Batman: Arkham City

1. Summary

Players praise the freeflow combat, the Joker story and its ending, Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill's voice work, and gliding and grappling across a walled-off prison district packed with side stories. Reviewers who compare it with Arkham Asylum mostly call City the bigger, sharper sequel, and a much smaller group prefers Asylum. Hundreds call it the best Batman or superhero game ever made, and plenty are replaying it after first playing it on a PS3 or Xbox 360. It also earns credit for running well on cheap laptops and the Steam Deck, and for costing a few dollars in trilogy sales.

Most of the complaints sit outside the main story. Reviewers count 440 Riddler collectibles, and together with the Riddler's Revenge challenge maps they make 100% completion a long slog, a complaint that mostly comes from players who otherwise love the game. The other cluster is the PC version's age: some players hit crashes in the opening minutes (a few fixed them by switching PhysX to the CPU) or fatal errors at launch, and others list a 62 fps cap, graphics settings that live in an external launcher, a forced AMD Dual-Core Optimizer install and awkward keyboard controls. Catwoman's playable episodes split opinion. Only 3% of the reviews are negative, and 23% of those name a technical problem.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Freeflow combat and stealthHigh

When people describe the combat, the words are usually "smooth", "fluid", "satisfying" or "the best". Players who came from Asylum single out quick-fire gadgets that slot into combos, critical strikes, beat-downs on armored thugs and new enemy types that force them to vary their approach. One puts it plainly: "Batman Arkham City has the best melee combat in any superhero game period". Predator rooms get similar credit for the smoke bombs, mine disruptor and extra vantage points, and players enjoy picking off a room of armed guards while they panic. Dozens of reviewers say the game "makes you feel like Batman".

A smaller group finds the fights repetitive after a while, the camera cramped in tight spaces, or counters that fail to register, especially on keyboard and mouse. One reviewer notes that the difficulty slider only raises enemy health and damage.

The story, the Joker and the voice castHigh

Hundreds of reviews praise the story, often in a few words ("Best Story in any Superhero game"). The Joker's illness, what players call Protocol 10, and the ending are what people remember, and players often bring up the twist without spoiling it. Mark Hamill's Joker and Kevin Conroy's Batman come up often, and some of the Conroy mentions are "RIP Kevin Conroy" tributes. Thug chatter and side characters such as Penguin, Ivy and Harley also get credit for making the city feel alive.

A bigger, better Asylum with a city to glide acrossHigh

When reviewers bring up Arkham Asylum, it is mostly as the benchmark City beats: "This game makes Arkham Asylum look like a tech demo." Players like that the open world is small and dense instead of sprawling, and that gliding, dive-bombing and the grapnel boost (unlocked through the Augmented Reality training) make crossing it fun in itself. Several who play the whole trilogy call City the sweet spot between Asylum's tight design and Arkham Knight's size.

Atmosphere is where some think City falls short. A few miss Asylum's Scarecrow sequences, and even a fan of the sequel concedes: "The atmosphere might not be better than Arkham Asylum, but the graphics, tools, combat system and all the other aspects were a huge upgrade from the previous version."

Holds up, runs on almost anything and costs littleMedium

Reviewers returning after childhood console runs often say the game has aged well, with lines like "Still playable in 2026". Players with older or modest hardware report that it "can be ran on moldy-potato level PCs", including laptops with integrated graphics. Steam Deck owners report good results ("Runs great on steam deck!"); one mentions minor launcher issues and another couldn't get a steady frame rate. When price comes up, it is usually a trilogy bundle bought on sale for a few dollars: "Bought Arkham Trilogy collection for lesss than 5 bucks, definitely worth it!"

Boss fights, led by Mr. FreezeMedium

Players see the boss fights as a step up from Asylum's. Mr. Freeze is the fight people single out, described as a stealth puzzle where he adapts to every trick you use, and one reviewer calls the Mr. Freeze fight "a masterclass in game design". Ra's al Ghul and Solomon Grundy get some praise too. The weaker encounters are listed under the split themes.

