Batman: Arkham Origins review

It might use the aging Unreal Engine 3, but Arkham Origins is still gorgeous in motion. Shadows and lighting are especially atmospheric, while Gotham’s various Art Deco, industrial and neo-gothic buildings look sumptuous. You’re in for a treat if you have a PhysX-compatible Nvidia card too, with Batman leaving footprints in the snow and criminals exhaling condensation as they shiver. Vents billow steam, sending litter and debris flying around you, while smoke and ash waft convincingly upwards from burning cars and fires. The particle and physics effects aren’t entirely for show either – take cover in the steam and some villains won’t be able to use their more deadly attacks against you.

You’ll benefit from having the most powerful Nvidia card you can afford though – even on a 2GB GeForce GTX 770, the steam, litter, lens flare and motion blur can make the otherwise smooth frame rate stutter and judder.

There is one totally new component to Arkham Origins – a multiplayer mode. The team-based deathmatch gameplay sees you play as Batman and Robin, or as convicts led by The Joker and Bane. We liked how earning enough experience points would unlock the Joker and Bane as playable characters, each with their own set of moves and gadgets, but without the campaign’s narrative it failed to hold our attention for long. More fleshed out, this could have helped set Origins apart from its predecessors, but as it is it’s merely a taste of what could have been.

There’s hours of bone-crunching battles, plenty of outlandish, cackling supervillains to beat and loads of comics references for diehard DC fans to spot, but Arkham veterans will have seen and done it all before. This makes Origins a fun, but ultimately inessential purchase unless you’re taking to Gotham’s streets for the first time.