Batman: Arkham Origins

• 1. Introduction

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  Batman: Arkham Origins, a 2013 action-adventure game, begins on a snowy Christmas Eve in Gotham City with a price on one man's head: fifty million dollars. Eight professional killers are on their way to collect it. The man who posted the reward is the crime lord Black Mask, and his target is a Batman still early in his career. This is the third main game in the Batman: Arkham series, and it had an unusual task. The two games before it came from Rocksteady Studios, and this one was handed to another team and set in the past. So why did the series change hands? What happens to a Batman game when the hero is still learning his trade? And how did a crowded cast of villains, a first-ever multiplayer mode and a bumpy launch shape the way people remember it?

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• 2. Gotham Before the Legend

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  Midwinter in Gotham City, about eight years before Batman: Arkham Asylum, finds Batman in only the second year of his career. He has spent that time fighting ordinary criminals and gangsters, and he is used to being faster and stronger than they are. Even the police cannot say whether he is a vigilante, a myth or something supernatural.

  Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb runs a thoroughly corrupt Gotham City Police Department. SWAT team leader Howard Branden and his men are hunting Batman so they can claim the reward themselves. Captain James Gordon is incorruptible, and that makes him one of the most unpopular officers on the force.

  At home, the pressure comes from Alfred Pennyworth. The butler acts as an overbearing parent and reminds Bruce of his parents' deaths. He sees the young man as a spoiled child squandering his inheritance on a vigilante crusade.

  Old Gotham, the district that will later become the Arkham City prison, has no wall around it yet. It holds slums, low buildings, a shopping mall and docks. Moored there is the Final Offer, the ship of the black-market weapons dealer Penguin, who has fitted it with a casino, a fighting pit and a sales floor stocked with weapons and ammunition. Across a bridge lies New Gotham, a modern district of towering skyscrapers. Ruling the criminal underworld of both is Black Mask, who hides behind an ebony mask and by day runs Janus Cosmetics as Roman Sionis.

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• 3. A Mask Within a Mask

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  The night starts with a jailbreak at Blackgate Penitentiary, led by Black Mask, who executes Commissioner Loeb before he escapes. Batman is left to fight the assassin Killer Croc. Afterward he follows the trail to Penguin's ship, where he defeats Deathstroke and Electrocutioner. Penguin claims Black Mask has been murdered at an apartment complex. Batman finds the victim was an impostor, and the crime points to the Joker.

  To learn more, Batman breaks into the police department to reach its criminal database. On the way out he runs into Captain Gordon, who distrusts him, and into a corrupt SWAT team eager for the reward. Gordon's daughter Barbara advises him, and he reaches the sewers beneath the precinct to set up permanent access. There he finds Black Mask's men planting explosives. The database leads him to a conclusion: the Joker has kidnapped Black Mask and is targeting the Gotham Merchants Bank.

  At the bank, the twist lands. The man Batman took for Black Mask pulls off his mask and turns out to be the Joker. He had taken over Sionis's identity days earlier, seized the empire and set the bounty himself. At the Sionis Steel Mill, Batman frees the real Black Mask and defeats Copperhead.

  The trail then leads to the Gotham Royal Hotel, which the Joker has rigged with explosives, emptied of living staff and filled with hostages. He mocks the assassins for failing to kill Batman and throws Electrocutioner to his death. Batman takes the dead man's electric gloves and fights on. Most of the assassins leave, but Bane stays, expecting Batman to come for the Joker. On the rooftop, Alfred fears for Bruce and alerts the police so they will step in. Bane escapes by helicopter and fires a rocket that sends the Joker falling from the roof. Batman catches him. The Joker cannot understand why Batman would save someone like him. He is arrested and sent to Blackgate under Dr. Harleen Quinzel, and he tells her that he and Batman were destined to meet.

  Back in the Batcave, Alfred begs Bruce to give up, afraid the crusade will kill him. Batman refuses. Then he learns that Bane has uncovered his identity as Bruce Wayne. Firefly attacks Pioneers Bridge, and Batman and Gordon have to work together to stop him. Meanwhile Bane breaks into the Batcave and nearly kills Alfred. Batman revives him with Electrocutioner's gloves, and Alfred admits that Gotham needs Batman to face such threats. In the middle of this, the Joker stirs a riot and takes over Blackgate.

