Warner Bros. Interactive have revealed the first piece of content that will be part of the recently announced Batman: Arkham Origins season pass. It’s called Initiation and for the first time in the franchise’s history, players will be able to travel outside of Gotham in order to explore Bruce Wayne’s early training.
According to producer Guillaume Voghel, in the DLC you play as Bruce Wayne during his ninjitsu training in a monastery in Asia. Wayne will learn fighting techniques from his greatest teacher, Kirigi. Although Kirigi does have ties to the League of Assassins, the DLC will not focus on that group, only on the ninja training.
Voghel also revealed the addition of the “I Am The Night” mode, which will help add some additional replay value to the game. In this mode, players will be tasked with finishing the campaign with only one life. So once Batman is dead, he isn’t comic book dead. He is dead dead. In order to unlock this mode, players must first finish the 12 hour campaign once on normal and once on the returning “New Game Plus” mode.
While I’m still not exactly thrilled at the idea of a season pass being issued for Batman: Arkham Origins, I do like the idea of the DLC here. Voghel stressed that the content was created from all new assets, so hopefully it won’t feel like content that should have been included with the game in the first place.
It’s also nice to see another minor comic book character get representation in the series. After all, in the comics Kirigi was the man that trained both Batman and his nemesis Ra’s al Ghul in the art of ninjitsu. So for those thinking that this content just seems like a retread of the events of Batman Begins, it’s not quite that simple.
As for the “I Am The Night” mode, while I’m always open to value being added to a title, I will not be indulging in this content. Simply put, permadeath is the type of thing that drives me crazy with frustration. So I will instead just save myself the pain now and commit to not playing it.
We will have more coverage of Batman: Arkham Origins as its October 25th launch date approaches.
