Batman: Arkham Series Reviews
Cold, Cold Heart is an okay DLC campaign for Batman: Arkham Origins that retells the origin story of Mr. Freeze, one of Batman’s more sympathetic enemies. It’s a step up from Arkham City’s Harley Quinn’s Revenge expansion, but it’s not that much of a step up. It’s still a fairly short campaign that doesn’t really introduce much of anything new or exciting. You do at least explore a couple of new locations, but most of the campaign takes place within just one primary area that you constantly have to backtrack through, as well as back and forth from.
One of the new locations the DLC introduces is actually the inside of Wayne Manor. This is the only time you ever get to experience the Arkhamverse’s Wayne Manor during gameplay, and sadly, you only explore it during the opening sequence. The other location where the majority of the campaign takes place is the GothCorp building. There’s some new combat and predator sections, a new enemy type that’s essentially just a brute with a freeze ray, and a final showdown with Mr. Freeze that’s more or less a repeat of his boss fight in Arkham City but in a bigger arena where you also have to deal with other enemies at the same time. It’s pretty standard stuff, and not much to really write home about.
The game does make a big deal out of Batman’s new thermal suit, but it doesn’t really do anything that Batman couldn’t already do before. You can charge up Batarangs with heat to melt icicles from the ceiling and ice-covered vantage points, you can melt ice that blocks pathways (which uses the same animation as charging something with the Electrocutioner’s gloves in the base game), and it allows Batman to survive in sub zero temperatures. That’s literally it. It doesn’t come with any significant new gameplay addition whatsoever.
The story for this expansion is just a retelling of the Batman: The Animated Series episode Heart of Ice. This is one of the most famous episodes of the show, as it revitalized the character and origin story of Mr. Freeze, and eventually became the standard portrayal of him in both the comic books, and other assorted Batman media. It’s a fine retelling, I don’t think it's better than the actual episode (though if I’m speaking truthfully, I haven’t seen the episode in quite some time). It does end pretty suddenly and unsatisfyingly though.
Unlike Harley Quinn’s Revenge, whose quality I could forgive since its bundled with re-releases of Batman: Arkham City, I can’t really do the same for Cold, Cold Heart, since it never got the same treatment. Still, I think that for all things concerned, it is better in comparison to Harley Quinn’s Revenge since at the very least, it's (mostly) new content. If you don’t already own the season pass for Arkham Origins, this is not at all a must buy or a must experience. It’s pretty much just a worse retelling of one of the most famous episodes of Batman: The Animated Series with some new combat and predator encounters and a slightly different version of the Mr. Freeze fight from Arkham City. There’s not much else to it.
Cold, Cold Heart is an okay DLC campaign for Batman: Arkham Origins that retells the origin story of Mr. Freeze, one of Batman’s more sympathetic enemies. It’s a step up from Arkham City’s Harley Quinn’s Revenge expansion, but it’s not that much of a step up. It’s still a fairly short campaign that doesn’t really introduce much of anything new or exciting. You do at least explore a couple of new locations, but most of the campaign takes place within just one primary area that you constantly have to backtrack through, as well as back and forth from.
One of the new locations the DLC introduces is actually the inside of Wayne Manor. This is the only time you ever get to experience the Arkhamverse’s Wayne Manor during gameplay, and sadly, you only explore it during the opening sequence. The other location where the majority of the campaign takes place is the GothCorp building. There’s some new combat and predator sections, a new enemy type that’s essentially just a brute with a freeze ray, and a final showdown with Mr. Freeze that’s more or less a repeat of his boss fight in Arkham City but in a bigger arena where you also have to deal with other enemies at the same time. It’s pretty standard stuff, and not much to really write home about.
The game does make a big deal out of Batman’s new thermal suit, but it doesn’t really do anything that Batman couldn’t already do before. You can charge up Batarangs with heat to melt icicles from the ceiling and ice-covered vantage points, you can melt ice that blocks pathways (which uses the same animation as charging something with the Electrocutioner’s gloves in the base game), and it allows Batman to survive in sub zero temperatures. That’s literally it. It doesn’t come with any significant new gameplay addition whatsoever.
The story for this expansion is just a retelling of the Batman: The Animated Series episode Heart of Ice. This is one of the most famous episodes of the show, as it revitalized the character and origin story of Mr. Freeze, and eventually became the standard portrayal of him in both the comic books, and other assorted Batman media. It’s a fine retelling, I don’t think it's better than the actual episode (though if I’m speaking truthfully, I haven’t seen the episode in quite some time). It does end pretty suddenly and unsatisfyingly though.
Unlike Harley Quinn’s Revenge, whose quality I could forgive since its bundled with re-releases of Batman: Arkham City, I can’t really do the same for Cold, Cold Heart, since it never got the same treatment. Still, I think that for all things concerned, it is better in comparison to Harley Quinn’s Revenge since at the very least, it's (mostly) new content. If you don’t already own the season pass for Arkham Origins, this is not at all a must buy or a must experience. It’s pretty much just a worse retelling of one of the most famous episodes of Batman: The Animated Series with some new combat and predator encounters and a slightly different version of the Mr. Freeze fight from Arkham City. There’s not much else to it.