YMMV / Batman: Arkham Series

• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Batman: Arkham City
• Batman: Arkham Origins
  • Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate
• Batman: Assault on Arkham
• Batman: Arkham Knight
• Batman: Arkham VR
• Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

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• Awesome Art: One thing that every game in the series nails is the environmental design. Even things like the size of the moon are taken to account!
  • Asylum's titular Arkham Asylum and the island its built on provides a very memorable gothic setting, with each building providing an unique experience, ranging from dark hallways to huge gardens. Depending on who you ask, the remaster's added rain makes it even more gorgeous to look at.
  • City provides the player an isolated part of Gotham City turned into an improvised prison, and like its predecessor, manages to give all its' four parts an unique appearance. The various walls are covered in large neon signs, the roads are littered with garbage and junk, and the light snowfall Gotham is experiencing adds a nice finishing touch to the cramped hellhole that is Arkham City.
  • Origins takes an almost full 180 from the gothic ruins of the previous two titles and instead shows the setting in it's prime; the new areas of the map offer the player skyscrapers and open streets, and even the returning areas are given a refreshing new coat of paint since they have yet to fall into ruin. All of this is topped off with a memorable Christmas setting, meaning seasonal lights are plentiful and nearly everything is covered in snow.
  • Knight takes a middle of the road between the gothic and modern takes on Gotham, and once again provides the player with multiple areas that all feel distinct from all another. The city is a massive maze of old and new architecture, with open roads, small alleyways and large plazas, all absolutely soaked in water from the endless heavy rainfall that continues all throughout the night.
• Broken Base: What's the best game in the franchise? Each game has their case. Asylum laid the groundwork for the series with it's innovative combat and stealth systems, and many believe that the level design and Metroidvania elements cause it to stand above its peers. At the same time many of the gameplay elements feel unrefined compared to later games, and it's known for having a very Disappointing Last Level. City improves almost every single gameplay mechanic from the first game and is known for having unique and interesting side content, as well as having an extremely engaging story to experience. At the same time, the loss of the Metroidvania level design of Asylum is felt, and some elements (like the uneven pacing of the plot and turning the Joker into a major Spotlight-Stealing Squad) mean that it isn't quite the best it could be. Origins is beloved for its unique Christmas atmosphere, a surprisingly interesting plot that really delves into the theme at the core of the series- the relationship between Batman and the Joker, and creative boss fights. At the same time it's basically a Mission-Pack Sequel for City and is very rough around the edges, lacking much of the design polish that Rocksteady put into their games. Lastly there's Knight, which is an even stronger improvement to the design that City put forth, but also carries with it many of the problems from City, now even more magnified. The game has some serious Visual Effects of Awesome and some very fun side content to tackle, but the emphasis on the Batmobile, Joker once again stealing emphasis from the supposed main villain and the overall lackluster plot hold the game back. All in all, while every game is good, which one is the best is still hotly debated almost a decade after the release of Knight.
• Can't Un-Hear It: While helped by having Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill around, many fans' favorite voices Batman and the Joker respectively, if they're not picturing Conroy and Hamill's Batman: The Animated Series's costars, they're probably picturing their costars here, including Grey DeLisle as Catwoman, Martin Jarvis as Alfred, Tom Kane or Jonathan Banks as Commissioner Gordon, Wally Wingert as the Riddler, Tasia Valenza as Poison Ivy, Stana Katic as Talia, Matthew Mercer as Tim Drake, Scott Porter as Nightwing, Troy Baker as Two-Face and Red Hood, Kimberly Brooks or Ashley Greene as Batgirl/Oracle, Dino Andrade or John Noble as the Scarecrow, and Fred Tatasciore or JB Blanc as Bane. Additionally, it gave voices to the Michael Lane incarnation of Azrael (Khary Payton) and Lady Shiva (Kelly Hu).
• Common Knowledge: A lot of fans (and even one voice actor in the series) thought Kevin Conroy had retired from the role of Batman after City with Mark Hamill as the Joker, especially with the part being recast with Roger Craig Smith in Origins. Even putting aside Hamill's Flip-Flop of God, there's no place where Conroy said he was done, and not only was this proven wrong a couple of months later, 2013 (the same year Origins was released) also saw the release of Injustice: Gods Among Us and Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, which had Conroy as Batman.
• Complete Monster: Joker, Scarecrow, Hugo Strange, Firefly, Calendar Man, Simon Stagg, and Riddler. See here for more details.
• Continuity Lockout: In two ways.
  • Due to being a four-game story, there are details (Batman and Joker's Titan Poisoning in City, Deathstroke's sudden appearance in Knight) that won't make sense unless you've played the other ones.
