Batman: Arkham Origins - 10 Coolest Easter Eggs, Secrets And References Explained

9. The Secrets Of Wayne Manor

Batman Arkham Origins Cold Cold Heart Phone
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

It's no surprise that Arkham Origins' Cold, Cold Heart DLC is just as overlooked as the main game itself. This piece of post-launch content takes place at New Year, a few short weeks after the Yuletide festivities of Origins' story, and features a retelling of Mister Freeze's origins, one that takes a huge amount of inspiration from the seminal Batman: The Animated Series episode, Heart of Ice.

Cold, Cold Heart features several references to that episode, including Batman's "humanitarian" line initially spoken by Kevin Conroy, as well as the snow globe that features Victor and his wife Nora. Further still, WB Montreal also elected to pay reference to Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin, showcasing several of Freeze's henchmen making ice puns, and even placing Pamela Isley in GothCorp before her transformation into Poison Ivy, referencing the duo's partnership in said film.

By far the coolest details in Cold, Cold Heart, though, are contained within Wayne Manor. Montreal gave players full reign of the Batcave in the main title, and did the same with Bruce Wayne's stately home in the DLC.

The location is filled to the brim with callbacks to the comics and related Batman media, including the red phone from the sixties show, the grandfather clock entrance to the Batcave, Martha Wayne's pearls, a selection of paintings that trace back the Wayne family lineage, and - perhaps best of all - what may even be a skull Batman retrieved alongside Detective Chimp from Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

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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.