Batman: Arkham City is such an impactful game that it is easy to overlook how nonsensical its plot is at arm’s length. The fact that an enormous supervillain compound would be built for criminals to wreak havoc in as their own playground is absolutely absurd. That said, there are a couple narrative twists in the game that are memorable, and what Rocksteady brought to the table with Batman: Arkham City in terms of gameplay has clearly inspired each open-world superhero game that has followed it in more ways than one.

Rocksteady essentially wrote the book on what fans would eventually adore about open-world superhero games, and it only helped that the studio’s attention to detail with DC lore was so iconic and definitive. Rocksteady continued to honor remarkable iterations of DC supervillains in Batman: Arkham City, for instance, as it did in Batman: Arkham Asylum before it and Batman: Arkham Knight after it. But what the sequel offered uniquely that its predecessor did not was an open world packed with content that lets players immerse themselves again in a single night as Batman.

RELATED: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Needs Robust Arkham Challenge Modes

Batman: Arkham City Introduced a Dense Open-World

1-1

Batman: Arkham City released only two years after Batman: Arkham Asylum, which is almost unheard of considering how it implemented a freely traversable open world in substitution of Batman: Arkham Asylum’s linear areas. Batman: Arkham Asylum emulates an open hub region on Arkham Island itself, but it only serves to connect several facilities and buildings that players load into as linear levels within.

Batman: Arkham City also debuted what is perhaps one of the most engaging open-world traversal systems, where players nosedive as Batman and cape-glide upward with momentum that could potentially carry them throughout the entire Arkham City compound if they also employ well-timed grapnel boosts in-between each glide. Batman: Arkham Knight arguably improves upon this traversal system greatly, with much faster and higher grapnel boosts in an interconnected island city that has skyscrapers reaching immense heights.

Rather, many buildings in Batman: Arkham City are incredibly low to the ground and inhibit the player’s cape-gliding height potential. Thankfully, Batman: Arkham City’s open world is not so expansive as to completely overwhelm players with content—unless players indulge in hunting abundant Riddler trophies, that is.

It instead packs a relatively small open world with a lot of side quests tied to different supervillains. Some side quests are more involved than others, but they appropriately take players to different corners of the map. Zsasz’s side quest, for example, exclusively revolves around payphone calls as simple, timed traversal to different points in the open world until his whereabouts are eventually triangulated.

Superhero Games Since Batman: Arkham City Have Inspired Open Worlds

ss_2d9d0a04bec97053c86becd0b26ed7660528ec31.1920x1080

If Rocksteady’s Arkhamverse had not delivered on such a fantastic open world in Batman: Arkham City as it had, who is to say which superhero game would have been the one to do so. Many superhero games had taken a linear level design approach with some being more favorable than others, but having Batman: Arkham City as a blueprint surely inspired other superhero IPs to achieve the same experience.

Open worlds have only continued to grow larger in an attempt to feature more content packed into each corner. Marvel’s Spider-Man’s Manhattan island is a great example of how Batman: Arkham City’s influence has opened the door for open-world superhero titles, especially if that particular character’s traversal abilities are satisfyingly translatable. Superhero games obviously do not need to adhere to an open-world design in order to be successful, but it is now a design that has found its footing and can be iterated upon further with each new entry.

Batman: Arkham City is available on Mac, PC, PS3, PS4, WiiU, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

MORE: All the Achievements and Trophies You Have to Unlock on Christmas Day