Batman: Arkham Origins

"Batman: Arkham Origins" is a prequel to the Arkham game series. It is set relatively early on in Batman's career. How early? So early he has yet to even meet all of his rouges' gallery. It is set during Christmas Eve and Black Mask has placed a bounty of $50,000,000 on Batman with the condition that the job must be done tonight. This brings all sorts of scum, such as Deathstroke and Deadshot, to Gotham in hopes of making the big payday. But why does Black Mask need Batman out if the picture so badly?

Now this Batman game is not being done by developer Rocksteady. Instead it is being done internally by Warner Brothers Montreal. This honestly had me worried as I was not sure that the new team could maintain the quality we have come to expect from an Arkham game. Well based on the demo we saw at E3, there is nothing to fear.

The locomotion through the city and combat appears to be intact. They also showed off a new detective vision by using a helicopter that crashed in front of Batman to recreate the crime scene and figure out what happened. Two new thug type enemies made their debut in the demo as well. The first being a large armored bruiser that you have to stun to take down and the second a martial artist that can counter your counters forcing you to counter the counter-counter. The demo shortly moved to a predator room where we got to see a new toy, the remote claw. With it you can pick two targets and fire, causing the claw to hit target one, then target two and then pull them together. This was used effectively to crash two thugs together, a thug and a gas barrel and finally between two gargoyles to create a tight rope. It looks like a very fun tool. Once the room was empty Batman gets in an elevator (really?) and heads to the floor Blackskull should be on. Here Batman discovers he is not as clever as he thinks when Bane welcomes an empty elevator, and then reaches through the ceiling and rips Batman down. Bane throws Bats into a room with the pinnacle of Batman villians, Joker. The demo ends with Joker blowing up a construction site and threatening the rest of Gotham. Definitely looking forward to this in October.