Batman: Arkham Origins is flawed, but it’s one of the few Christmas games

Just a heads up if you need some threatening holiday cheer

Holiday stories are sort of a thing in the Batman mythos, and it’s one of the aspects that Batman: Arkham Origins got right. Yep, you too can enjoy an Arkham Origins Christmas if you feel like booting it up again. It even got a Mr. Freeze DLC!

For those of you who completely blocked this game out of your mind, Arkham Origins has a troubled history for myriad reasons. It’s very clear that WB rushed it, as it was plagued with bugs upon release (particularly PC) that weren’t prioritized until after paid DLC was released. Oh, and the Wii U DLC ports were canceled after WB sold people the Wii U edition. This was, in part, because Rocksteady (who had handled Asylum and City) did not work on the game: that honor went to WB Games Montréal, who hasn’t had a major project since until 2022’s Gotham Knights.

With all that out of the way, Arkham Origins is a decent holiday game that takes place on Christmas Eve, and deals with a younger Batman (voiced by Roger Craig Smith instead of Kevin Conroy) taking down Joker (voiced by Troy Baker instead of Mark Hammill). The cast shift portended the entire feel of the game. It was an “off-brand” Arkham in many ways from top to bottom, but it did maintain a lot of the core that people knew and loved, and has been viewed more favorably over time.

If you actually want to play it from scratch, the process is incredibly annoying on consoles. It’s not part of the re-release trilogy pack, and does not have a current-gen version. Other than PC, your options are PS3 and Xbox 360: the latter is compatible with Xbox One, but you need the disc.

Just saying: it’s an option! There aren’t that many Christmas games out there. If you want a better open world comic romp, Miles Morales is fairly recent. Plus, there’s always Christmas NiGHTS!