Batman: Arkham Origins Mobile

NetherRealm Studios, the team behind Mortal Kombat, made this free-to-play brawler as a side piece to the 2013 console game Batman: Arkham Origins. It reached iOS on October 16, 2013, while the Android version followed on July 25, 2014, published by Warner Bros. under the plain name Batman: Arkham Origins with the package name com.wb.goog.batman.brawler2013.

What Is Batman: Arkham Origins Mobile

It is a one-on-one and small-group fighting game set over a single violent Christmas Eve in Gotham, built on the same premise as the console release. Black Mask has put a bounty on Batman’s head, and a line of assassins comes to collect it. Unlike the console game, there is no free roaming. You pick missions from a map, enter an arena and fight until the enemies are down or Batman is.

How Each Fight In Arkham Origins Mobile Plays

Combat runs on swipes and taps, with a block input for defence. Quick strikes and heavier combo hits come from those gestures, and blocking at the right moment matters more than speed. The interesting layer is the stance system. The Assault stance pushes damage up, whereas the Guarded stance cuts incoming damage and slowly heals Batman over time, so a good fight means swapping between them at the right moments.

Charged specials sit on top of that. Batswarm, Batarang and Health Boost fill up during a fight and can turn a bad round around. Enemies have their own trick: after taking heavy damage they enter an Enrage attack that cannot be countered and has to be blocked, and new players lose a lot of health learning that rule.

Gotham Districts And Black Mask’s Assassins

The map is split into four districts, and only the first one is open when you start:

1. Downtown Gotham
2. Industrial District
3. Uptown Gotham
4. The Docks

Most Wanted missions end in boss battles against the hired killers from the console story, including Bane, Deathstroke, Deadshot, Copperhead and Electrocutioner. Random Ambush missions also appear between regular fights, and they cannot be skipped, which some players found annoying when they only had a few minutes to play.

Suits, WayneTech Points And The Freemium Grind

Batsuits are the main progression system. Each suit has its own stats, and upgrading one requires items such as Tier 1 Armor or the Arkham Origins Cowl. A Detective Search hands out at least one random item, which is how most of those parts drop. Upgrade Points come from regular play, while WayneTech points are the premium currency that also buys upgrades and combat boosts. Missions cost stamina, so once it runs out you either wait or pay.

Two suits sat outside the store. Darkest Night and Red Son had to be unlocked by other means, such as signing in with a Warner Bros ID, and linking the mobile game to the console or PC version unlocked Red Son in both places. That cross-unlock was a big part of the marketing in 2013.

What Critics Said About Batman: Arkham Origins Mobile

Reviews were mixed. The game sits at 63 on Metacritic, with Pocket Gamer giving it 3 out of 5 and TouchArcade 2.5 out of 5. Almost everyone praised the graphics, which were sharp for a phone game of that time, yet the common view was that fights became repetitive and that the freemium model asked for too much grinding between new suits. People who enjoyed it tended to be Arkham fans who liked collecting the suits more than they liked the fighting itself.

Can You Still Get Arkham Origins Mobile On Android?

Batman: Arkham Origins Mobile is no longer available on Google Play, and Warner Bros. has not released a replacement or remaster. Its last updates date from 2014, and by 2021 it could no longer be downloaded on any platform. Warner Bros. never gave a public reason. The build is also old enough that it was never prepared for current 64-bit-only phones, so even an old copy may refuse to install on recent devices. The console and PC versions of Arkham Origins remain the way to play this story.