Cold, Cold Heart – DLC for Batman Arkham Origins

Cold, Cold Heart is a bit of story DLC for Batman Arkham Origins that I picked up during the Steam summer sale. In fact, this will be the first of many articles written primarily to justify the large number of titles that I bought because, you know, Steam summer sale. While Origins wasn’t my favorite of the Arkham series, picking up a campaign for the story of Mr. Freeze was a no-brainer. (Although it would be nice to see one of Batman’s lesser-known villains get a turn in the spotlight now and then. Maybe some DLC love for Calendar Man?) Regardless, it’s fantastic to get this story as its own arc as opposed to just being another sidequest like the stories of so many costumed crazies before it. (Sorry, Riddler.)

It’s fair to say that I was rather pleased with the way this DLC turned out. Cold, Cold Heart gets its own game option from the main menu for Origins. The story actually takes place about a week after the events of the main game and includes its own intro cinematic as well as several gameplay tweaks. For me, that’s a serious bonus. Even though there’s only a few hours worth of content added, it’s unique enough that it doesn’t feel like it was shoehorned into the main game as an afterthought. There are, of course, additional side-quests to complete along with the main campaign. (I really need to go back and track down that last frozen officer.) However, the fact that this DLC introduces new game mechanics for its stand-alone campaign is what makes me the happiest.

He’ll protect the city and warm up your English muffin.

The new stuff, while only a few items, is welcoming to see because it shows effort on the part of the developers to show that the campaign is important. The glue bombs have been removed due to being unstable and becoming brittle in the week since the end of the main plot, as Alfred will happily inform you. Since the main theme is ice in this campaign, heated batarangs will become available to bust through small frozen objects like breaker boxes. And then there’s the big item: the XE Suit. Somehow that’s supposed to stand for Extreme Environment (are they X-treme environments?) suit, but the guy’s an eccentric billionaire that dresses like a bat and fights crime, so who am I to question his acronyms? I personally like to refer to the suit as “Toaster Bat”, but I’d never say that to Bruce’s face. Anyway, besides the glue all other gadgets are available, as are all upgrades from the main campaign. No weird losing all of your gadgets and having to find them again.

There are a couple things about the DLC that border on the ridiculous. The first is the lip syncing for the dialogue early in the game. It’s more exaggerated and overacted than Val Kilmer’s Batman. (No comment on Ben Affleck until I actually seem him in action.) At any rate, it was really distracting for me and I wish they wouldn’t have done so many close-ups. The other thing that got me laughing was the part in the game where you’ll need to track down a couple pieces to a MacGuffin to progress in the game. (Yep, trying to avoid spoilers here.) Each piece is roughly as large as Batman’s chest, but of course as soon as he picks one up and examines it, he seems to shove it into his magical ass utility belt of MacGuffin shrinking. Not necessarily bad, but certainly funny to me since I saw it coming the moment he picked it up.

So if you ask me, Cold, Cold Heart is definitely worth picking up, presuming that you’ve enjoyed playing Batman Arkham Origins even with the many flaws present in it. If you’re like me and play it on the PC, it might be worth waiting until the next Steam sale rolls around to pick it up at a discount. It does only add a few hours worth of content and (again, presuming you’re at all like me) I’m guessing you’re already loaded down with games from the last sale. However, if you need your Batman fix right now, go get it on Steam for $10 (also part of the $20 season pass) or check the store on whatever console you bought the core game for.