  Batman realizes he needs allies and joins Gordon and the police to retake the prison. The Joker, strapped to an electric chair, offers a choice. Batman can kill Bane, or Bane's heartbeat can charge a device that will fire the chair and execute the Joker. Batman stops Bane's heart with the gloves, which satisfies the Joker, who leaves to set off bombs across the city. Batman then restarts Bane's heart. Bane injects himself with a steroid called TN-1 and becomes a hulking beast. After a brutal fight Batman wins, and the serum's side effects leave Bane with amnesia, which protects the secret of Bruce Wayne.

  Batman finds the Joker in the prison chapel. The Joker, dismayed that Bane is alive, tries to provoke Batman into killing him and fails. Batman walks away, and Gordon chooses not to chase him, believing he is the hero Gotham needs. During the credits, Quincy Sharp announces on the radio that he plans to lobby for the reopening of Arkham Asylum.

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• 4. Handing Off the Cowl

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  By July 2012, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment was planning Rocksteady Studios' next Batman game as a prequel set in the Silver Age of Comic Books. It would have featured Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the Flash, and explored Batman's first clash with the Joker, with a release no earlier than 2014. In August 2012 the writer Paul Dini said he would not work on a sequel to Arkham City. He had written none of that game's downloadable content either, including the Harley Quinn's Revenge story. In February 2013 came the report that a new Arkham game would come from a studio other than Rocksteady.

  Work on Arkham Origins itself began in late 2011 at the Canadian studio WB Games Montréal, and the game was announced on the 9th of April 2013. Rocksteady would need a long time to finish Batman: Arkham Knight, which would have meant, in the words of the report, "a long time without an Arkham game." The Montréal team had already adapted Arkham City for the Wii U, so it knew the modified Unreal Engine 3 that Rocksteady used. It chose not to rework the combat system heavily, believing it already worked, and added new enemy types instead.

  Creative director Eric Holmes explained why the team made a prequel. The Batman of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City is fully formed and experienced, much like his comic-book counterpart. An earlier Batman let the team explore his lack of experience and greater vulnerability. The plot drew on the comic Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight and the graphic novel Batman: Year One, and the team described the game as a "Year Two" story. The Joker relationship, Gordon and the Christmas setting took cues from Batman: The Man Who Laughs, Batman: Turning Points and Batman: The Long Halloween. Dooma Wendschuh, Ryan Galletta and Corey May wrote the story with input from DC Comics and the comic-book writer Geoff Johns. By January 2013 the game was considered 80 percent complete, and the remaining time went into polish.

  Casting brought the biggest surprise. By April 2013 the developers had decided against veteran Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy, preferring a younger voice for the early years. Roger Craig Smith was announced as Batman in May, along with Troy Baker as the Joker. At the 2013 Dallas Comic Con, Conroy had said he was working on "the next Arkham," which fueled speculation that he would return. In June it was confirmed that he would not.

  In July came word that this would be the first Arkham game with multiplayer. The independent British studio Splash Damage produced it under creative director Alastair Cornish, separately from the Montréal team. The Wii U version stayed single-player, because Warner Bros. said the team was focused on platforms with the largest multiplayer audience.

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• 5. Assembled, Not Manufactured

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  Eric Holmes described the Christmas setting as a clash between the cheer of the season and the grimness of Gotham. Decorative Santas stand beside Gothic gargoyles, and Christmas lights glow in dark alleys. The city has 1930s buildings, and older ones, standing next to Batman's futuristic technology. New Gotham was built for vertical movement, so enemies could be placed above and below the player. The look is high contrast, with exaggerated shadows and few balancing colors. The city divides into residential, industrial and commercial neighborhoods. The industrial one is bleak, the commercial one wears corporate decorations, and the residential streets have lit windows.