  • Some plot points require at least some cursory knowledge of the comic books, though the games rectify this somewhat by giving you profiles regarding characters, but still occasionally falls into this trope, particularly in the case of Jason Todd, whose presence was almost completely absent until Knight.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Arkhamverse version of Harley Quinn is one of the more popular secondary villains, going from a supporting role in the first two games, to being the Big Bad of her own DLC, to being fully playable in Arkham Knight. Harley's portrayal in the games also raised to profile of the comics version.
  • Scarecrow. His nightmare sequences in Arkham Asylum were considered some of the best parts in the game. When he was absent in Arkham City, people were disappointed. This may have something to do with him being promoted to Big Bad in Arkham Knight, where he is subjected to a lot of Adaptational Badass-ery.
  • Officer Boles, the Dirty Cop working for Joker, but not for the reasons you'd expect. When the subreddit fell to insanity, they had a lot of fun with the fact that it's so easy to mishear his name as Officer Balls. As a result, he's one of the most common character jokes.
• Epileptic Tree: With City's revelation that a Lazarus Pit has always existed beneath Gotham, the fact that repeated exposure to pit chemicals causes mental illness, and it's confirmed in Knight that there's trace amounts in Gotham's water supply leads to some worrying implications.
• Even Better Sequel: Arkham City is considered by some to be the overall best game of the franchise especially since it built on Asylum's features while adding crucial features (namely the iconic gliding and grapnel traversal mechanic where in the first game it was merely scripted), more combat and stealth options (varied combo finishers, multiple environmental takedowns), amping up the difficulty (with armored thugs and jammer-packs), adding Catwoman as a playable character, having one of the most praised boss fights in the franchise (Mr. Freeze), and for its rich storyline with its shocking twists that most Didn't See That Coming: the Two Jokers/Clayface reveal, and the Joker's death at the end. Arkham City even held the Guinness World Record for Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever in 2011 based on an average Metacritic score of 95.94. Perhaps fittingly, the game it ended up dethroning was its own predecessor, Arkham Asylum.
• Evil Is Cool: The villains are usually the most well-written characters featured in each game. The Joker, Scarecrow, and the Arkham Knight are probably the best examples.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • An inter-franchise one in the case of the fans of Batman: Arkham Origins and the games by Rocksteady. The former had a weaker critical reception than the other games but was better received by fans while the games by Rocksteady are Sacred Cow owing to Only the Creator Does It Right sentiments.
  • It also developed a low-key one with Marvel's Spider-Man which is also part of the overall meta DC v. Marvel rivalry. Several Arkham fans dismiss the latter for borrowing too much from their game and being too light-hearted. Conversely, several Spider-Man fans argue that their game has better combat and traversal while also having a sense of lightness that contrasted against the bleakness of the Rocksteady games. This escalated when Spider-Man (PS4) outsold Arkham City and took the record for best-selling superhero game despite being a platform exclusive as opposed to Rocksteady's multi-platform release.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The Arkhamverse.
  • r/BatmanArkham, after its descent into insanity, came up with funny names for the characters and joke that those are their actual names and will respond with confusion if the real names are used.
    • Batman —> Man
    • Bruce Wayne —> Bruised Wang
    • Joker —> Jonkler/Jerker/Jimbler
    • Nightwing —> Dick
    • Robin —> Bin
    • Batgirl —> Girl
    • Commissioner Gordon —> Cummissioner/Conditioner Gordon
    • Catwoman —> Woman
    • Harley Quinn —> Horny Queef
    • Two-Face —> Face
    • The Penguin —> Pen/Gobblecock
    • Poison Ivy —> Pissin Ivy
    • Scarecrow —> Scatcrow/Crow
    • Killer Croc —> Killer Cock
    • Bane —> Ban/Bone
    • Riddler —> Rizzler/Diddler/Fiddler
    • Ra's al Ghul —> Racial Ghoul
    • Deathstroke —> Stroke
    • Deadshot —> Cumshot/Deadcock
    • Firefly —> Fly
    • Clayface —> Shitface/Cumface
    • Man-Bat —> Bat
    • The Flash —> The
    • Superman —> Supe/Soup
    • Wonder Woman —> (Also) Woman
    • Green Lantern —> Green
    • Cyborg —> Borg
    • Lex Luthor —> Sex Luthor
    • Rocksteady —> Cocksteady
    • Spider-Man —> -Man/Man 2
    • Venom —> Nom/Nam; also 19 Inches of Venom, thanks to a weirdly-worded tweet from PlayStation UK advertising a 19-inch Venom figurine tying into Marvel's Spider-Man 2
    • The Batman Who Laughs —> Man Who Jerks/Jonks/Jonkles
    • Owlman —> Anti-Man/Evil Man
    • Arkham —> Ham/Arkcum
    • Asylum —> Alsume/Aslume/Asslume
    • Gotham —> Goth Ham
    • And lastly (but not less important), the ever-amusing Mondegreen of Officer Balls for Officer Boles.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • While all the games are generally well reviewed and well received, the prominence of the Joker and his tendency to usurp other villains by virtue of his status as the most prominent among them have been criticized, as it ensured other villains could never truly take center stage even when the Joker's plots were largely disconnected from the actual main plotline. But this has been a wider-franchise problem for Batman on the whole, since the Joker is so inherently charismatic that he has overshadowed others for a long time in the comics, the cartoons, and avoided doing so in The Dark Knight Trilogy only because of Heath Ledger's death. The Arkham games, being a tribute to Batman in different media, could not help over-representing the already over-exposed Joker. But the issue was thrown into stark relief by constantly teasing other villains' schemes being front and center this time, only for the Joker to hijack the plot every time, eventually from beyond the grave.
