Batman Arkham or Spider-Man? Which is the best hero saga in video games?

It’s no surprise that Marvel and DC fans keep discussing which one has the better movies, comic books, heroes and so on. Recently, with the release of Spider-Man games, we had a comeback of these debates, but now more focused towards the Video Game scenario.

On one side, Batman Arkham brings an ominous and darker tone, showing off more of this tense and mysterious ambience that surrounds Gotham City. Many times being even compared to horror games, which we’ll get more into a little later.

On the other hand, the Spider-Man games bring New York during daytime, with more movement on the streets, in addition to a lighter storyline, leaning a lot into humor.

We will use two basic criteria to reach a verdict. The first one being a review of both sagas in a general look, analyzing technical points such as storyline, gameplay and so on. The second one is based on Metacritic ratings, besides their respective awards, prizes and nominations for The Game Awards (TGA) for each one of the series of games.

In the case of games that were released before 2014, we will take the Spike Video Game Awards (VGA) prizes and nominations as a base, since it is the predecessor to The Game Awards as we know it nowadays.

Those criteria should be enough for us to understand the critics/press opinions and also from the community, granting us a good starting point to reach a good final answer.

Batman Arkham

Let’s evaluate the three main titles of the series: Asylum, City and Knight.

Kicking off in 2009 with Asylum and meeting its finale in 2015 with Knight, the Arkham series was developed by Rocksteady, a quite new studio that got a pretty huge responsibility on their hands, and made it into a new formula which became a staple in the gaming industry.

For many generations, the Superhero games had the sole purpose of “surfing” along the hype of a movie that was being released in the movie theaters. Being rushed games made to be a copy of the movie’s storyline, they couldn’t get quite the reception they expected from the fans.

That was until Batman: Arkham Asylum came out with an original backstory, besides innovations on combat systems and gameplay, showing everyone that it was possible to make Superhero games compete in the market.

One of the series’ strongest points is the delivery of a surreal story, including a good introduction and villain construction. This is due to Paul Dini’s choice as writer for Arkham Asylum and City, which, coincidentally, were the best rated from the trilogy.

Paul worked on Batman: The Animated Series (1992), considered one of the best superhero animations in history, besides Superman: The Animated Series (1996), Batman Beyond (1999) and many other productions of the universe, including the most recent Harley Quinn (2019) series. He was also a part of many other big franchises, such as Star Wars.

He is also renowned when we think about written media, having released many comic books about Harley Quinn, the Joker and even Batman itself. Therefore, he’s a well-experienced story writer who really dominated the purpose of the game, giving the fans the credibility they deserved.

As for the first game, Asylum portrays a scene where we are locked in the Arkham asylum, having to deal with the Joker along with many other villains and countless loose criminals.

This was a title which generated a lot of discussion among the community about being or not a horror game, since we are in a closed ambient, surrounded by psychopaths, alongside an immense gallery of villains who portray madness itself, besides a considerable amount of gore scenes, including hallucinations with your dead parents in certain moment.

Its immersion is impeccable, and we can feel all its tension and suspense in the dark ambience the game brings. Another topic where Asylum is well known for is for not challenging the user’s intelligence, with puzzles that need to be solved using a few accessories, not always obvious and making them spend a good minute thinking about the resolution, bringing a “detective” vibe which is also a big Batman trait.

On a gameplay front, we have even more points that stand out: a combat system based on fast hits and counterattacks that got the players’ attention, even using accessories in battle. Besides that, it’s possible to play more carefully, eliminating enemies in stealth mode.

As you progress into the game, it becomes possible to unlock new attacks, combos and mechanics, which was revolutionary for this type of game structure back in 2009.

Just to name some of the downsides of the first game of the series, we have the ending of this storyline, which we’ll not elaborate on now to avoid spoilers to those who haven’t experienced it yet, but the way it ends was very criticized by the community.

It is also worth mentioning the repetitive task of collecting Riddler Trophies, bringing no new features or utilities for the title.

