10 Things Nobody Wants To Admit About The Batman: Arkham Series

2. Trading Gothic Sensibilities For Sci-Fi Was A Terrible Move

The original Arkham Asylum was steeped in the aesthetics of the early Tim Burton Batman movies, as well as the exceptional Animated Series, but as the franchise wore on, it moved away from this dark, Gothic design.

Although the shift is evident throughout the entire visual design and even in the U.I. from game to game, the changing approach to the world is perhaps summed up best by Batman's costume, which had a classic grey-and-purple tinge in the original, but was essentially an Iron Man suit by the time Knight rolled around.

The move towards sci-fi, with the inclusion of robots and tech-powered villains still made for great games, but it completely robbed the franchise of the mystery and the eerie atmosphere Asylum revelled in. That game indulged far more in the fantastical, mythical side of the superhero, hinting at supernatural powers and unexplainable phenomenon, whereas the later games were far closer to the grounded world of Christopher Nolan's movies.

That's not a bad thing in itself, but it jarred against the creative, imaginative world Asylum originally put forward.