Batman: Arkham Asylum

Batman: Arkham Asylum is the first video game released in the Batman: Arkham series. It follows Batman in Arkham Asylum after Joker has taken control over it. Trapped in Arkham Asylum with his worst enemies, Batman fights his rogues gallery to prevent the Joker from unleashing madness onto Gotham.

Plot

After foiling Joker's attack on city hall, Batman brings Joker back to Arkham Asylum. Suspecting Joker got himself captured intentionally, Batman escorts Joker through the Asylum, encountering Killer Croc, as well as prisoners from Blackgate Prison transferred to Arkham after a fire. Joker breaks free, gaining control of the security system thanks to Harley Quinn. Leading Batman through the Asylum, Batman confronts Joker at the entrance to Extreme Isolation. Joker unleashes a TITAN, who dies after fighting Batman. Joker gets away after the encounter, and appears again in a computer screen, showing Batman that he had Frank Boles on a payroll and gave him orders to capture Gordon. Batman heads to investigate where Gordon was last seen, and finds a trail that leads him to the elevators. While investigating there, Harley Quinn jumps in and drops an elevator on Batman unsuccessfully. Batman goes through various groups of thugs to follow Gordon's trail, but finds Boles dead at the end of the trail.

Batman manages to escape from Intensive Treatment, going to Arkham North where he last left the Batmobile since he notices its alarms going off. He goes back to following Gordon's tobacco trail and finds himself in the Medical Facility, where he rescues the doctors and runs into Scarecrow, briefly making Batman believe Gordon was dead. After their encounter, Batman finds Gordon and takes down Harley Quinn, and they find Bane stripped from all of his Venom, Joker sees this and injects Bane with TITAN, making him almost defeat Batman before he runs over Bane with the Batmobile, taking him down and sacrificing his Batmobile.

Gordon escapes Arkham Island on a boat, and Batman heads to his Batcave on Dead Man's Point, where he investigates Dr. Young's TITAN files and finds that the formula is missing, and thus he heads to Arkham Mansion, where Joker's henchmen are already looking for the formula. Batman finds it first and burns it, but has another encounter with Scarecrow that leaves him on the bell tower. He heads to the Warden's office to rescue Dr. Young from Zsasz's grasp, before she dies from an explosive Joker planted in the Warden's vault.

Harley Quinn has the Warden hostage, and Batman heads to the Penitentiary to rescue him, but as he's about to rescue him, Harley Quinn frees Poison Ivy, and Joker, seeing this, also frees every Arkham lunatic. Batman rescues Quincy Sharp and heads over to catch Harley Quinn, she has two guards hostage and Batman rescues them too, and Harley Quinn gets away once again. She is waiting for Batman in Extreme Incarceration, and after Batman successfully defeats every thug, she goes to get him herself after Joker dismisses her, but fails terribly, accidentally telling him that the Joker has a secret laboratory in the Botanical Gardens.

Batman, having gained this information, tracks her fingerprints and heads to the Gardens, where he finds out that Joker is experimenting on his own henchmen with his own TITAN formula, making quick progress. Batman finds the secret lab, and Joker is already shipping TITAN crates to various villains and shows Batman how much progress he has made by shooting two of his own henchmen with the TITAN formula, being a more complete version of the previous TITAN. Batman successfully defeats the TITAN henchmen, and destroys the TITAN crates left. He heads out to interrogate Poison Ivy to get an antidote for the TITAN, and she tells her that there's a giant plant growing in Killer Croc's lair that can counter the effects of TITAN.

Batman heads to Intensive Treatment once again, where Killer Croc's lair is located in the sublevels. He has another encounter with Scarecrow, which leads him right into Croc's lair. Scarecrow, threatening to infect the water with his fear toxin, gets attacked by Killer Croc and gets dragged with him to the water. Batman enters his lair, where he finds the spores required to make an antidote for TITAN, and barely manages to escape from Croc.

He goes back to the Batcave, which gets attacked by Poison Ivy's plants that are exponentially growing, Batman goes into the caves, where he finds out that Joker plans to infect Gotham's water supply with TITAN and stops it before it gets any bigger. He heads back to the Botanical Gardens, where Poison Ivy is waiting for him, and Batman defeats her, barely managing to escape from the collapsing scene.

After Batman flees from the Botanical Gardens, he heads to the big party at the Visitor Center, where Joker is waiting for him, and unleashes two TITAN-infected Arkham guards to attack Batman, and after he defeats them, he shows that he had captured Gordon and shoots him with TITAN, but before the needle reaches Gordon, Batman takes it for him and resists the transformation. Joker, seeing this, shoots himself with TITAN in the neck, transforming him into TITAN Joker. Batman uses the antidote on himself to avoid transforming into a TITAN and has to fight a TITAN-transformed Joker. He defeats Joker after punching him with Explosive Gel, greatly damaging his right gauntlet.

