The Batman: Arkham series is still among the gold standard of comic book video games with four releases of high quality from front to back. Opening sequences and tutorials are instrumental in establishing a game's tone and gameplay, and each Arkham game takes a slightly different approach to the matter. All four - three from Rocksteady Studios and a prequel from WB Games Montréal - are dripping in gothic atmosphere, but some grab the attention of the player more compellingly than others.

The series is best known for its influential Freeflow combat system, but has been impactful in a myriad of other ways, with Batman: Arkham even changing Harley Quinn forever. When Arkham Asylum released in 2009, it set a new standard for story-driven superhero games. After two sequels and a prequel, fans are still waiting for the next projects from both Rocksteady and WB Games Montréal, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Gotham Knights respectively.

Related: Batman: Arkham City Gave Catwoman A Weird Counterattack

With the nature of Batman's mythos, and the many villains players expect to encounter in a game centered on the Caped Crusader, the four Arkham games are universally dour in their introductions. Bruce Wayne is thrust into situations against overwhelming odds, and must immediately begin combatting the nefarious plots of the Joker and his peers, but players must also be simultaneously walked through the games' mechanics. Some Arkham games prioritize narrative in their first few moments, while other strive to quickly get players under the cowl.

Batman: Arkham Origins Has The Series' Worst Opening

Origins has the worst opening of the Batman: Arkham games, though that doesn't necessarily make it bad

The opening sequence of Arkham Origins is the worst in the series, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad. That sentiment seems to be used often in describing WB Games Montréal's prequel, but there are some aspects to the World's Greatest Detective that Arkham Origins did better than Rocksteady's Batman; none of those happen to be in the game's opening, however. Origins' introductory cutscene actually does a very good job of establishing Batman's low level of notoriety near the beginning of his vigilante career, without rehashing the well-known origin story. Simultaneously, it quickly introduces the most immediate problem - a jailbreak orchestrated by Black Mask at Blackgate Penitentiary - and gets players right into actual gameplay after only a couple minutes. Additional bonus points come from an incredibly cool walk to the Batwing after a classic Batman suit-up scene.

Although Origins is in many ways a worthy addition to Rocksteady's trilogy (even surpassing it narratively in specific areas, like Arkham Origins' redemption of Bane), the opening sequence of gameplay doesn't live up to that of the rest of the series. While the mass escape from Blackgate is the narrative impetus, it's clearly not the central conflict players will face. Despite it being an obvious pretext to something larger, Origins still has players engage in an extended tutorial segment within the prison. Some sort of tutorial is almost always necessary, and introducing a variety of gameplay mechanics upfront has its benefits, but the rest of the series contains such strong introductions. All three of Rocksteady's games introduce their larger conflicts more compellingly, making Origins' opening feel like a drag in comparison.

Batman: Arkham City's Opening Has Subtle Foreshadowing

Arkham City's introduction has incredible foreshadowing and lets players play as Catwoman immediately

City may be the best game in the Batman: Arkham series, but it has one of the weaker introductions comparatively. It does however, have an incredibly powerful and foreshadowing opening shot - a look at a painting of Cain carrying Abel's body, which bookends the entire game alongside Batman mirroring the pose with the Joker's corpse in Arkham City's climactic scene. Another major upside to the opening is that players are put right into the series' satisfying and influential combat within seconds, this time in control of Catwoman. It serves as a quick tutorial on attacking and countering while doubling as a mysterious little prelude to the story. Players are almost immediately engaged in combat, which is an immediate reminder of how fun Asylum was, but the Catwoman intro now also stands as a testament to how poorly Batman: Arkham's character designs have aged.

Related: Batman: Arkham City’s Hush Storyline Deserved A Bigger Payoff

What follows is a serviceable series of cutscenes in which Bruce Wayne is arrested by a privatized military known as TYGER and incarcerated within Arkham City. Interjecting the arrest are opening credits and voiceovers establishing Hugo Strange as the warden of Arkham City, accompanied by Strange revealing he knows Wayne is the Batman. Players first find themselves in control of Wayne as they're being processed into the massive prison-slum. It's a more overt method of what players experienced at the beginning of Asylum. Arkham City's introduction does a good job setting up the overarching dilemma, but Strange's willful release of Wayne after successfully capturing him - knowing full well he's Batman - comes off as an obvious blunder.

Batman: Arkham Knight's Opening Is Shocking & Succinct

Batman: Arkham Knights intro starts ominously before rapidly becoming shocking and getting to gameplay quickly

After the death of the Joker at the end of Arkham City, the killer clown's cremation makes for a poignant opening cutscene in Knight. As the crematorium is started, followed by the Joker's body sliding into place and subsequently being engulfed, Frank Sinatra's "I've Got You Under My Skin" is a subliminal bit of foreshadowing to the Joker's role within Batman's subconscious throughout the game. Just as the Joker's flaming visage is replaced by a blazing Bat-Symbol, Commissioner Gordon's voice ominously intones, "This is how it happened... This is how the Batman died," though Arkham Knight doesn't fulfill its best moment's potential when Batman's death seems imminent.

Players are then put into first-person control of an officer from the Gotham Police Department as he sits down to a meal in a diner. The scene quickly turns nightmarish as the diner becomes a showcase for Scarecrow's latest toxin. Diners compulsively attack one another as they perceive others to be some sort of monsters, with the player brandishing their service weapon and firing into the crowd. It cuts to a news feed of the victims in bloodlust before Scarecrow takes credit for the attack. Players take control of Batman shortly after Gordon lays out the dire situation in Gotham, making it a disturbingly effective opening, with the added bonus of quickly segueing players straight into open world gameplay.

Batman: Arkham Asylum Has The Series' Best Opening

Arkham Asylum's opening is the best of the series

The best introduction sequence of the series belongs to the original, Batman: Arkham Asylum. An opening shot captures a flash of lightning illuminating the Bat Signal before the camera pans ominously over a winged and hooded statue. This was the very beginning of Batman: Arkham's shadow being cast over Marvel games for years. As a Gotham street comes into view, a voice coming through a police radio informs the player that the Joker has been apprehended, and is currently en route to Arkham Asylum in Batman's custody. The rest of the opening cutscene has a similarly cinematic flair; a pan up from the Asylum gate reveals the gloomy buildings themselves, before it cuts to the final shot of the Bat and the Joker backlit by the Batmobile's headlights, shown above. Mark Hamill's Joker is a highlight of the whole series, but his performance which begins the entire saga is a major contribution to setting the tone for the first game.

The Joker arrives in handcuffs after babbling maniacally about a bomb during his ride in the Batmobile, and unabashedly hints at his villainous plot as he's being processed into Arkham. Forced walking sections like these are typically an unwelcome video game trope, but its made enjoyable by listening to the Joker ham it up during his triumphant return, which includes a hilarious off the cuff joke about a brief meeting with Killer Croc reminding the Joker he needs new shoes. Batman accompanies the clown through his incarceration under the pretext of making sure everything goes smoothly, but it's a clever way for the game to simultaneously process Batman into Arkham Asylum for an unexpected stay. It's a narrative narrative strategy Arkham Asylum did better than Arkham City, being a much more subtle and effective form of symbolically incarcerating Bruce Wayne, which helps elevate Asylum's intro to the best in the Batman: Arkham series.

Next: Arkham Insurgency: Will Rocksteady Do Batman Again After Suicide Squad?