  • In most Batman media, the tension between Batman-Joker is subtext and only becomes relevant to the plot in stories where Joker is the main threat. In the case of the Arkham games, it worked well in Batman: Arkham Asylum because the game's smaller island facility setting, overall Bedlam House atmosphere and the main plot (which is the only time Joker is actually at the helm from the start) fits that motif better. But in the sequels, the main plot and threat is Hugo Strange's Protocol 10 (and Ra's Al Ghul's plans for Gotham) and Scarecrow's plans to unleash fear toxin and humiliate Batman. In both cases, the Joker's involvement in the plot, and the time devoted to their relationship becomes a Romantic Plot Tumor since every game ends up offering some commentary on their rivalry and mutual obsession. Origins had a good general plot which advertised the Joker as merely part of Black Mask's general scheme, and comics fans were excited thinking Black Mask was going to be a more prominent villain than he was, only to find out that Origins was in fact about Joker's debut in the criminal underworld and the start of his and Batman's "relationship" while Black Mask gets submitted to a thoroughly humiliating Adaptation Decay ending with him being killed off brutally in Arkham Knight's Red Hood DLC, while begging for mercy.
  • The series and its poor track record with making good boss fights is another example. The original game was criticized for reusing the same bullfight setup with Bane or opting for thug attack waves instead of direct battles for most of its encounters with any other boss fights being deemed lackluster or boring (with the exception of the penultimate battle with Poison Ivy). While City was praised for having the famous Mr. Freeze showdown and some more original boss fights, overall it remained a criticism due to the presence of several (albeit mostly justified) Anti-Climax Boss segments. Origins, a secondary game made by a different studio, was widely praised in its handling of boss battles, making it appear to be an inversion at first. However, Knight, with a few exceptions (notably fighting Riddler in a giant robot suit and tag-teaming with Nightwing to take down Killer Croc in the DLC) lacked several proper boss fights while many combat encounters with thugs and Batmobile tank battles filled their place. This reached its nadir in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League where the Flash, Superman, and Brainiac are all Moveset Clones of one another, and Batman is fought as a giant Stationary Boss in an abstract sequence that makes it difficult to visualize what's actually happening, a problem exacerbated by the game's repetitive and limited number of mission types.
• Friendly Fandoms: Marvel vs DC rivalry aside, there’s a considerable overlap between fans of these games and fans of the Spider-Man (PS4) series. Both series are critically acclaimed open world games with semi-grounded, Darker and Edgier takes on each company's most popular superhero. It helps that Insomniac Games directly cited the Arkham games as a source of inspiration when developing their Spider-Man universe.
• Genre Turning Point:
  • For licensed games in general. Before Arkham Asylum, most AAA license titles were movie tie-ins like the Harry Potter games, which adapted the movies rather than serve, as the Arkham games, as an adaptation of the license tailored to the video game medium. Since the success of the Arkham games, most licensed games are standalone games rather than explicit tie-ins to a then-popular movie. While some movie tie-ins do exist such as The Amazing Spider-Man, they are more or less relegated to mobile games, and with the most recent Spiderman PS 4 following Arkham's approach in adapting the license to the game rather than make a movie tie-in. Most famously, where The Lord of the Rings had movie tie-in hack-and-slash licensed games, for The Hobbit, Monolith Studios made a game-centric adaptation of the licensed property, leading to the critically acclaimed Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Monolith explicitly cited Rocksteady as their inspiration noting that it raised the bar for adapting licensed properties by insisting that it work first and foremost by providing entertaining gameplay.
