12 Reasons You Were Wrong About Batman: Arkham Origins
7. Bosses Were Done Properly
An element that Rocksteady always have difficulty with, as a good bossfight was hard to come by in the first two Arkham games.
Apart from an inventive and tense confrontation with Mr Freeze, many of the other boss fights lacked the brilliance that other areas of the titles exuded. In contrast, the boss-fights in Arkham Origins are an absolute treat, with each one offering a unique foe that The Dark Knight must overcome. Montreal were able to give Bane a worthwhile portrayal, one focussing on his cunning and ruthlessness instead of just his brute force like his brutish Rocksteady counterpart. The eight 'assassins' that feature all face the end of your fist, with a particularly comic altercation between Bats and the 'Electrocutioner' demonstrating the lighter side of the Bat-Mythos, as well as Bruce's sheer strength.
Origins' boss encounters feel evermore significant due to the fact that these are the first 'super-villains' that Batman encounters in his career - dealing with them feels particularly threatening as a result and their ferocity makes that ever more apparent.
If there's anything that DC Fans should be able to agree on in regards to Origins, it's that WB Montreal do bosses so much better than Rocksteady.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
