Batman: Arkham City

Rocksteady's 2011 sequel takes the combat and detective systems that worked in Arkham Asylum and drops them into a walled-off district of Gotham that the city has given up on and handed to its inmates. The freeflow brawling is the part everyone imitates: a rhythm of strikes, counters and gadget cancels that lets you hold a crowd of a dozen without losing momentum, scored on variety rather than speed. Predator rooms are the other half, turning armed enemies into a stealth puzzle where gargoyles, floor grates and a grapnel let you thin a room one guard at a time while the survivors get audibly more frightened. What lifted it above its predecessor was scale and cast: Hugo Strange, a Joker at the end of his life, a Mr Freeze encounter that specifically punishes repeating yourself, and a Catwoman campaign threaded through the main story. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill are doing career-best work here, which is a large part of why it has aged so well.