  • The unique, free-form combat system redefined how to even make games with heavy use of melee and/or unarmed combat, becoming the new standard within just a few years thanks to countless imitators that further improved on the concept and execution. And while there were games prior that used environment for combat, they treated it as a gimmick rather than a fixture of the formula.
• Good Bad Bugs: For both Asylum and City, Batman's quick ground takedown consisted of straddling a prone thug and punching him in the head, but due to the target rolling back and forth while dazed, the combat animation could randomly flip him around and have Batman hit him straight in the pelvis or tailbone. While Origins tried to correct this mistake, it also introduced a variation where Batman leaned down and punched the victim's ribs, which sometimes meant he accidentally shoved his face into goons' crotches. It was finally fixed in Knight, where Batman leaps to the side before striking.
• Harsher in Hindsight: How shall we put it? The Joker himself has been a Death Seeker from the very beginning of the series. In Arkham Origins, he tries to shoot himself in the head in order to end it all, but Batman stops him from doing so for reasons he can't comprehend. In Arkham Asylum, after the Joker says, "I have nothing left to live for," he does shoot himself, but with a Titan formula gun to the throat. His "suicide" is very painfully slow, as it takes a year for the Titan poisoning to course through his bloodstream before his death and its nature complete their course at the end of Arkham City, in fulfillment of his deserving to die as a monster, all the while Batman is unable to intervene with him.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Casting Wally Wingert as the voice of The Riddler, an Insufferable Genius who frequently gloats about being smarter than the people around him, after he voiced the Blue Psycho Ranger in Power Rangers in Space, whose group boasted about being better than the Power Rangers with the Blue one boasting about them being smarter.
  • The comments section on Destructoid had a Running Gag about which infamous C-list Batman villains they'd love to see in the Arkham games, with the most common target for ridicule being Professor Pyg. Lazlo Valentin would eventually get a sidequest to himself in Batman: Arkham Knight.
  • In Batman: Arkham Origins, Troy Baker voices a young Joker who seems to use the Red Hood as the preferred branch of his Multiple-Choice Past. In Batman: Arkham Knight, Troy plays the subtitular Arkham Knight, later revealed to be Jason Todd, who like in the comics had previously been the second Red Hood.
    • There's also the fact that Troy's roles in the Arkham games, along with his roles in Injustice: Gods Among Us, the LEGO Batman games, and Batman: The Telltale Series mean that he's voiced all of the male members of the Bat-Family, and a couple of their enemies too.
  • The Penguin is depicted as a brazen homophobe. Come Gotham, he's bi.
• Hype Backlash: The franchise became a critical darling with fans and journalist alike for its story and forits innovative "Free-Form Combat." Since the release, however a number of other games took inspiration from and improved on the combat so a number of first-time gamers going back to play these games have found themselves confused that it garnered so much hype.
• The Inverse Law of Fandom Levity: The game series is a dark, gothic take on the Batman mythos, showcasing Batman going through hell as he faces off against his evil Rogues Gallery. The fandom, especially those on r/BatmanArkham, are incredibly goofy using over the top memes like Man and Jonkler to refer to Batman and Joker respectively as well as creating deliberately nonsensical nitpicks using phrases like "Is he stupid?".
• Like You Would Really Do It: The Arkham VR game starts off with the death of Nightwing, and near the end Killer Croc takes a bite out of Robin, which few people believed would stick. It also takes place between City and Knight, and is a hallucination/dream sequence.
• Love to Hate: This version of Batman's Rogues Gallery has a lot of great villains, but these ones here stand out for how vile and yet so enjoyable they are:
  • The Joker, as for usual, is a monstrous psychopath and one of the most evil enemies that Batman faced in his entire life. But at the same time, he is a cunning mastermind and is incredibly hilarious in a very twisted way. The fact that even after his death at the end of City he still manages to make his presence felt at Gotham says a lot about his strength and influence.
  • Scarecrow here is the embodiment of Evil Is Cool. In Asylum, his fights are easily one of the creepiest and most iconic parts of the game. Especially his third encounter, for exploiting not only Batman's fears, but the players' fears as well. In Knight, he gets upgraded to Big Bad and clever chessmaster, successfully taking over Gotham City in one night. Also, how many villains can boast on how they, not only discovered Batman's secret identity, but also revealed it to the entire world besides Scarecrow?
