The Batman: Arkham games did more than polish superhero adaptations, they effectively set the modern template for third-person combat, stealth, and comic book storytelling in games. Across just a handful of main entries and a few spin offs, you can trace how Rocksteady (and WB Games Montréal) experimented with scale, structure, and tone while keeping Batman’s core fantasy intact. What follows is a ranking of the key Arkham releases on console and PC, plus a couple of curios for the completionists.

This list weighs how well each game holds up today: not just visually, but in terms of encounter design, pacing, and how effectively it makes you feel like the Dark Knight, whether that is through freeflow combat, tense predator rooms, or slower detective work.

1. Batman: Arkham City

Arkham City is the point where the series hits its stride. Expanding the asylum into a walled-off slice of Gotham could easily have diluted the focus, yet the game keeps a tight grip on structure. The city is dense rather than sprawling, with alleys, rooftops, and interiors layered together so gliding between objectives feels natural rather than like dead travel time. Side quests weave in fan-favourite villains and oddities, but most of them tie into themes of corruption, imprisonment, and the consequences of Batman’s crusade instead of being throwaway errands.

Combat refines the freeflow system introduced in Asylum. Counters feel sharper, gadget integration is smoother, and enemy types push you to think a step ahead instead of mashing strike. Predator sections are equally polished, with more verticality, destructible elements, and ways to unsettle guards. The story leans heavily into the comic book deep cuts, yet it balances fan service with strong character beats. As a complete package, City is the easiest entry to recommend.

2. Batman: Arkham Asylum

Arkham Asylum remains the most focused and atmospheric game in the series. Its Metroid-style layout turns the island into one big interconnected puzzle, encouraging you to revisit earlier areas as you unlock new gadgets. This structure makes backtracking feel deliberate, since each return trip lets you uncover Riddler challenges, hidden narrative details, or combat arenas from new angles. The asylum itself becomes a character, dripping with grime, history, and a sense that everything is just about held together.

The combat system, while simpler than in later entries, still feels satisfying thanks to clear animations and generous readability. Predator encounters are smaller in scale but tightly constructed, often centred on one or two clever environmental hooks. What really elevates Asylum is its tone: Scarecrow sequences, audio logs, and environmental storytelling fuse horror and superhero pulp to impressive effect. Even years later, it feels like a complete, self-contained story rather than a franchise prototype.

3. Batman: Arkham Knight

Arkham Knight is technically dazzling. Its version of Gotham is lavishly lit, soaked in rain, and packed with detail, particularly on high-end PCs and current-generation consoles. Traversal is joyful, with gliding, grapnel boosts, and the Batmobile coming together to make crossing the city almost as entertaining as the missions themselves. Combat builds on City’s foundation with even more enemy variety, team-up takedowns, and expanded gadget usage, making large encounters feel like choreographed chaos.

The main point of contention is the Batmobile. It is impressive as a piece of technology and, in short bursts, vehicular combat and puzzle solving can be fun. However, the game leans on it heavily, turning some story beats into extended tank battles that can outstay their welcome. The narrative swings for the fences with its take on the “Arkham Knight” identity and Bruce’s psychological struggles. Some twists are predictable if you know the comics, but the performance work and set-pieces carry the material, even when pacing stumbles.

4. Batman: Arkham Origins

Arkham Origins is the black sheep that has slowly earned more appreciation. Developed by WB Games Montréal, it reuses a lot of systems and assets from City, yet it has its own charm. Set on a snowy Christmas Eve in Gotham, the game offers a moodier, more grounded take on Batman’s early career. The city layout is less refined than Rocksteady’s efforts, but the festive décor, stormy skies, and sparse streets give it a distinct identity.

Where Origins really shines is in its boss fights. Confrontations against foes like Deathstroke and Firefly are among the most mechanically engaging in the series, demanding proper use of counters, gadgets, and situational awareness rather than relying on simple quick-time events. The story, framed around a bounty on Batman’s head, explores his reputation amongst criminals and the police, and it begins to sketch out the relationship with the Joker that later games will deepen. It lacks some of the polish and variety of the main Rocksteady trilogy, but it is far from a mere stopgap.

5. Batman: Arkham VR

Arkham VR is more of an interactive experience than a full-fledged game, yet it earns its place as a fascinating curiosity. Played from a first-person perspective, it strips away brawling and gliding entirely and concentrates on detective work. Donning the cowl becomes a literal act as you physically look around the Batcave, examine evidence, and reconstruct crime scenes in three-dimensional space. This change of focus highlights a side of Batman that sometimes gets lost in the larger games: the meticulous investigator.

At around an hour or two long, Arkham VR is over quickly, and its narrative is more of a character vignette than a sweeping plot. However, the way it uses VR to put you in uncomfortably close proximity to Gotham’s horrors, and to Bruce’s own fragile psyche, leaves a lasting impression. It is a side dish, not a main course, but for fans with compatible hardware it is well worth experiencing.

6. Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate

Originally designed for handhelds and later remastered for other platforms, Blackgate translates Arkham’s ideas into a 2.5D format. You move Batman along mostly side-scrolling paths, with the camera shifting to sell depth, and use familiar gadgets to navigate and solve light environmental puzzles. The structure tries to mimic Metroid-like exploration, with locked doors and colour-coded obstacles asking you to mentally map the prison as you gain new tools.

In practice, navigation can be fiddly. The map is hard to read, it is easy to become disoriented, and some backtracking feels more like busywork than discovery. Combat and stealth are simplified versions of the mainline games, still recognisably Arkham but less fluid without full 3D movement. For committed fans, Blackgate offers some extra lore and an interesting “what if” experiment in shifting the formula to a new perspective, yet it is not essential for most players.

7. Batman: Arkham City Lockdown

Arkham City Lockdown is the lightest, least essential entry on this list. Built for mobile devices, it compresses the freeflow combat into a series of one-on-one encounters where you swipe and tap to attack, dodge, and counter. There is some satisfaction in perfecting these duels, especially against iconic villains, and the art direction tries to evoke the main games despite the technical limitations.

However, the inherent constraints of the platform and design mean it lacks the exploration, puzzle solving, and layered stealth that define Arkham at its best. Lockdown is more a proof of how far the brand extended than a core part of the series, a bite-sized distraction rather than a must-play. For timeline completeness it is interesting, but if you only have time for a few Arkham adventures, it should be the last on your list.