About the game
Batman: Arkham City is a 2011 action-adventure game developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It is the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum and the second game in the Batman: Arkham series. It was written by Paul Dini with Paul Crocker and Sefton Hill. Bruce Wayne is locked up in Arkham City, a super-prison built over a slum district of Gotham City, and as Batman he sets out to find the secret behind a scheme run by the warden, Hugo Strange.
The game is played from a third-person view and centres on combat, stealth, detective skills and gadgets. Batman can glide across the city and use a grapnel gun to reach ledges. Detective Vision highlights clues and collectibles. The Freeflow combat system from the first game returns with multiple counters, aerial attacks and gadgets that can be used mid-fight. Catwoman is also playable, with her own campaign that runs alongside the main story.
Rocksteady came up with the sequel before work on Arkham Asylum was finished, and serious work on the story began in February 2009. The city is about five times the size of the asylum. The team left out the Batmobile because it could not travel on the broken ground, and decided against adding multiplayer to spend the effort on the single-player game. The score was composed by Nick Arundel and Ron Fish.
The game came out in North America on October 18, 2011 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, then on October 19 in Australia and October 21 in Europe. A Windows version followed in November 2011 and a Wii U version in November 2012. A Game of the Year Edition with all of the downloadable content was released on May 29, 2012 in the United States and Canada.
Arkham City got critical acclaim. Metacritic scored the PS3 version 96 and the Xbox 360 version 94. It shipped about 4.6 million units and sold two million in its first week, and more than six million had shipped by February 2012. It won several awards, including Adventure Game of the Year at the Interactive Achievement Awards, and Mark Hamill won the BAFTA for Performer.
The Arkham series continued with Batman: Arkham Knight. A remastered version of Arkham City was released in Batman: Return to Arkham for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on October 18, 2016.
The text above is adapted from Wikipedia and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
What critics said
Metacritic 96 out of 100 (PS3). Metacritic 94 out of 100 (Xbox 360). Individual reviews: Game Informer 10/10, Electronic Gaming Monthly 10/10, IGN 9.5/10, GameSpot 9/10, Eurogamer 9/10, Official PlayStation Magazine UK 10/10, GamePro 5/5, Joystiq 4.5/5.
Extra content
Four trophy packs go with the Catwoman, Robin, Nightwing and Harley Quinn's Revenge content. Challenge map and skin packs were also sold.
- Catwoman missions: Story missions for Catwoman, with her own moves and gadgets. New copies came with a code for them.
- Nightwing pack: Nightwing as a playable character in challenge maps, a skin and two challenge maps
- Robin pack: Robin as a playable character in challenge maps, skins and two challenge maps
- Skins pack: All the alternate Batman pre-order skins
- Challenge map pack: Iceberg Lounge, Joker's Carnival and a new Batcave map
- Harley Quinn's Revenge: A new story campaign with Robin and Batman, new areas and enemies
Good to know
- New copies came with a code for the Catwoman missions. Some buyers in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom found the code missing, which Warner Bros. said affected under 0.5 percent of customers.
- Pay Your Respects and Storyteller are the two trophies that can bug. Catch is the one missable trophy.
- A PS3 exclusive Sinestro Corps outfit was unlocked with a code from the extended cut of the Green Lantern film on Blu-ray.
- The cover of the Game of the Year Edition was criticized for being covered with review scores and quotes, which made the game's name small.
- The trophy list has 51 base trophies plus four DLC packs of 6, 2, 2 and 10 trophies, for 71 in all.
- Mark Hamill said Arkham City would be his last time voicing the Joker, but he returned for Batman: Arkham Knight.
- Pre-owned copies sold by GameStop came with the Catwoman unlock code.
Made by
Director Sefton Hill, Producer Daniel Bailie, Producer Nathan Burlow, Programmer Ben Wyatt, Artist David Hego, Writer Paul Dini, Writer Paul Crocker, Writer Sefton Hill, Composer Nick Arundel, Composer Ron Fish.
