Good unarmed/close quarter open world combat that isn't Batman

[COMaestro]

Another vote for Sleeping Dogs. I find I rarely use a gun in that game because the melee combat is so much more fun to do.

I would agree with some of those saying that it seemed impossible to die in Shadows of Mordor, but I kept running into the situation where I'd be fighting a Orc captain who was immune to pretty much every finisher, and then have another captain with a poisoned crossbow show up and start shooting me in the back. And sometimes as I tried to deal with him yet ANOTHER captain would arrive. Trying to deal with them and all their hangers on would invariably get me killed. Even running away wouldn't always work as I'd still get shot by the crossbow captain, and they could do some massive damage, or in trying to dodge over one of the captains to disengage, he'd block the maneuver, leaving me helpless for a few seconds. So there was definitely some difficulty now and then and I picked up a Nemesis a number of times.

 

[Vivi22]

There's no shortage of games with great melee combat systems that make the Arkham games look like they were designed for toddlers. Which they kind of were really since their combat rarely gets more complicated than mash a button and counter when prompted, no does it ever actually HAVE to be more complicated than that because the games are so easy.

Only trick is that most of the games with better combat aren't open world. Open world games tend to be bigger and more expensive so I'd assume the going AAA logic is that making the combat more accessible (re: stupidly simple and easy to succeed with) is paramount because they want more sales.

So I doubt we'll see many open world games with combat systems that can measure up to your DMC's, Metal Gear Rising, or Bayonetta's, but if you want good combat there's plenty of options out there. The combat in the Arkham games just plain sucks.

 

[AuronFtw]

Honestly I preferred turn-based ATB systems from old JRPGs to Arkham combat. Less monotonous, less QTE, more control over your actions, and a MUCH wider variety of actions available. Punch, punch, punch, counter, punch, batarang, punch.

Snore. Make that shit as cinematic as you want, it's still snoreworthy - easy and unvaried.

Agreed with Fox12 above; the standout aspect of the Arkham games was the stealth elements. The actual melee combat was tedious and boring, but when you could avoid it as much as possible, the strength of the stealth sections ended up outweighing the lackluster buttonmash QTE festival of melee combat.