is Arkham Knight best in the franchise overall?

[K.A.]

Also, is it true you get to play as Harley, Red Hood, Batgirl and Catwoman?

[doomedSniper]

Arguable but in my opinion it is. Also I do not know about your perspectives of judging. It can vary wildly depending on the scenario and the player judging it.
You get to play as the side characters only on DLC Contents, not the campaign itself. You can if you use some sort of Mod.

[Terran Ghost]

I personally think it's the best. Out of all the Arkham games, combat is the most fluid. You get to use the Batmobile. The game is eight years old as of this posting, and still looks incredible. Not having to fight titans is a pretty big bonus, IMO.

[Salander]

During certain parts of the story you can switch into Robin, Nightwing and Catwoman briefly. There's also some side missions about playing as Azrael.

Other than that... Every character (minus Azrael) have a short side mission DLC which helps expanding the lore, the story or filling some gaps from before or after the main game. Batgirl DLC is the longest one and feels more like a prologue to the Arkham series as a whole.
From there you can play as all of the characters in challenge maps.

Hey, if you are planning to buy Arkham Knight it would be best to get the entire series (including Origins). Otherwise you'll be lost in the story and the rest of the series is amazing. For example: Arkham Asylum has the best story IMO.

[Devsman]

City is still my favorite but this one is still very good.

But as mentioned above, definitely play them all. Including Origins.

[K.A.]

I heard AK only has 1 actual boss fight, Goliath. That sucks.

[MASTAN]

Originally posted by K.A.:

I heard AK only has 1 actual boss fight, Goliath.

What about Riddler and Croc fights?

[Devsman]

Originally posted by K.A.:

I heard AK only has 1 actual boss fight, Goliath. That sucks.

The bosses just inexcusably suck in this one. But there's more than one. There are two different battank bosses (and a third that's just a slight variation). And then there are a handful of freeflow bosses but they're all the same except for the animations.

I guess you could say there's a predator style boss (I'm talking about Two-Face), but it's kinda pushing it.

[Salander]

There are more bosses (I'm talking about those of "Episodes of Gotham") besides Goliath and the other ones mentioned...
But come on, stop spoiling the game for yourself lol.

If you like Batman, you'll probably like the series as a whole. Bah, except maybe Origins' own spin-off ("Blackgate"), which isn't that bad but not the cup of tea of many.

[Krypto]

To your first question, yes, absolutely. You have more combat and stealth options. You can glide much higher and faster, giving a nice sense of speed and momentum to Batman's movements. The batmobile (once you switch to battle mode toggle instead of hold) is a joy to control when fighting tanks due to its smooth movement. The graphics are still good in 2023, and the game runs beautifully now that it's been fixed.

To your second question, yes, they are, in challenge maps. They also have their own mini stories, I believe, with Batgirl having her own campaign as DLC.

[UnknDoomer]

It seems so. Probably City was better in some small details, while AK is too focused on the batmobile, but other then that it is.

Also, is it true you get to play as Harley, Red Hood, Batgirl and Catwoman?

Originally in challenges and short plot stories (less then 1 hour each). Currently it's possible to play them in main campaign as well, if you will install specific mods. Take a look here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr6aGv4m-xU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKa0VhVDllk

[SenSx]

It's a hard question.

Arkham Knight has the best combat and stealth gameplay, and the batmobile is there.
But it's not well balanced, to much forced batmobile gameplay, and no boss.
The story isn't great either.

City is the best in terms of balance, combat and stealth is great, boss are cool, story isn't stellar but is entertaining.

Origins is my personnal favorite because it has the best story and Christmas setting, but the balance isn't great either: too many fights and not enough stealth.
But at least it has boss unlike Arkham Knight.


City is the best in the serie objectively.

[wendigo211]

I find they all have something to offer:

• Origins has the best boss fights. Also that assassins plot is great one for a video game while also being consistent with the comic books.
  
• Asylum has the best story and plot flow. You always feel like you're moving forward with the plot. Probably because of the smaller setting and more linear paths. The story takes centre stage in asylum better than the other games.
  
• City is probably the best overall. It may not be the best at any particular thing, but it's probably the second best in any metric you can think of.
  
• Knight is the biggest and most technically advanced. That said, the batmobile drags the whole experience down like a metal albatross.

[Micas]

For me, it's a toss up between City and Knight. I just started another play-through of Knight using the community mod from Nexus, and it's great fun. I have a 4090 so I turned off MFAA and I'm using a DSR resolution of 5431x2263 on my 3840x1600 monitor along with some filters and it looks amazing considering it's age. I'm really hoping they get away from the Gotham Knights style and give us a new Arkham game.

[Recreational Colonoscopy]

Originally posted by K.A.:

Also, is it true you get to play as Harley, Red Hood, Batgirl and Catwoman?

It terms of gameplay, this game is almost objectively the best, even if you don't like the batmobile.

[Cheeze Wizard]

Just know that even if you hate the batmobile for some reason. Its not constant use like people claim. If you do just the main campaign its about a third of the playtime and much much less if you do any side content at all (and the dlc campaigns and side quests all put together have about 15 seconds of batmobile in total), and unlike a lot of other open world games with this kind of plot they specifically puts points in the story where the pace slows and they point out some side content you can do before the next major story beat so you are much more likely to do a couple than Arkham City, helps that they aren't crap this time.

The bossfights kinda suck for the most part but to be fair outside of Mr. Freeze and Origins Deathstroke all the bossfights in the arkham games suck so it's basically business as usual. I would say this is the first and only Batman game that fully sells the batman experience.