  The designers wanted the younger Batman's outfit to look "assembled versus manufactured," pieced together from several sources. Art director Jeremy Price and his team used silhouettes and film noir-style low-key lighting to make the character more imposing. The name "Batman" is used sparingly to stress his urban-legend status. One idea was to let him make unavoidable mistakes, such as tripping or missing with batarangs. The team dropped it as inconsistent with the character. His inexperience became a matter of personality instead: he is learning to protect the city and trying to overcome his obsession with vengeance. Gadgets followed a different rule. The designers decided that taking away features players already knew from earlier games would make Arkham Origins feel less empowering.

  The villains got similar attention. Holmes admitted that Black Mask is less famous than the Joker or Penguin and needed expanding to be interesting and scary. He suited the early years because he sits between ordinary criminals and the neurotic, quirky super-villains still to come. With Geoff Johns, the team made Copperhead a woman, unlike the male comic character. Animating the contortionist took three motion-capture actors: a stunt woman, a Cirque du Soleil performer and a martial artist. This version of Copperhead was later added to DC Comics' The New 52. Anarky became a street protester with a gang resembling a social movement, drawing on the original Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle appearances. Holmes thought him the most timely of all the villains. Each main-story boss teaches a mechanic, such as Deathstroke, whose fight centers on countering attacks. The model was the fight against Mr. Freeze in Arkham City.

  Playtesting changed the details. After testers worked through the Detective Vision crime scenes, the designers settled on a length of two to three minutes. In the theater aboard Penguin's ship, the room was gradually shrunk to pack the enemies closer together. A hovering drone was removed because test players beat it too easily. A dynamic weather system, in which wind and snow would reduce visibility, was built and then discarded when it could not be finished in time.

  The score came from Christopher Drake, who replaced Ron Fish and Nick Arundel, the composers of the first two games. He took part of his inspiration from the 1988 film Die Hard, also set at Christmas, which uses sleigh bells to punctuate moments. Because the game is a prequel, Drake had more freedom, and he chose more electronic elements than the elegant, orchestral earlier scores. The game also includes an original song called "Origins" by the Dutch DJ Don Diablo, published by Spinnin' Records. Drake worked from Burbank, California, while the design team described the cinematic scenes to him over the phone. In-game music is built from layers that switch on and off with the action. The score was released by WaterTower Music on the 22nd of October 2013, three days before the game, with 32 tracks.

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• 6. Gadgets and Gang Wars

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  With his cape Batman glides over Gotham City, and the grapnel gun's retracting rope lets him catch distant ledges and stretch a flight further. The open world is built around stealth, combat and exploration. Returning gadgets include the Batclaw, the Batarang and its remote-controlled counterpart, Explosive Gel, Smoke Pellets and the Disruptor, which can disarm guns and mines from a distance. New equipment includes the Remote Claw, which pulls two targets together to slam enemies into each other, or ties two points into a tightrope. There are also Shock Gloves, which block electric attacks and stun shielded enemies, and the Concussion Detonator, which stuns large groups. The game adds fast travel in the form of the Batwing, which Batman summons remotely, though enemy towers must be disabled first, and some towers need particular equipment.

  Combat uses an enhanced version of the series' Freeflow system, with a tracking system that scores efficiency, such as avoiding damage and using gadgets. Chaining attacks earns experience points for a branching upgrade tree, where players can spread points widely or specialize. A warning icon marks attacks that can be countered. New enemies include the Martial-Artist, who blocks, evades and counters, and the Armored Enforcer, invulnerable until dazed and de-armored. Venom-infused henchmen are strong enough to grapple Batman and launch attacks that cannot be countered. Stone gargoyles and high outcrops give Batman places to hide while he sets traps.

  Holograms act out theoretical versions of a crime when Batman scans a scene with Detective Vision. Afterward, a link to the Batcomputer in the Batcave lets players view a virtual recreation from different angles, in slow motion or paused, moving back and forth along the timeline. In one example, a downed helicopter mixes true and false clues, and the scan shows it was shot. The bullet's path leads to a murdered police officer and a second crime scene. Solving a case brings a rundown narrated by Batman. The Batcave is also a hub for changing costumes, upgrading equipment and reaching challenge maps. Finishing the story unlocks New Game Plus, with tougher enemies and the counter warning switched off. Finishing that unlocks I Am the Night mode, where the game ends if Batman dies.

