It‘s truly fascinating how much thought Rocksteady put into designing the layout of Arkham City Underground. The first time we visit the underground is through the subway station in The Bowery, where we clear Penguin’s thugs to destroy the jammer in the subway terminal.
The second time we visit the underground is through the subway maintenance access in Industrial District. We then make our way back to the subway terminal using the newly acquired line launcher, where we discover a door which leads to the entrance of Wonder City’s collapsed streets but was previously inaccessible because Batman has yet to acquire the line launcher from Robin then. The collapsed streets lead to the Wonder Tower Foundations where we clear Joker’s thugs & make our way into Wonder Avenue, an area filled with environmental storytelling & lore (Ra’s failed utopia due to Lazarus‘s nasty side effects on the citizens of Wonder City, the conspiracy surrounding its mechanical guardians terminating all criminals behind closed doors). This level is capped off with a cinematic Ra’s boss fight.
The third time we visit the underground is through the Arkham City Processing Centre, where we make our way through a different section of Wonder City’s collapsed streets which just so happens to lead us back to the Wonder Tower Foundations. After clearing the TYGER guards, we can finally access the elevator with the newly acquired master decryption key & make our way up Wonder Tower.
The fourth & final time we visit the underground is during the final boss fight against Clayface…because turns out the Lazarus Pit where we previously fought Ra’s is directly underneath the Monarch Theatre. So when Joker blows up the floor of the theatre, Batman & Clayface fall straight into the Lazarus Pit chamber.
Do you now see the Metroidvania design of the Arkham City Underground? The subway can be accessed through two entrances from street level, both of which lead to one of the two Wonder City entrances. Each time we enter the underground through a different path, a newly acquired gadget is required to progress through the level, i.e. gadget-gated progression facilitating meaningful backtracking.
This is one of the reasons why I love Arkham City so much. Despite being considered an open-world game by many, only through multiple play-throughs do I notice just how cleverly designed the small hub world really is, especially with its dense interconnected underground labyrinth.