  • This incarnation of The Riddler is probably the Dolores Umbridge of the Arkhamverse. So detestable that he makes the main villains seem like pretenders, yet you can't help but pat Rocksteady on the back for making him so vile. It also helps that he’s legitimately pretty funny and is one of the few foes in the games that can go toe to toe with Batman in the intellect department.
• Magnificent Bastard: Catwoman, Two-Face, Ra's Al-Ghul, Bane, Clayface, Lady Shiva and Henry Adams. See here.
• Memetic Loser: The Riddler, thanks to being a whiny Psychopathic Manchild who constantly has to assure himself that he's smarter than everyone (especially Batman), throws a petulant tantrum whenever someone manages to outsmart or even correct him, and routinely suffers a Humiliation Conga whenever he's defeated. The fact that he constantly refers to himself as Batman's "greatest enemy", despite clear evidence to the contrary, doesn't help. He may even be considered this In-Universe, given that none of the other villains like him and don't take him very seriously.
• Memetic Molester: Riddler became one when the game's subreddit devolved into shitposts due to no content for eight years where he's given the Fan Nickname the Diddler or the Fiddler.
• Memetic Mutation: Has its own page.
  • Batman doesn’t kill. ^ExplanationFans have posted many short video clips on YouTube and Reddit showing Batman performing takedowns that would almost certainly be lethal in real life, poking fun at Batman holding onto his no-kill rule and Detective Mode being programmed by the devs to always say that everyone Batman takes down is merely unconscious
  • Batman: Arkham World ^Explanation Quite bizarrely, in 2022 – 7 years after the as-of-this-writing final main installment of the saga – fans of the series (especially on reddit) not only started collectively pretending that there was a new game in the series, but that it was the best entry yet, discussing what moments were the best and even celebrating its 1-year anniversary. The whole thing can be traced back to an unused 'award speech' for the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards where Joker publicly discards a folder labeled "Batman: Arkham World script" before musing about spoilers.
  • Even the odds. ^ExplanationIn Arkham Knight, Batman rescues a police officer from getting killed by a bunch of criminals. The police officer explains the situation, and asks Batman what he's going to do. He responds "Evening the odds." A button prompt labelled "Even the odds" then appears, which summons the Batmobile.
  • "Why is his right hand bigger than his left?"^ExplanationDue to the games keeping the camera to the player character's right, from certain angles their right hand looks bigger than their left. While usually only directed at Batman himself, this has led to endless amounts of jokes about the characters having more than one way to exercise.
  • The Aslume/Alsume ^ExplanationThe r/BatmanArkham subreddit is infamous for having gone as bonkers as the inmates of the titular place, now almost entirely consisting of shitposts and is recognized as a bountiful Fountain of Memes. This is now the subreddit's nickname, originating from this post, which is also cited as the beginning of the subreddit's descent into madness.
    • Why doesn't (character) do (sensical action)? Is he stupid?^ExplanationOriginated from r/okbuddychicanery, but popularized by r/BatmanArkham, it supposedly started from this shitpost parodying the Fridge Logic questions related to the games. The subreddit then got recurring posts with this template and similar joking tone, before it spreaded out to other gaming subreddits like r/tf2 (which is often mistaken for the origin of this post template). Not only it was quickly widespread, but it was also highly effective in baiting genuine replies to the given topic when it was supposed to be a joke, earning the uninformed users confusion at best or annoyance at worst.
    • Jonkler/Jerker/Jimbler ^ExplanationCorruptions of The Joker's name which became a borderline Fan Nickname for the Arkham version of The Joker. Memes referring to him usually show a still of Joker making a shocked expression
    • Man ^ExplanationBatman with all his Bat iconography removed. Has crossed over to other characters, such as Joe, The, and Green.
    • What would Man's favourite (band) song be? ^Explanation A snowclone popular on music and video game subreddits, where commenters respond with what they think Man's favourite song from that particular band or video game OST would be. Any Sanity Slippage Song is a popular choice because of how their lyrics describe the typical resident of the Aslume.
    • Who the fuck is this? / Created a new character, what the FUCK should I name them? ^ExplanationA trend of posting pictures of significant characters from the Arkham series or from other media or even real life coupled with this phrase.
    • Is there a lore reason?^Explanation Similar to "Is he stupid?", it started in a post from r/BatmanArkham, where an user asks for the In-Universe reason for the Arkham Knight name. This caused many post parodying it, asking for explanations for things taken out of context, or overlaping it with other memes, frequently the aforementioned "Is he stupid?".
    • Killer Cock^ExplanationA Fan Nickname for Killer Croc, with the main joke being how users will comically lust after him and see him as irresistibly sexy.
    • Bone^ExplanationFan Nickname for Bane, used in the same vein as Killer Cock.