Arkham City is the best rated and awarded of all the franchise, and brings a more open world and a storyline which emphasizes on corruption and human evilness. Basically, our main character needs to take care of countless villains once more, while still recovering from a disease and having to worry about the “Protocol 10” that is being developed by Hugo Strange. All of this creates a sense of urgency that works very well into the script, keeping the players very entertained throughout the title.

Arkham City brings many new improvements when compared to the first game, with only two years apart between their releases. Highlight goes to the gameplay, bringing new playable characters to the plot, improvements to the accessories and combat mechanics, on an open world with more interesting side quests.

Its purpose is a little less dark than its predecessor, since we are not trapped in an asylum surrounded by danger, but still, we can still feel that DC spice in an ominous and corrupt Gotham.

The boss fights are extremely more innovative and rich than the first game, with remarkable gameplay. We won't get into details of the plot to avoid ruining the player’s first experience.

To finish off, Arkham Knight was maybe not the best fitting ending for such a high-quality franchise. Of course, it’s still a wonderful game, but the expectations got a lot higher after Asylum and City. Here we are facing a more dynamic and fluid gameplay, with a better open world and even more attractive side quests. Besides more combat innovations, the title has also brought graphic improvements.

The plot brings the Scarecrow as the main villain, who intends to contaminate the entire city with his fear gas. But to avoid something generic, the company chose to bring a new antagonist, the Arkham Knight, who has a secret identity. Your goal is to deal with these two villains, and all the suspense about finding out who the Arkham Knight is creates a feeling of mystery and curiosity.

However, many fans agree that this game fell behind the others due to its story, the ending being a huge negative point for the community. So, we get into another discussion: do the improvements in Arkham Knight compensate for its loss of public reception? Most opinions usually say no.

Marvel’s Spider-Man

Here’s another franchise which we’ll look into three games.

As mentioned, Rocksteady reached an immense success and established pretty much how superhero games should be. We can agree that the first fruit we harvested after the Arkham franchise was Marvel’s Spider-Man from 2018, developed by Insomniac Games, a company branched from PlayStation.

In this scenario, we face criminals in New York who have the goal of taking control over the city, even filling the gap left by the Kingpin after his arrest. The plot line offers many twists and was very well received by the critics and the community.

Marvel’s Spider-Man, for being more recent, offers a more fluid gameplay and amazing graphics. However, its structure follows the same standards of the Batman games, having its original storyline and a similar combat system. But we can safely say that it is definitely not a mere copy.

Each moment of the story needs a different gameplay, be it fighting as Spider-Man, solving logic challenges as Peter Parker, or investigating cases with Mary Jane.

The title hits the spot on those moments, bringing new experiences for each one of the characters, for example, Mary Jane avoids being seen since she doesn’t have many accessories or combat tactics.

Still regarding gameplay, it’s important to mention the quality and fluidity of movement that we are granted as Spider-Man throughout the city buildings.

And your character can also get many other movements with the upgrades, which are more robust, offering suits with different powers, places to equip accessories and skill trees.

As mentioned, the battles are similar to the Arkham saga games, but not enough to be underestimated as a knockoff. In Marvel's game, we see a higher difficulty level, making us use more evasion movements, besides having to understand the focus bar mechanic, another difference being the ability to throw boxes or other items and meshes to damage enemies.

Just as its competitor, Spider-Man can also attack and move on stealth mode.

The puzzles and riddles throughout the game are not as appealing as in DC’s titles, offering more obvious solutions. But we also have to mention that this was never the main focus of this universe.

To finish off, we can highlight the open world with uncountable events and side quests, from collectibles to saving innocent lives from bandits.

Two years later, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales came to the store shelves, acting as a Stand-Alone, a new content that didn’t need another game as a base to work, different from a DLC, but that also doesn’t get the considerable size of a Triple A.

For many, the title brought a huge win in introducing Miles as the new main character, his construction is very solid, and the script is very well known for that.

