of car-specific
challenges that help you appreciate the versatility of the Batmobile
not only as a weapon but as a tool, a companion, and extension of the
Batman himself. The car can be summoned (almost) any time with the
push of a button, and with a little practice you find you can drive,
arrive, shoot, eject, fight, and be back in the saddle in a series of
seamless moves that resemble the most dangerous ballet you've ever
seen.
Batmobile
aside, veterans of Asylum and
City will find a ton
to love here. As before, the main story is sweetened with more than
a dozen complex side quests and a hundred wonderful distractions.
But there's a interconnectedness this time around that was missing
from the previous titles. Where in the last games it was possible to
pursue many quests separately (limited only by periodic advancements
in the story), here several of the meatiest parts of the game are
threaded together in a manner that has the Dark Knight multi-tasking
with a vengeance. The Riddler is back, of course, seeding Gotham
with his fiendish puzzles, but his contribution this time around is
woven into the story, all but demanding you attend to his lunatic
conundrums in tandem with the other tasks that face you. A few of
the missions are standalone, and pay homage to choice episodes in the
Batman mythology, including the 'Man-Bat' and Azrael of the Order of
St. Dumas. These vary in appeal and mostly exist to test your
evolving skills in one or more Bat-disciplines such as melee combat
or stealth. The others are tied in with the main quest and largely
involve a series of engagements with the legions of militia
overrunning the city. Consequently, the tasks feel more urgent this
time, and the resulting emotional impact is palpable. The villains
are more proactive, too; crueler, colder and more pissed at the Caped
Crusader than ever. Have they simply smelled blood in the water and
rightly chosen this moment to rise from the shadows and strike back?
Or perhaps, given the persistent rumor that Batman actually killed
the Joker, are they truly
fearful of their old nemesis and the disquieting rumor that he's
breaking his sacred code in exchange for a villain-free Gotham?
Like
any good closing chapter, it is ultimately a story about
consequences: Batman made choices for good or ill, all of which led
him to the crossroads at which he now stands. He has not gone
unscathed or unscarred (and numerous side references allude to the
Dark Knight's advancing age), and neither have his allies. Indeed,
much of Arkham Knight
is not so much about Batman as it is about his comrades and loved
ones, and how his tunnel-visioned holy war for order in Gotham has
caused awful collateral damage to those with whom he is closest. Has
it all been worth it? Is Gotham any safer now than it was when he
first donned the mask? It's difficult to comment on the specifics of
those questions without ruining the plot, but I'll say this: there
are twists and reversals, and a few outright shocks, in this game
that play out so beautifully it puts Arkham Knight
on par with some of the better graphic novels.
If
I elaborate, I'll spoil, so I won't continue down that road. Instead
I'll comment on Gotham's design, and the graphics powerhouse that
allowed Rocksteady to craft a city worthy of the World's Greatest
Detective. It isn't the largest playable environment ever –
certainly not a Tamriel or the verdant hills of Witcher 3
– but it makes up for it with dense acreage of glorious
architecture and oodles of detail, and a sense of depth that makes
the streets and sewers as intriguing as the rooftops. You never feel
constrained in this Gotham, and while, no, you can't take the Batwing
over to Wayne Manor for evening tea, you certainly won't be bored
with the multitude of passageways and train tracks, the statuary and
the skyscrapers. And man, can ol' Bats move in
this game, such that he could give Spider-Man a run for his money.
From the top of Wayne Tower you can peer across Gotham Harbor to the
remnants of Arkham City, which is a profound experience: the
playground from the last game, so huge and so immersive compared to
Arkham Asylum, looks like nothing more than an abandoned amusement
park, forlorn and neglected and...and small.
But looking down on it from the lofty heights of a billion-dollar
high-rise, you can't help but wonder if Gotham's winged defender
isn't thinking back to that delirious night and rueing some of the
decisions he made.
Is
this a perfect game? Nah. Some missions are repetitive and the tank
combat, while fun, gets old after a while. The upgradeable skill
trees feel swollen, demanding you turn in your hard-earned XP for
enhancements you'll hardly ever use. Finding key items and
locations, and those confoundedly elusive Riddler trophies, can be a
pace-killing chore. And the henchmen with the stun sticks are back.
You remember, those guys with the cattle prods whose sole function is
to break your combo chains because they can only be hit from behind?
Yeah, we hate them, and they have no place in this game. But
quibbles in an otherwise ecstatic Bat-sperience.
So,
the disc tray hasn't even cooled yet and already the fan community
wonders: will there be another? Likely yes, though Rocksteady is
sure to pass the torch and try something else on for size. Like
Christopher Nolan, they've probably decided three in enough, and will
be only too happy to let another studio stand on their shoulders and
(hopefully) carry on the greatness they achieved. One thing is
certain: you can't keep a good (bat)man down, and where evil lurks,
so the Dark Knight shall venture.
And
we'll be there to help him.