    • Nude Bone pics^ExplanationImages tagged as NSFW promised to be Bane naked. These turn out to be troll posts.
    • I'm proud of you, Dick.^ExplanationA quote said by Batman to Nightwing before he initiates the Knightfall Protocol. Since Dick is now more commonly slang for a penis, it caught on with the crude humor the subreddit adopted.
    • The bomb's payload is exposed. I can use the power winch to trigger a controlled explosion.^ExplanationA line said by Batman that's exactly as it sounds like that the subreddit adopted as a euphemism for sex/masturbation.
    • What Arkham quote should I use?^ExplanationA shitpost template where someone will say they did or experienced something and ask this question. The most popular are Joker's "Stand back fool, I've got a bomb!" and "I'd be happy to drop my pants."
    • What movie becomes completely different once you end it with [X]?^ExplanationA meme prompt where the thing added is something incredibly vulgar.
    • Fake swipe^ExplanationA joke stemming from troll posts where the poster would trick users into thinking there were galleries when in fact the picture of the swipe icon and numbered slides were just pictures.
    • Hi, I'm [X]. AMA.^ExplanationWhere users will pretend to be minor characters or inanimate objects present throughout the series and sometimes outside for QnA sessions.
    • We need a new joke. ^ExplanationUsers expressing dismay at the continual cycle of the same jokes being reused ended up becoming one of those same jokes that kept getting reused.
    • He wasn't stupid. ^ExplanationThe original "Is he stupid?" post was why Bruce didn't call the Justice League during Arkham Knight under the assumption the League existed then. In the leadup to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, set in the Arkhamverse, a test player revealed on Twitter that the game would reveal the League hadn't been formed yet. Cue users expressing shock that they finally had their "lore reason" and it made their insanity All for Nothing. However, people still pointed out that the Fridge Logic still stands in that Easter Eggs in Knight confirmed heroes like Superman were active in that time.
    • Can we all agree the Arkham saga ended here? ^ExplanationThe poor reception of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League lead to a slew of memes showing various scenes requesting that the Fandom pretend that nothing else occurred in the Arkhamverse following that point, which naturally devolved into the exact first scenes in the franchise or scenes from completely different one.
    • Can we all agree that this should have been the Arkhamverse Suicide Squad?/Why weren't they the Arkhamverse suicide squad? ^ExplanationMemes depicting various groups that should have been the Suicide Squad, such as the LEGO variants of the characters or the TF2 mercenaries.
    • Officer Balls^ExplanationA Mondegreen of Batman addressing Officer Boles. It's followed by Joker laughing his ass off.
    • r/ArkhamRehabilitation^ExplanationA joke sub created in response to this sub, that takes the form of an actual mental ward where users are rehabilitated from the Aslume. "Doctors" here will prescribe "Anti-Aslume pills".
    • Explosive gel^{Explanation (NSFW)}Referring to an infamous incident where a user posted a picture of his Poison Ivy statue covered in his "explosive gel" (his semen). "Explosive gel" has now become a byword for horny fans and whenever mentioned will result in faux-traumatized responses.
• Moral Event Horizon: See here.
• Narm: When Batman interrogates Riddler informants to mark the locations of trophies and riddles on the map, he exchanges a brief scene where he threatens them into talking, and then knocks them out. The silliness comes in when you get an exchange where neither of them mentions the Riddler, and in all of them the player never actually hears the info they're giving Batman. This often leads to nonsensical interactions like this.
  Batman: Talk! Or I'll break every bone in your body.
  Thug: Don't hurt me, I'll tell you everything!
  Batman: Good call. *punches them in the face*
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Not only are these considered the best Batman games ever made, not only are they considered to be among the best-licensed games ever made, they're often placed in the top tier of character action games ever made, period. Related to this is...
• Only the Creator Does It Right:
  • Rocksteady Studios developed the Arkham IP and did it so well their popularity exploded. So when Batman: Arkham Origins was announced as being developed by Warner Bros. Montreal — essentially a stop-gap game to fill time while Rocksteady was busy making Batman: Arkham Knight — there was genuine concern about how the game would turn out. However, despite lacking serious gameplay changes and the polish of Rocksteady's games, Origins was well-received as an expansion of the Arkham universe, with some consider it to have a very compelling story, dialogue and more varied boss battles than the first two games. Furthermore, Knight's status as a Contested Sequel and the problems and controversy of its PC Port has led to Arkham Origins being better regarded by some.
  • Part of Arkham Knight's mixed reaction is a whole other form of this; Paul Dini wrote the story of Asylum and City, while another writing team handled the story of Origins; neither of those writing teams were involved with Knight's story, and many fans feel that it's inferior to the earlier stories.