Initially, he is bitten by a radioactive spider and granted powers, and since then, trained by Peter to become one more Spider-Man. Miles continues on a process of conciliating his superhero responsibilities with his personal life, on top of finding out about his new abilities. On a fight against Rhino, he notices that his arachnid skills came with some unique traits, such as electric powers, and is confused about how all of it works.

This proposal is quite different from the first game, since our main character is still getting to learn and know himself, which helped to diversify since the base of the gameplay (except for the new abilities) and the universe were kept the same. Therefore, Insomniac got criticized for creating much less “new content”, an original story, but not as strong as the other games already mentioned here. Besides, little to no changes, charging a full game’s price.

Finally, last year we got the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, an exclusive title for PS5. We got the fusion of the two previous titles, allowing the player to control both Peter Parker and Miles Morales, each one with their unique abilities, advantages and distinct weaknesses.

Its New York is considerably bigger than its predecessors’, with even more love put on its details that so far had gotten critics.

It is worth mentioning that some scenes emphasize more on Norman Osborn, future Green Goblin. Where on the first he makes a phone call asking for the development of the “G Serum”, on the other he is promising his revenge against the Spiders. This creates the openings for a possible Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 with the presence of the iconic villain. If it happens, it could be another opportunity for Insomniac to stand out and, who knows, make another revolution in games of this niche.

Batman Arkham

Basing the metrics from Metacritic, the Batman Arkham trilogy got the following ratings:

Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker/Spider-Man for Best Performance (nominated)

Batman Arkham or Marvel’s Spider-Man? The Final Verdict

Many of the criteria used here are arguable and may be the topic of many debates and discussions, including the prizes, for each year required a different level of quality. The countless flashy titles from 2023 along with Red Dead Redemption II and God of War in 2018 kind of overshadowed many awards that could belong to the Spider-Man saga, but we can’t ignore the presence of Skyrim and The Witcher 3 that weighed a lot against the DC universe games.

The discussion will happen especially if we consider that, even though both are superhero stories, they bring different proposals from different companies, and this goes on since the movies. Marvel brings with it alien battles, many villains and heroes with superpowers in a more fantasy-like tone, softly and with humor.

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On the DC Comics side of things, we usually see them invest more on suspense, on darker themes around a murder in Gotham City, with villains that are usually criminals or sociopaths, which is more realistic, but heavier to swallow as well. Of course there are super powerful characters that don’t fit well with our real world, such as Poison Ivy or Brainiac, but on a much smaller frequency.

Don’t worry, we will seriously give you an answer based on everything we saw here today, but it is always important to mention that you have the right to keep your opinion regardless of other factors, and it is absolutely normal that you identify more with one idea or the other, since they are quite different from each other.

To finish off, let’s get to the final verdict: I believe that Marvel’s Spider-Man can successfully replicate the structure created by Rocksteady, and, using the advancement of technology throughout the years, got to implement even further refinements both in graphics, physics and gameplay.

On technical topics that could be evaluated with time, we can say that it delivers more than Batman Arkham, but we need to analyze the whole context, since the DC saga came out in 2009 and didn’t have a single huge superhero title to use as a base.

And surely the graphics and fights in Spider-Man's game are more attractive, and can be actually considered better and more fun for those who are more used to the most recent high-quality trends in gaming.

I see it as unfair to compare both graphics and fluidity with such a huge gap between the releases. The right thing is to analyze what each one of these games meant for the players when they were released. For example, I feel that Batman Arkham’s graphics, side by side against other games from 2009, stood out more than Marvel’s Spider-Man if compared to other 2019 games, even Rocksteady itself being more awarded and rated in general.

I see Batman as the superior game on topics that are not so harmed with the time, like immersion and storytelling. Even after a decade since its launch, I see Arkham Asylum and City with a script and character depth way more meaningful and elaborated than Marvel’s.

This is my verdict: Batman Arkham was, in its time, better and bigger than Marvel’s Spider-Man is nowadays. But, of course, if we give the controllers to someone who had never experienced 2009 graphics before, it’s likely they would rather pick the Marvel games.