Arkham Shadow’s Malone Possesses a Fun Nod to Origins’ DLC

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home November 30, 2024 3 Views 6 Min Read
Arkham Shadow’s Malone Possesses a Fun Nod to Origins’ DLC

Batman: Arkham Shadow’s cape stun is exciting and immersive as players swipe their own arm in front of them and watch as the cape billows out. The cape is elusive in VR since it is naturally draping behind Batman and can only be seen when it would normally be visible or wielded around his person, such as when he’s holding it out at his wingspan to glide or when he lands after dropping a great distance and the cape falls to his sides. These moments are terrific on the Meta Quest 3 and are subtle reminders that players are wearing the Batsuit, much like when they peer down at their bodies or catch a glimpse of Batman’s shadow cast out along a surface.




However, Bruce Wayne doesn’t wear the Batsuit for the entirety of Batman: Arkham Shadow and intermittently swaps to a brand-new costume: Irving “Matches” Malone, inmate at Blackgate Prison. In this disguise, Bruce relies solely on his fists to handle disputes, defend himself, and even rescue Carmine Falcone from TYGER’s Lyle Bolton, but he thankfully is able to wield pocket sand as a substitution for Batman’s cape stun. Interestingly, this wouldn’t be the first time Bruce resorted to brandishing the unorthodox item to incapacitate enemies as it can be traced back to Batman: Arkham Origins’ Initiation DLC.

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Batman: Arkham Shadow’s Chapter in the Arkhamverse is Not Yet Finished

Batman: Arkham Shadow boasts a gripping story campaign, but it will soon be accompanied by a lot more content and features in the next several months.

Batman: Arkham Origins’ Initiation DLC Reveals Bruce Wayne’s Prototypical Gadgetry


Batman: Arkham Origins
’ Initiation DLC
may only be a single challenge mode campaign composed of combat and predator challenges, but it’s also an interesting glimpse into Bruce Wayne’s immensely perilous training under the tutelage of Master Kirigi—someone Bronze Tiger also knows and name-drops in
Batman: Arkham Shadow
.


Here, the campaign mode reveals that Bruce’s trials included taking on waves of peers who were instructed to try to kill him, and striking his way through them all to finally go toe-to-toe with Shiva only awarded him with the opportunity to make tea for everyone and discuss further training. It’s this hardship that obviously helped mold Bruce into the hardened combatant and assassin he is sometime roughly two years later in Batman: Arkham Origins, where someone as revered and intimidating as Slade Wilson’s Deathstroke is outmatched and put down with swiftness and grace.

Plus, looking back at Initiation it is intriguing to see what kind of tools Bruce had available during his training and how they were adapted into the gadgets he equips on his utility belt as Batman. Shurikens were his choice of projectile that would later be adapted into batarangs, for example.


It’s no secret that Batman: Arkham Origins is built from the bones of Batman: Arkham City, and Initiation appropriates the Zip-Kick grapple gadget City debuted for Robin. It’d be a neat nod if the Zip-Kick grapple hook was kept in its prototypical state and became a hand-me-down for each Robin, but that’s a speculative narrative stretch when it was likely just adapted for the sake of convenience.

The Cape Stun is a Paramount Element of Batman’s Gameplay in the Arkhamverse

What’s not a stretch is the idea that, before donning a cape and cowl, Bruce originally used pocket sand as a means of temporarily blinding and staggering enemies and then returned to that tactic as “Matches” Malone in Batman: Arkham Shadow. It’s a brilliant adaptation because being able to stun enemies is crucial to putting the “flow” in freeflow, instigating beatdowns, or dispatching a shield-wielding enemy before having to inevitably counter a henchman nearby.


Batman: Arkham Shadow could’ve chosen to rob players of that mechanic when they’re Malone, but without any other gadgets to rely on as a safety net it helps facilitate great momentum. This might not have been an issue if Malone didn’t engage in much fisticuffs himself, but there are thankfully quite a few combat encounters as Malone while players are willingly incarcerated at Blackgate, including a boss fight against TYGER’s Lyle Bolton, Blackgate’s newest warden.

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