  • In an inversion, WBM is often considered to be better at designing boss fights, due to being better at avoiding unintentional examples of Anti-Climax Boss and Zero-Effort Boss which Rocksteady has been criticized for — while Rocksteady has some standouts (Mr. Freeze being the most obvious example), they prefer to design their bosses around a specific gadget, while WBM designs them around the combat & stealth mechanics; as such, their bosses feel much more varied than Rocksteady's, who tend to rely a bit too much on gadget spamming and evading. The facts that WBM also managed to give proper boss fights to characters who had a weak fight on Rocksteady's games (Deadshot, Bane), and pulled off more examples of a Final-Exam Boss than Rocksteady also helps their case. ^note Knight's Story DLCs provide a good comparision between the two companies - the four developed by WB (Scarecrow Nightmare, Red Hood, Harley Quinn and Batgirl) all end with boss fights, while the only Rocksteady DLC with new bosses are the Season of Infamy and arguably the Community Challenge Pack that reuses Killer Croc as an Optional Boss.
• Polished Port: The Return to Arkham package is a mixed bag - it has much better character models and graphics, adds some new detail to the environments, and comes with all DLC pre-installed (even the previously Version-Exclusive Content), but comes with the cost of the occasional framerate drop, the downgrading of certain effects, and some "controversial" changes in presentation. That said, they still lean to the "polished" side over the alternative, thanks to the more stable gameplay (at least compared to the 7th gen consoles) and outright gorgeous visuals.
• Questionable Casting:
  • This pretty much sums up many fans' reaction to the fact that Commissioner Gordon keeps getting recast. Across the whole franchise, he's had five voice actors^note Rick D. Wasserman voiced a young Gordon in Asylum, but that was Time-Shifted Actor, going from Tom Kane in Asylum, to David Kaye in City, to Michael J. Gough in Origins and Blackgate, to Chris Cox in Assault on Arkham, to Jonathan Banks in Knight.
  • There's also the matter of Troy Baker and how many different characters he plays- first he's Two Face and Robin in City, then Joker in Origins, and then the Arkham Knight/Jason Todd in Knight. That's overall five different characters done by one actor, which had several fans aghast, especially since Baker appears in nearly every major video game these days.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The otherwise excellent combat system's biggest problem is that it relies on a largely automatic priorization; it generally does exactly what you're trying to do, but once it decides to attack the wrong enemy, the results can be devastating. Spent your instant takedown on an enemy that is immune to it on your left, while you were actually trying to use it on an armored thug to your left? Martial Artists and the challenge map Shiva boss in Origins are especially guilty of this, but it can happen in other games as well.
  • More and more critics of the series' Detective Vision have popped up over time. Aside from the occasional Predator Mode fight with enemies that jam your Detective Vision or detect you if you're using it, there's no real disadvantage to just leaving it on 24/7 aside from the game's gorgeous visuals being replaced with an ugly VR-style aesthetic. Later games in the series tried to make the Detective Vision aesthetic less overwhelming, and other games who drew inspiration from it such as Spider-Man (PS4) do leave it on by default without replacing the game's visuals.
  • The first three games, at least on consoles, had several stealth mechanics bound to the same buttons and button combinations, which can sometimes result in unwanted situations - for example, on Playstation, corner cover, entering a floor grate and hanging from a ledge are all bound to R2+X, all the while both R2 and X are also used for basic movement. In areas where there's more than one option, say a corner near a ledge, it's sometimes down to luck whether Batman performs the one you wanted instead of another one that could result in being shot at, made even worse if you're playing on a high difficulty and are already being ventilated. Knight made this much more tolerable by keeping corner cover on R2+X but moving ledges/grates to R2+O, but even then it's still possible for the game to pick the option you didn't want.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Entire YouTube channels have been built around playing these games and using quick fire gadgets, the grapnel gun, or the glider cape as little as possible.
• Special Effect Failure: The trailer for the Return to Arkham collection (Asylum and City, remastered with more advanced textures and lighting effects for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) was met with considerable criticism, with many alleging that although the environments were vastly improved, the new cutscenes looked far LESS cinematic and improperly composited under the new lights◊ (keep in mind, the remaster is the one on the left). In the finished remaster, some of the cutscenes (mainly in in Asylum) do look worse than they did before.
• That One Sidequest: Some predator challenge map medals can be frustrating, to say the least. Even when they make one medal easy as long as you don't alert the guards, it's often the simper ones that cause headaches.