Joker is now reverted back to his base form, as well as all the other henchmen, all of the other supervillains are back to being in custody and Gordon is safe and sound now. Batman, hearing that the Second National Bank is being robbed by Two-Face, leaves in the Batwing.

Gameplay

Characters

Heroes

Batman played by Kevin Conroy

Oracle played by Kimberly D. Brooks

Jim Gordon played by Tom Kane

Villains

Joker played by Mark Hamill

Harley Quinn played by Arleen Sorkin

Killer Croc played by Steve Blum

Zsasz played by Danny Jacobs

Riddler played by Wally Wingert

Scarecrow played by Dino Andrade

Bane played by Fred Tatasciore

Poison Ivy played by Tasia Valenza

Supporting characters

Thomas Wayne played by Kevin Conroy

Martha Wayne played by Tasia Valenza

Quincy Sharp played by Tom Kane

The Spirit of Arkham played by Tom Kane

Amadeus Arkham played by Tom Kane

Frank Boles played by Danny Jacobs

Bruce Wayne (Child) played by Kimberly D. Brooks

Jack Ryder played by James Horan

Locations

Arkham Asylum

Arkham West

Arkham Mansion

Botanical Gardens

Arkham North

Intensive Treatment

Arkham East

Medical Facility

Penitentiary

Caves

Killer Croc's Lair

Arkham Batcave

Missions

Main Story

Escorting the Joker

Breakout

Prototype Titan

Tracking Gordon

The Medical Facility

Scarecrow

Bane

To the Batcave

Arkham Mansion

Tracking Dr. Young's Notes

Scarecrow 2

Saving Dr. Young from Zsasz

Penitentiary

Harley Quinn

The Botanical Gardens

Double Titans

Speak to Aaron Cash

Return to Intensive Treatment

Scarecrow 3

Killer Croc's Lair

Return to the Batcave

Pump Control

Sewer Titan

Poison Ivy

The Joker's Party

Double Guard Titans

Titan Joker

Side Missions

The Riddler's Challenge

The Spirit of Arkham

Downloadable content

Insane Night Pack

Includes an endless combat challenge map, "Totally Insane" and a stealth challenge map, "Nocturnal Hunter".

Prey in the Darkness Pack

This downloadable content was exclusive to PlayStation 3 and Mac OS X, before being ported to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as part of the Batman: Return to Arkham bundle on October 18, 2016, and to Nintendo Switch as part of the Batman: Arkham Trilogy bundle on December 1, 2023. This adds the combat challenge map: "Heart of Darkness", and the stealth challenge map: "Hothouse Prey".

GOTY-exclusive Challenge Maps

The following challenge maps were only included in Game of the Year Edition and in posterior versions of the game. It added the combat challenge map: "Crime Alley", and the endless combat challenge map: "Scarecrow Nightmare" where it takes place in an environment similar to the third Scarecrow section and where all the enemies are skeletons, the gimmick of this challenge map is that if you get hit once, you instantly die.

Play as the Joker

This downloadable content was exclusive to PlayStation 3 and Mac OS X, before being ported to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as part of the Batman: Return to Arkham bundle on October 18, 2016, and to Nintendo Switch as part of the Batman: Arkham Trilogy bundle on December 1, 2023. This, as the title says, allows you to play as the Joker in Batman: Arkham Asylum's combat and stealth challenge maps, giving Joker his own movement set and gadgets.

Development

Release

Platforms & Editions

Batman: Arkham Asylum originally released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows and Mac OS X on August 25, 2009.

The game later received an upgraded version, Batman: Arkham Asylum - Game of the Year Edition, that came out for Windows and Mac OS X (and PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in Europe) on March 26, 2010, and for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in North America on May 11, 2010.

Batman: Return to Arkham would release on October 18, 2016 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, it includes Batman: Arkham Asylum with all the previous downloadable content, including the PlayStation 3 exclusive DLC. It would drastically change the game's visuals to accommodate the current generation at the time and add rain effects. This version is the one that is playable via backwards compatibility on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Batman: Arkham Asylum would later be released for the Nintendo Switch as part of the Batman: Arkham Trilogy bundle on December 1, 2023. It is identical to the Game of the Year Edition, but without being labelled as such and also including the PlayStation 3 exclusive DLC. This version is the one that is played via backwards compatibility on Nintendo Switch 2.

Trivia

• What is perhaps the most known easter egg in the Batman: Arkham series is that if you go to the warden's office at Arkham Mansion, spray three explosive gels on specific locations on the left side of the room before the staircase, it will reveal a secret room that was a teaser for the next game, Batman: Arkham City. The easter egg was so well hidden that the developer, Rocksteady had to reveal it themselves.