Side missions and a New Game Plus that changes the fightsMedium

Side missions are often named as a reason the city rewards exploring: the political prisoners, Zsasz's phone calls, the Deadshot and Hush investigations, Bane's TITAN containers. Players like that these stories add more villains and more lore. New Game Plus earns praise from people who replay; they describe it carrying upgrades over, removing counter prompts and mixing tougher enemies into early fights. A few find some side missions thin or anticlimactic, and some note that their triggers are random.

Where players are split

Catwoman's chaptersMedium

Catwoman comes up often, though many of those mentions are jokes about her looks rather than comments on her chapters. Players who take her seriously like the change of pace: she has different gadgets, a faster combat style and her own short story. The criticism is about how she plays and how little she is used. Her whip traversal and ceiling climbing feel slow next to Batman's glide ("Catwoman, however, is a chore with just her whip"), her chapters interrupt Batman's story in the Game of the Year Edition, and players say she barely matters afterwards: "We're playing as her in three of four short segments and that's it." Completionists dislike her challenge maps most, because her limited kit makes the hardest stealth medals depend on luck. A few reviewers also find the writing around her crude, pointing to the slurs thugs keep using.

A crowded story with a short main pathLow

The same story many people love strikes others as overstuffed. One reviewer writes that it "borders on bloated with the amount of characters and subplots it throws at you", and other reviews make the same point: Hugo Strange gets little motive or screen time, Ra's al Ghul turns up exactly when the plot needs him, and Robin and Nightwing hardly appear ("they really put robin on the banner of this only for him to be in it for like five minutes"). Some players say the main story is short and that the ending arrives abruptly.

Uneven boss encountersLow

Next to Freeze, some fights let players down: the final Clayface battle, a Deadshot encounter that ends with one takedown, and Two-Face being beaten as Catwoman. "The final bosses are irritating and kinda underwhelming" sums up this group. Others find the same fights fine, so opinion here depends on the encounter.

Harley Quinn's Revenge and the extra heroesLow

Reviewers note that the Game of the Year Edition bundles the Harley Quinn's Revenge epilogue and playable Robin and Nightwing for the challenge maps. Some enjoy the epilogue ("It's short but still quite a good story") and Robin's staff combat. Others find it short, flat or annoyingly hard in places: "The Harley mini-story (where you can play some parts as Robin), wasn't anything special."

What frustrates players

440 Riddler collectiblesMedium

Complaints about the Riddler hunt come mostly from players who recommend the game anyway. They object to the scale (reviewers count 440 trophies, riddles, breakables and physical challenges), to trophies that need gadgets from late in the story, to trophies locked to Catwoman, and to the backtracking all of this requires. "The Bad: 400 Riddler trophies that will test your will to live." Some enjoy them as small puzzles ("the riddler trophies are actually pretty fun to collect"), and others advise playing casually and ignoring them unless you want 100%.

The road to 100%: Riddler's Revenge and achievementsMedium

The challenge maps are where completionists lose patience. Reviewers explain that finishing means earning every medal in the combat and predator maps and in campaigns (three maps back to back with forced modifiers and a limited number of resets) for Batman, Catwoman, Robin and Nightwing. They single out the Extreme predator maps for their randomness: "they could have decreased the challenge portion of the game by 50% or more". The complaint usually comes alongside high praise for the rest of the game, with lines like "Game 12/10 Achievements 5/10" and "The team responsible for coming up with the achievements are the real villains here." The Augmented Reality gliding courses frustrate a smaller group.

Crashes and launch failures on modern PCsMedium

Crashes and launch failures turn up in relatively few reviews overall, but 23% of the negative reviews cite a technical problem: launch failures, crashes, bugs or poor performance. Several describe a crash in the first minutes, often right at the Catwoman intro or the first story scene: "Couldn't get past the freaking intro before crashing!!! As soon as catwoman showed up, the whole game crashed." Players who solved it describe the same fix: "I had to modify NVIDIA PhysX settings from NVIDIA Control Panel since if its processor is set to the GPU the game crashes at the first mission." Others report fatal errors on start-up, a launcher that never hands off to the game, or crashes after a Windows update on a copy that used to work. One reviewer who fixed it points newcomers to a community guide: "It is MANDATORY to apply the fixes that you can find on PCGamingWiki."