  Side missions include Crime in Progress, in which Batman helps the Gotham City Police Department by rescuing officers or protecting an informant. Most Wanted lets him chase villains outside the main story, such as Anarky, who plants bombs around the city. The Dark Knight system sets tasks of rising difficulty, and a "1 vs. 100" challenge map asks players to survive 100 increasingly difficult enemies. On Windows, Nvidia's PhysX engine adds snow and fog that react to Batman's movement.

  Multiplayer arrives with Invisible Predator Online, a gang war between the Joker and Bane. Players vote among four maps: Wayne Chemical Plant, Blackgate Prison, Joker's Funhouse and Wonder City Robot Factory. Three Joker gang members and three Bane gang members fight each other and a team of Batman and Robin. Gangs win by wiping out the other side's reinforcements, while the heroes win by earning intimidation points. A gang member can become a boss, either the Joker or Bane, with stronger abilities. A second mode, Hunter, Hunted, puts three Joker thugs and three Bane thugs against Batman in a last-team-standing match with one life each. Robin is absent from the main story, set before their partnership, yet he is playable here.

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• 7. Beyond the Main Story

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  On the 25th of October 2013, Arkham Origins was released worldwide for the PlayStation 3, Wii U, Windows and Xbox 360. A week before the European launch, the retail Wii U and Windows versions were delayed until the 8th of November. A companion game, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, came out alongside it for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. NetherRealm Studios, which had made the Arkham City spin-off Lockdown, built a separate beat 'em up with the same title for iOS and Android. The iOS version appeared on the 16th of October 2013, with Android planned for late that year. Players fight one-on-one by touchscreen, and costumes unlocked there can unlock costumes in the console version and vice versa. In August 2017 the Xbox 360 version became playable on Xbox One through backward compatibility.

  Around the UK launch, Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker made a public appearance at a GAME store in Stratford. DC Collectibles released action figures, and NECA made a working, life-size grapnel-gun replica. In December 2013, the digital studio Madefire released a prequel comic with the same name, the first in DC Comics' DC2 Multiverse initiative. It has dynamic artwork and sound and lets the reader choose how the story proceeds. Buying all eight chapters unlocks two costumes in the game.

  Retail editions varied by region. The PlayStation 3 version came with the Knightfall pack, which has outfits from the 1960s TV series and from Azrael's Batsuit, plus five challenge maps about fighting Bane and the Blackgate inmates. The UK, Australian and New Zealand Collector's Edition adds a SteelBook case and a 30 cm statue of Batman and the Joker. The North American Collector's Edition has a light-up Joker statue, a Gotham City map that glows in the dark and a Wayne family photo, plus the 2013 documentary Necessary Evil. Every region received an 80-page hardback art book, dossiers on the assassins and a "First Appearance" skin based on Detective Comics #27.

  Downloadable content added more. A Deathstroke pack, a pre-order bonus, makes him playable in the challenge maps with a rifle-staff, explosives and his own version of Detective Vision. It adds outfits from Injustice: Gods Among Us and the 1984 storyline "Teen Titans: The Judas Contract." The Black Mask Challenge pack followed in November 2013. The Initiation pack, released on the 3rd of December 2013, lets players control Bruce Wayne before he becomes Batman. He trains under the ninjutsu mentor Kirigi in a Korean monastery and comes into conflict with Lady Shiva.

  Cold, Cold Heart arrived on the 22nd of April 2014 as a story expansion set a week after the main game. On New Year's Eve at Wayne Manor, GothCorp owner Ferris Boyle accepts a humanitarian award from the Wayne Foundation. A mechanized suit with freezing weapons bursts in and kidnaps him. Batman learns the attacker is Mr. Freeze, who is really Victor Fries, a former GothCorp scientist trying to cure his dying wife Nora through cryogenic stasis. Boyle financed the research in exchange for weapons work, then stole Nora's frozen body. Batman's new XE suit gives him heat to melt ice. After Boyle freezes him and tries to kill both Fries and Nora, Batman breaks free and reactivates her chamber. In January 2014, Warner Bros. canceled the Wii U version, citing a lack of demand.

