Batman: Arkham City is an action-adventure game developed by Rocksteady Studios, released in 2011. Set in a sprawling open-air prison district carved out of Gotham City, it expanded the Arkham formula into a dense urban playground — widely regarded as one of the finest superhero games ever made.
Batman: Arkham City is an action-adventure game developed by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, released in October 2011. It is the sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum and takes place in Arkham City — a massive open-air prison in the heart of Gotham where the city's most dangerous criminals have been quarantined.
The game expands on Arkham Asylum's FreeFlow combat and predator stealth with a large open world to traverse, using Batman's grapnel and glide across rooftops between missions. Players face multiple supervillains operating simultaneously — Two-Face, the Penguin, Ra's al Ghul — while the Joker's deteriorating health drives an overarching plot. New gadgets and upgraded detective vision give Batman a broader toolkit than in the previous game.
Batman: Arkham City received universal critical acclaim. It tied with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as the highest-rated game of 2011 on Metacritic across all platforms and won numerous category awards including Best Action-Adventure at the Golden Joystick Awards. Rolling Stone ranked it #42 on their 2025 list of the 50 Greatest Video Games of All Time, citing its mastery of open-world design and the depth of its Batman fantasy.