Summary
- Batman: Arkham Origins, developed by WB Games Montreal, is often overlooked but has gained a cult status as an underrated gem in the Arkhamverse.
- While Rocksteady deserves praise for its work in the Arkhamverse, Origins showcases WB Games Montreal's ability to depict Batman's first encounters with iconic characters and deliver a phenomenal story.
- WB Games Montreal should have the opportunity to develop a modern Arkhamverse game, potentially alongside Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, to continue expanding the series with exciting stories and characters.
Almost every time the Arkhamverse’s eponymous Arkham games are referred to it’s solely with Rocksteady in mind. Indeed, Rocksteady did create the Arkhamverse and put in all of the work to establish its world-building, lore, and characters in an original trilogy, but it is often forgotten that Batman: Arkham Origins was a fourth entry black sheep arriving between City and Knight as a prequel to the whole series.
Batman: Arkham Origins was developed by WB Games Montreal, not Rocksteady, while Rocksteady would go on to develop Knight in the meantime. Now, with each passing year Origins’ cult status grows larger in popularity as an underrated gem in the Arkhamverse.
The Arkhamverse’s Black Mask Got the Raw End of the Deal
The Arkhamverse has many revered villains with thorough, well-rounded character developments and Roman Sionis' Black Mask is not one of them.
WB Games Montreal Earned Its Place in the Arkhamverse with Arkham Origins
Formidable as It is, Rocksteady Shouldn’t Get to Hoard the Arkhamverse to Itself
Rocksteady has definitely earned the right to most of the praise the Arkhamverse receives. Its rich character portrayals, Freeflow combat and predator stealth, and gloomy atmosphere are all signatures of Rocksteady, with Origins lacking in a few of those areas when compared directly.
Of course, Origins was never going to be a wholly original stamp on the series with many of City’s assets and foundations carried over into the prequel. This is clear when grapnel-boosting and cape-gliding around a familiar open world, though it does have a lot of new landmarks and environments such as Pioneer’s Bridge. The most obvious way Origins scalps Asylum and City is in its boss fights, which are almost all comprised of ideas and mechanics from Rocksteady’s titles.
Origins’ Deathstroke and Copperhead boss fights parallel the bones of City’s Ra’s al Ghul boss fight, for instance, and at the same time Origins’ Firefly boss fight seems original aside from some inspirations from Asylum’s Poison Ivy boss fight. Still, what WB Games Montreal was able to achieve on its own, having the responsibility of depicting Batman’s first encounters with many of the Arkhamverse’s most iconic characters, was phenomenal and its cutscene work was terrific.
Origins arguably has one of the better stories throughout the Arkhamverse and, with Rocksteady continuing the franchise’s continuity through Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, it deserves to tell another.
WB Games Montreal Should Get to Develop a Modern Arkhamverse Game
The knee-jerk idea would be for WB Games Montreal to put together another prequel, perhaps a trilogy of Arkham games set before Asylum. There are still roughly 10 years of Batman’s crime-fighting career not directly covered by the Arkham games between Origins and City, giving it more than enough room to stretch its legs and feature a ton of exciting stories and characters.
However, if the series is effectively moving on from Batman and expanding to include the wider DC mythos, it would be great to see a WB Games Montreal Arkhamverse game that takes place alongside Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League instead. Maybe it takes the next Suicide Squad installment following Kill the Justice League while Rocksteady returns to single-player action-adventure, or maybe WB Games Montreal takes those reins itself if Rocksteady’s going to be swamped by live-service endeavors for the foreseeable future.
To be fair, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has already demonstrated that it is on a much different level of quality than Gotham Knights as a current-gen game and it’s unknown if WB Games Montreal would be able to keep up with that standard of fidelity and gameplay in a contemporary era as opposed to a decade ago. Either way, the Arkhamverse thriving without WB Games Montreal would seem unjust and wasteful considering how great Origins’ piece of the pie was and, though Gotham Knights wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea as an original DC continuity, a return to the Arkhamverse’s well-established canon could boast another excellent entry from the developer.
Batman: Arkham Origins
- Released
- October 25, 2013
- ESRB
- T for Teen: Blood, Drug Reference, Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
- WB Games Montreal
- Publisher(s)
- Warner Bros. Games
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 3
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer, Local Co-Op
- Franchise
- Batman
WHERE TO PLAY
Batman™: Arkham Origins is the next installment in the blockbuster Batman: Arkham videogame franchise. Developed by WB Games Montréal, the game features an expanded Gotham City and introduces an original prequel storyline set several years before the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, the first two critically acclaimed games of the franchise. Taking place before the rise of Gotham City’s most dangerous criminals, the game showcases a young and unrefined Batman as he faces a defining moment in his early career as a crime fighter that sets his path to becoming the Dark Knight.
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Wii U, PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