  The game offered a long list of alternate suits, from Batman: The Animated Series and The Dark Knight Returns to Gotham by Gaslight, Thrillkiller and Neal Adams' 1970s look. One planned outfit never shipped. The "Worst Nightmare" suit, an original design based on how criminals perceive Batman, was pulled at the last minute because of technical glitches.

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• 8. Mixed Verdict

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  At the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo, Arkham Origins earned two Game Critics Awards nominations, Best Action/Adventure Game and Best Console Game. After release, Metacritic showed mixed or average reviews on every platform except the PlayStation 3, where they were generally favorable. Critics called it an incremental installment. GameSpot said Arkham City had expanded on Arkham Asylum by moving its mechanics into an open world, while Arkham Origins copied Arkham City without moving the series forward.

  The story drew the warmest praise. Critics liked how it showed Batman's first dealings with his allies and enemies, and it asked whether his presence makes crime in Gotham worse. Polygon said the Joker scenes cast new light on a villain from earlier games, and GameSpot found its exploration of the bond between Batman and the Joker surprising. Reviewers also complained that the opening plotline of assassins hunting Batman is largely forgotten by the end. EGM countered that when the story works, it is worthy of any Batman film, TV show or comic book.

  The city divided reviewers. Many liked the number and variety of side missions, yet GameSpot described the map as "bigger just for the sake of being bigger," and Joystiq found the city unattractive. Kotaku called the side quests "busy work." Polygon found the world more linear than before. Kotaku and GameSpot thought Detective Mode was a good idea with minimal execution, since players just follow the next highlighted clue, while Game Informer liked it. Combat got mixed reviews. The Shock Gloves were called overpowered, with unblockable attacks that removed the need for tactics, and the Remote Claw made stealth too easy. Boss battles were the clear improvement, praised as dynamic, multiphase conflicts with their own stories.

  Multiplayer fared worst. Polygon called it one of the least necessary multiplayer additions to a typically single-player series, and GameSpot said poor accuracy and movement made the thugs look inept. Troy Baker was praised as the Joker and as a worthy successor to Mark Hamill, though some criticized him for copying Hamill's interpretation. The writers were nominated for a Writers Guild of America award. The game won Best Visual Arts and Best Animation at the 2013 Canadian Videogame Awards, and Black Mask won Favorite Villain at the Xbox 360 Game Awards.

  Problems after launch were widespread. Players reported lagging, endless "falling" through the world, missing progression unlocks and no "continue" button on the startup screen. On Windows, a bug blocked one of Enigma's towers, and on the Xbox 360 save files were corrupted. On the 31st of October 2013, WB Montréal said many multi-platform fixes would arrive by the 7th of November. In February 2014 it announced no more patches beyond ones fixing progression blockers, since the team was focusing on the single-player DLC. Reviewers judged Cold, Cold Heart better paced than the main game, but they found its story familiar, since it follows the 1992 Batman: The Animated Series episode "Heart of Ice."

  In its first week in the United Kingdom, Arkham Origins topped the all-format sales chart. Its sales were half those of Arkham City over the same period and roughly even with Arkham Asylum. It became the eleventh-best-selling boxed game of 2013 in that country, and it was the top seller on Steam from the 20th to the 26th of October 2013.

  Batman: Arkham Knight was announced in March 2014 and released in June 2015 as a sequel to Arkham City. The animated film Batman: Assault on Arkham arrived on the 12th of August 2014, with the Suicide Squad, hinted at by Amanda Waller's recruitment of Deathstroke in the post-credits scene, invading Arkham Asylum to get information from the Riddler. Then on the 21st of October 2024, Batman: Arkham Shadow reached the Meta Quest 3 as a direct sequel, set six months after Arkham Origins, with Roger Craig Smith returning as Batman. Director Ryan Payton said it explores the aftermath of the Joker's Christmas Eve rampage and Batman's change from a violent, vengeful vigilante into a symbol of hope.

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