  • In general, challenges that require you to remain unseen or take no damage also tend to require another medal that's already difficult without that limitation. Like taking no damage while also lining up two mooks so you can line launcher kick one before shooting another line and kicking another thug, who's probably turned around after hearing you kick the first one.
  • Vent cover takedowns aren't hard per se, but at times it feels like the guards are programmed to avoid vents you're in. Getting into a vent usually requires you to remove at least one vent cover, thus reducing potential spots to perform the move, and getting a mook close enough to attack is almost entirely luck based if you're playing as someone with no way to control enemy routes. Even if you have some sort of distraction gadget, you can't use it in the vent itself. And finally, if the guy near a vent is accompanied by a bunch of other mooks, there's a good chance that taking the opportunity will result in death before you're able to escape.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: There are quite a number of fan who hate the brighter, more comic book-esque character models used in the Return to Arkham PS4 port of the first two games, especially in the case of Asylum, feeling that they don't fit the mood of the games.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Examples from specific games go to their respective pages.
  • Two-Face is considered by many to be the most underutilized villain throughout the series, as his role in each game is pretty insignificant. In City he's only there to capture Catwoman so Batman can rescue her, and later get beaten up by Catwoman after the main story ends. Knight is a bit better about this, as his split personality is brought up more and portrayed in a sympathetic manner, but his side-mission is one of the shortest ones in the entire game. One can't help but feel that had he not been mentioned in Asylum his origin story could have been a nice subplot in City, as he could easily have been written as an ally in the fight against Arkham City, and have Hugo Strange slowly break Harvey during the game and bring Two-Face out as an attempt to break the Batman.
  • Black Mask is built up as this poweful Starter Villain for Batman with both the mob and the cops at his payroll. He is taken out by Joker offscreen who then takes over his organization. While seeing his downfall throughout the series is kind of cool, he never really got a chance to be the cruel badass he is in the comics, as he tends to be resident Butt-Monkey of tye Arkhamverse. Knight's Red Hood DLC implies that he is slowly managing to regain his former power, but gets killed by Jason before he really gets anywhere.
  • Dick Grayson is the most uninteresting of the three Robins, as he first appeared as a quiet DLC character in City, and his personality doesn't come up at all.^note To be fair, City's credits imply he was meant to have a speaking role. Like Harvey above, he gets a better role in Knight, but it's still pretty small. (At least he can talk in Knight.)
  • Talia is stated to be Batman's true love in this series. However, she's got maybe ten minutes of screen time across all four of the games and their relationship is never really actually developed.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • The first two entries were widely acclaimed that later entries, while still earning generally positive reception, are considered to be Contested Sequels.
  • Gotham Knights (2022), a Bat Family Crossover set in a different universe to the Arkhamverse, got harshly judged from its announcement by sheer virtue of not being a sequel to Arkham Knight, with most agreeing that it fell short of the high standards of the Arkham games, being So Okay, It's Average at best. Particularly because the setup of the game sounded like a perfect segue from the end of Arkham Knight, making many confused that it was a standalone and leading to inevitable comparisons.
  • Many are of the opinion Rocksteady choosing to canonically follow up the Arkham games with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was a bad idea, in part due to the tetralogy often being considered the best DC licensed games ever, if not licensed games period, and in part due to the almost nine-year gap between Arkham Knight and this, with only a VR spin-off in between, heightening expectations. Choosing to make this game connected to the Arkhamverse invited heavy criticisms regarding numerous story and character inconsistencies between it and the other games, with many feeling it failed to live up to the standards and tone set by its predecessors. The fact that the story ends with the hero of those games brainwashed and murdered definitely did the connection no favors. The backlash was so great that it made a significant number of fans think back more positively on Gotham Knights in retrospect.
• Underused Game Mechanic: All games following Asylum allow you to listen to radio stations using the Cryptographic Sequences, one of these being the police dispatch channel. These have a fair amount of content. Unfortunately, most players are unlikely to hear much of this because the only way is to do so stay in place with the gadget out. There is no way to have it playing while you proceed with other gameplay.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The series' first three games were rated T for Teen (strongly suggested children under 14 would need parental guidance and that's it). The games have very minimal blood/gore, but is full of brutal death, intense violence, psychological horror, sexual content, corruption, and of course Batman and his villains acting more nightmarish than ever before, all packaged along with extremely dark themes and storylines that can be chilling from their concepts alone. There's a very good argument to be made that they are the darkest Batman adaptations ever made. There was quite a lot of video game industry chatter on the effectiveness of the ESRB rating system when both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were released and were not rated M for Mature. This was finally rectified with Arkham Knight, which was rated M.

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