Targeting one with the reticule, a single button prompt for a diving kick appears. Batman swoops down, cape spread, the camera flicks to the thug as he begins to raise his gun, and there’s a second of slow-motion as foot connects with jaw. Landing, the other is dispatched with the merciless efficiency of a few button presses. They really didn’t have a chance. Empowering the player to such a degree is a bold move, and one that hasn’t really been attempted in a licensed superhero game.

Every one of the Incredible, Invincible, Super and Spider-men have faced foot soldiers that can take button mashings from comet-shattering fists. There are inherent advantages to taking this approach with Batman: he’s human rather than superhuman, which stops things getting incongruous, and means a weakness to guns and knives is real. So you can take down any normal baddie easily, but running at one holding a machine gun is suicide.

The flipside of your close-combat abilities is the need to silently and efficiently get close to enemies before you use them. Rocksteady has been keen to avoid the stealth label for these moments, preferring to be lexically rapacious with ‘predatory’. There is a distinction, though, in the way Batman moves around an environment compared to Solid Snake.

Rather than creeping and peeking, he swings across roof beams, lands silently on outcrops, and shoots grapples to move almost instantly from one location to another. Rather than observing enemy positions for a gap, he’s watching for when they’re spread out and isolated. You’re still looking for weaknesses and exploiting them, however, so regardless of how you want to describe these sections they retain the quiet thrill of using patterns to your advantage.

This is shown as Sefton Hill, the game’s director, takes on six henchmen. He sticks to the shadows and the roof, waiting for an opening. When Batman strikes at one of the group, quickly incapacitating him and returning to the shadows in a single fluid move, Arkham Asylum shows one of its most greatest flourishes. The others are alarmed. “Is it Batman?” “Is he here?” Only the most humourless observer won’t grin.

The thugs, armed with handguns, regain their composure, and over the next few minutes Batman moves silently around the room, waiting for each of the five remaining thugs to make a mistake. When they do, they’re down. When there are only three left, they panic further, but move in a tight triangular formation that makes attacking difficult. One separates away and goes down. The last two really panic, firing blindly, fearfully glancing at each other, but becoming wilder in their movements. It’s almost too easy.

Well, for Batman it is, anyway. Easy doesn’t necessarily mean simple: the opportunity has to be created before the biff-bam action. It’s about making a Batman game feel like you’re controlling Batman, using the licence to inform the core of the game rather than wrapping it around common mechanics. Rocksteady handles all of this convincingly.