Batman Arkham Origins was developed by WB Games Montreal, while Rocksteady was busy working on Arkham Knight. This game felt like a slightly buggy, less polished prequel of Arkham City. Origins is often forgotten when talking about Batman games; they are referred to as the Arkham trilogy. It is very evident that this game was made to fill in the gap while Rocksteady was busy working on the final game in the trilogy.
Gameplay and combat is very similar to Arkham City. If you liked Arkham City, this is more of the same, but a little less polished. There is a lot of side content in the game. I spent some time doing a little bit of it, but pivoted to doing the story missions. Side content got too repetitive for me. There are some technical issues tied to framerate, and I had to play this game in DX10 mode with certain effects turned off. It ran fine at ultrawide resolution (3440x1440), surprising considering it is made with console in mind. Gameplay, UI are console centric. This is not a horrible PC port, but its definitely not made to take advantage of PC. It manages to look fantastic in certain areas, but having to turn down the visual effects and restricting the framerate in certain areas are classic examples of console first design.
Story was interesting. As a younger Bruce Wayne, you are only a few years into being Batman. The police still do not trust Batman, and he gains Jim Gordon’s trust by the end of the game. Story starts with Black Mask putting a bounty on Batman, which gets the attention of several villains, Bane, Deadshot, Deathstroke, Copperhead, Firefly, Electrocutioner, Killer Croc and Shiva. Only Firefly and Killer Croc had half decent boss fights. The rest are boring, Bane fight especially is tedious because you have to fight him multiple times. This is just pure gameplay padding. Mid way through the game, the bounty plot is forgotten and the focus shifts to Batman and Joker. The entire game is set during Christmas eve. I think it all happens over a period of 12 hours in the game universe, which explains why its always dark and snowing outside. Its an interesting detail once you realize it.
I got this as a part of Humble WB Games™ Classics Bundle in 2018 for $1. For that price, its definitely worth it. I would recommend buying this game if you finished all the mainline games, and found this for under $5. There is some fun to be had, but you are not missing anything if you never play this game. There is nothing special about this game.
