Warner Bros.

During the 2000s superhero media was at an all-time low, with video games being underfunded and pre-Marvel movies being a killswitch on studios comic book fans were the laughing stock of both media. However, when the masterful Christopher Nolan released Batman Begins and Dark Knight Rises. This rejuvenated the Superhero industry across all forms of media, however one began a genesis of one form of entertainment. Warner Bros tasked Rocksteady and their 40-person team to construct a new Batman game that captures the essence of the Dark Knight, So they started a 21-month process of creating a Knight’s Revitalization.

The Process began in 2007 with creating character designs and the atmosphere of the game. After, they decided to hire revered television writer and the creator of the last truly successful Batman piece of media, Paul Dini. Dini originally wrote and produced Batman: The Animated Series, creating freshly new characters like Harley Quinn. After hiring Dini, He believed that the main cast from the show should return, these being Kevin Conroy (Batman), and  Mark Hamilton (Joker), two of the best V/A’s in the industry. Through a series of Brainstorming and trials and tribulations, Batman: Arkham Asylum. However, we must analyze if the said process delivered upon the visuals and combat.

The combat was a big immersive contention within the team due to finding a unique playstyle and finding the best way for the player to feel the bat. So they decided to create a two-button style that is broken down into attacks and counters, very similar to the janky first Assassin’s Creed. While also including a free flow combat, making it smoothly transition between enemies mid-combo, shows the ease of Batman’s skill while making the combat very simple. It also includes predator combat, which is stealth-based and in my opinion, has a better style of stealth gameplay than the AC series. They provide gadgets that help you with riddles, platforming, and combat itself. The movement is quite isolated, but I think it’s a stylistic choice due to the isolated approach to the story and environment, but is better than Assassin’s Creed 2, which came out the same year. The open world is narratively isolated but is quite compact and never fully feels like a bloated world filled with immeasurable amounts of collectibles. An anonymous user of the r/PatientGamers subreddit believes the game plays better than some of the newer editions.

“Arkham Asylum had the best and most satisfying combat in the franchise,” the user said.

Visually, Rocksteady went on to be inspired by several games and comic books. For character designs, they made Batman very simple with a Jim Lee take on muted tones. However due to problems with listening, they weren’t able to approach Joker with his concurrent character work from Heath Ledger, so they decided to base his design on The Killing Joke and Batman: The Animated Series. The only fresh design was Harley Quinn with her more stylized nurse uniform. A good chunk of the other characters were based on more horror-focused Bruce Timm designs. The henchmen oddly enough were similar to InFamous, being the only standard feeling designs, at least within the PS3 generation. The color and architecture design is based on Bioshock, a recent powerhouse blurring the lines between art and gaming. Within Colour pallets, they vary with mainly muted tones of every color and remain greys and blacks. The architecture also varies from Gothic within the mid-game, to industrial pieces within the hospitals and many others to list. Former Journalist Greg Miller believes the game is beautiful, especially for its time.

“Just like sound I am not much of a graphics person, the visuals in this game are very good though and I imagine back in 2009 they were cutting edge. I played on a 1070 with all the graphics maxed out and it ran well. The sound and visuals do a great job together of creating a cool creepy atmosphere for the player,” Miller said.

Overall, this game does eventually get surpassed in quality, but I still consistently go back to this game just to remember the feeling of nostalgia. This game is so masterfully made and a nod to comic fans and DC fans alike. The effect of this game and series as a whole laid the model to make the Insomniac Spider-Man series and other big franchises walk.