Batman: Arkham Knight is one of the greatest video games of all-time

I know this article feels out of place and random. I know this game came out over 6 years ago. I don’t care. Because I just finished Batman: Arkham Knight for the second time and want to expunge all that I feel about it from my brain because there’s so much to talk about. That’s more or less why I started writing on Medium to begin with. So bear with me.

First, a bit of background on my history with this game. I had watched a walkthrough when Arkham Knight first came out (which, having known nothing about the previous games, confused the hell out of me). I played it sometime during the summer of 2020 when I had nothing else to do all day.

And then a month or two ago, I saw the Arkham trilogy on the PlayStation store for dirt cheap, which eventually led me to typing out this article.

I’m a big fan of games that offer side content. In fact, those are really the only games I look to buy at this point. If I’m going to fork over my hard-earned money for a game (which, on the new generation of consoles could be up to $70) I don’t want my experience to end after the main story is complete. That just doesn’t feel like it’s worth my money.

An argument could be made that Arkham Knight actually over-delivers on the side content because there really is so much to do in this open-world game. I’m going to run through it all just so you have an idea of how expansive this game is.

Aside from the main storyline of stopping Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight, you have to apprehend Penguin, Two-Face, Riddler, Deathstroke (sigh), Firefly, Man-Bat, Azrael, Hush, and Professor Pyg. You have to disarm militia bombs, watchtowers, checkpoints, APCs, and drones located all over Gotham.

And, if you get the DLCs (which my purchase of the game came with) you get to play as Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing, Harley Quinn, Red Hood, and Catwoman in various missions. With the Season of Infamy pass, you also have fairly lengthy stories involving Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze, the Mad Hatter, and Ra’s al Ghul.

But even if you don’t pick up any of the DLCs, rounding up Gotham’s Most Wanted offers enough to make the game feel like a worthwhile purchase.