Summary
- Batman: Arkham Origins may not reach the heights of other games in the series, but it's far from a bad game, with solid gameplay and decent reviews.
- The game played it safe by following Arkham City's formula closely, resulting in a fun but repetitive experience.
- However, the central relationship between Joker and Batman, as well as the unique boss fights, were among the game's highlights.
The Rocksteady Batman: Arkham trilogy is still talked about constantly today, and for good reason. Batman: Arkham Asylum essentially proved that the superhero gaming genre didn't need to just be terrible movie tie-ins or quick cash-grabs, but instead fully-fledged, big-budget experiences that not only stayed true to the source material, but integrated it into the video game medium in an innovative way. Then Arkham City doubled down on everything that made the first game great, and while Arkham Knight wasn't as well received as the others, it's still talked about fondly today. But Batman: Arkham Origins is mostly left completely out of the conversation.
Released on October 25, 2013, Batman: Arkham Origins turns 10 years old today, and history hasn't been all that kind to it. Arkham Origins may have been a bit of a disappointment when it first launched a decade ago, but even some disappointing games deserve a second chance, and Batman: Arkham Origins is far from being a bad game, with some fans even going as far as to call it underrated.
Batman: Arkham Origins Is Still Criminally Underrated 10 Years Later
Following up on Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham City was never going to be an easy task, especially when Rocksteady wasn't the one at the helm. So, naturally, when WB Games Montreal released Batman: Arkham Origins back in 2013, it found itself in a strange spot, and one that garnered a bit of a mixed reception from both fans and critics. While some were just thrilled that they got to experience another Arkham game, a good portion of the fan-base was disappointed in Arkham Origins, seeing it as more of a side-step for the franchise than the next big thing.
Where Arkham City really built upon the foundations of Arkham Asylum and added in plenty of its own content and identity, Arkham Origins instead plays it a bit too safe, following City' s formula very closely and feeling very repetitive in the process. It didn't help that Batman: Arkham Origins' story was also a little confused, with its primary hook about assassins hunting down the Caped Crusader being essentially forgotten about just a few hours in favor of yet another Joker origin story.
But at its core, Batman: Arkham Origins was a solid game, and even its worst reviews still gave the game a decent score. This middling reception has left Arkham Origins in a state of limbo for the last decade, and Warner Bros. And Rocksteady haven't done much to remind players of its existence. In both the Return to Arkham remasters, and the upcoming Arkham Trilogy, Batman: Arkham Origins has been left out, but a decade after its release, there's definitely a desire to see it return in some form.
As mentioned plenty already, Batman: Arkham Origins was far from a bad game, and some of its biggest highlights easily stand toe-to-toe with Rocksteady's best moments. For instance, one of Arkham Origins' biggest highlights was the central relationship between the Joker and Batman, and the general premise of this being a Batman Year One-esque story. While this has been seen plenty in the decade since, this was a fairly unique concept for a Batman game back in 2013, and Arkham Origins did a solid job of setting the stage for the Caped Crusader's career.
Another big highlight of Batman: Arkham Origins was its boss fights, and the surprising array of villains used for them. While the Joker, Penguin, Bane, and Riddler all make their return, Arkham Origins puts a lot of the spotlight on lesser-known foes like Anarky, Firefly, Copperhead, Lady Shiva, and Black Mask, and each one usually has some kind of unique boss fight that's stayed memorable for a whole decade. Though it definitely doesn't live up to the heights of Rocksteady's entries, Batman: Arkham Origins doesn't deserve to be forgotten.
Batman: Arkham Origins is available on PC, PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360.