Today Warner Bros. Montreal revealed their new multiplayer mode for Batman: Arkham Origins, ‘Invisible Predator’. A brand new addition to the series which until now has been a single-player only affair.
Competitive multiplayer sounds like a bad fit for a franchise like Batman, who may be the world’s most famous solitarian. But keep in mind that more recent games like Assassin’s Creed and The Last of Us have, with varying success, managed to tweak the typical online experience with gameplay mechanics unique to their respective series. Check out the trailer below:
Origins is trying something a little more ambitious than team deathmatch; in the new ‘Invisible Predator’ mode, players are divided into two teams of opposing thugs – three working for Joker, and three working for Bane – who will fight over territory in what is more or less a conventional King of the Hill type of match. However at the same time two players will take the role of Batman and Robin and silently try to pick off members of both teams.
This 3-v-3-v-2 style competition should change things up nicely. It sounds like the result will be something like a mash-up of conventional CoD style run-and-gun fare and The Last of Us‘s constant, on-your-toes tension. That is, only if it works of course, and Destructoid‘s Casey Baker has played a few minutes of ‘Invisible Predator’ and says it works quite well:
[box_dark]”…it only took a short matter of time before I was leaping from ledge to ledge, observing rival gangs at war, and swooping down to pick off members before their buddies were alerted. Even though I didn’t get nearly as much time with the multiplayer in general as I would have liked, the time I did have with it was thoroughly enthralling and I could already imagine the intense matches with players who have had enough practice playing both sides […] My overall impressions of the Invisible Predator mode for Batman: Arkham Origins are quite high after only a couple hours of hands-on time, and it’s something I’m looking forward to now.”[/box_dark]
I’m not much of a multiplayer guy. I prefer to play video games the way Batman does everything: Alone and in the dark. But this may be an interesting spin on things to try for a week or two. Hopefully it’s replacing the Challenge Mode from the previous Arkham games, which I found incredibly frustrating and monotonous. I only have two concerns about this new feature:
1. Dying as Batman has got to be the worst: The World’s Greatest Detective was taken out by a nameless grunt with a shotgun? What a n00b!
2. Voice chat: The only way this will work is if player mics get muted as soon as Bats or Robin takes down an enemy. Otherwise the downed player will just immediately reveal their position. But it wouldn’t just even out the playing field – It would also be one of the most immersive ways to feel like Batman. Imagine a squad of teammates talking over chat and all of a sudden mid-sentence a guy gets cut off – OH NO. THE BATMAN. Makes me giddy just thinking about it.
How do you feel about multiplayer in a Batman game? Sound off in the comments section below!
Grizzly Bomb 