Batman: Arkham Knight - 10 Things It Must Learn From Origins
2. Don't Make So Many Riddler Trophies
When are collectables not fun to collect? When there are too many of them. Edward Nygma was at his best in Arkham City when he was challenging the wits of the player through a variety of means. Riddles and torturous hostage situations were an obvious highlight of the sequel, but there were a lot of flaws in striving for 100% completion. Some of the Riddler challenges in the game just weren't fun at all (lining up the question mark? Really?), and there were far too many trophies to search for. To make matters worse not only did Batman have to deal with these glowing monstrosities, but Catwoman also - meaning players had to backtrack into areas not traversed by Selina in the main storyline. Origins suffered as a result of there being a lack of Riddles to solve, but the 'datapacks' that Nygma emplored the Detective to find weren't nearly as intimidating in scale as City's trophies were. Collectibles are always welcomed, but there is a point where they become just a tad too much to bear.
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.