Old PC port leftoversLow

Players who get the game running list a set of dated PC behaviours. They report a frame rate cap of 62 fps that stays unless you edit config files or use a community launcher. Graphics settings live only in the external launcher, with no in-game menu or borderless mode ("you can't change the graphics options inside the game"). Some players are stuck with French or German audio and text and find no language option ("PLEASE FIX THE LANGUAGE ISSUE"). The game also installs AMD Dual-Core Optimizer, which reviewers describe as a tool meant for Windows XP systems with old AMD processors; negative reviews warn that "you don't get the choice to decline the installation of AMD Dual-Core Optimizer" and explain how to remove it. Several reviewers recommend the Advanced Launcher mod as the fix for most of this.

Keyboard and mouse controlsLow

A small group struggles on keyboard: the space bar handles running, gliding, climbing and evading, combat inputs feel imprecise, and the prompts don't always follow rebinds. The common advice is to use a controller: "Basically unplayable without a controller in my opinion, but a damn good game." A couple of controller users report snags with PlayStation pads that the game only half supports.

Getting lost, the camera and dated designLow

Some players don't know where to go next ("The game leaves you clueless on several occasions."), particularly in indoor areas and when a gadget mode or a vent is the only way forward. Others mention a camera that sits too close in tight rooms, autosave-only progress and unskippable death scenes ("I hate the unskippable cut scenes for death.").

Lingering bugsLow

A scattering of reviews report bugs that block progress or achievements: Augmented Reality challenges that never appear, Riddler items that don't register in the checklist, achievements that reviewers say depend on the system clock or a real-world date (Calendar Man and the Storyteller), and the occasional stuck elevator or broken glide. "Augmented Reality training activated. Augmented Reality training failed."

3. The player conversation

The tone is warm and often nostalgic. Many reviews are one-liners ("peak", "I'm Batman", "masterpiece"), and many others are jokes and memes (Man Ham City, "is he stupid?", jokes about Catwoman's looks) that say little about the game beyond affection. The longer reviews mostly come from people who played it on console as children and returned on PC, or from newcomers working through the trilogy after Asylum, and both groups mostly put City at or near the top of the series. Some who started with Arkham Knight or newer superhero games call it dated or clunky.

Completionists and achievement hunters write the long complaints about Riddler trophies, campaign resets and Catwoman's and Nightwing's challenge maps, and most of them still recommend the game. Players who could not get past the opening, or who lost a working install to a Windows or driver change, write many of the angry negative reviews, often in a single line. Mods and fix guides come up regularly in the longer positive reviews, as part of the advice for getting the PC version running properly.

Review volume picked up from June 2024 onward, with bursts during sale weeks, and the positive share stayed steady from then through 2026 without a lasting dip.

4. What the developers could do

1. Fix the early crashes and start-up failures on current Windows and GPUs: the crash at the Catwoman intro, which players fix by moving PhysX to the CPU, and the fatal errors on launch are behind many of the negative reviews.
2. Stop installing AMD Dual-Core Optimizer: negative reviews warn players that it installs without asking and explain how to remove it.
3. Bring graphics, frame rate and language options into the game: players report editing config files or installing the Advanced Launcher mod to remove the 62 fps cap, reach graphics settings, or escape a forced French or German setup.
4. Ease the completionist grind in Riddler's Revenge: completionists ask for fewer luck-dependent Extreme predator maps and more campaign resets, since every medal is required for all four characters.
5. Make the Riddler hunt easier to track: players dislike backtracking for the 440 items they count, many gated behind late gadgets and Catwoman, and report trophies that never register on the checklist.
6. Add rebindable keyboard controls with matching prompts and fuller controller support: keyboard players struggle with the overloaded space bar and imprecise combat inputs, and PlayStation pad users report half-working support.
7. Fix the bugs that block progress and achievements: missing Augmented Reality challenges and clock- and date-dependent achievements such as Calendar Man and the Storyteller keep frustrating completionists.
8. Smooth Catwoman's traversal: players who otherwise like her find her whip and climb prompts slow next to Batman's glide, which makes her chapters feel like an interruption.