'Batman: Arkham Origins' Encounters Worst Enemy: Glitches

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Riddle me this, Batman! The latest 'Arkham' video game is riddled with glitches, particularly on the PC version.

Updated: On Oct. 31 developer WB Montreal released a patch that addressed some of the following issues, including the Burnley Tower glitch.

In the video game “Batman: Arkham Origins,” released Oct. 25, players are pitted against eight bloodthirsty assassins, a corrupt police force and legions of hired thugs.

But gamers' worst enemies by far are the technical glitches plaguing this otherwise strong and entertaining title. (The game sells for $59.99 on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.)

In many gaming message boards, players are complaining of enemies falling through walls, getting stuck in walls, and becoming abruptly impervious to Batman's attacks.

MORE: 'Batman: Arkham Origins' Review: Brilliance Outweighs Frustrations

The glitches appear to be both more numerous and more severe on PCs, where sometimes the game takes so long to start up that the computer thinks it has crashed, and displays a "program not responding" message.

The Burnley tower mess

For example, the optional mission at Burnley district comm tower is almost impossible to complete. This section of the game has to be completed to let players fast-travel to the Burnley district of Gotham City instead of walking (or gliding or swinging) across the sprawling map.

In the quest, Batman must break a glass windowpane in order to enter the tower, and then should be able to crawl up an air vent to access the tower's roof. However, after we tore off the vent's cover with the Batclaw and climbed up to it using the grappling gun, Batman simply dangled from the edge without ever going inside.

Trying to double back is no good either; Batman is unable to climb back out of the window through which he entered the room. Players will be forced to restart the game at their last autosave, and thenceforth will have to travel by foot or by grapnel whenever they need to visit the Burnely district.

But it gets worse. The game autosaves your progress at various points, and you can't make backups of previous save points. So it's possible, though unlikely, for the game to save while you're in the Burnley Tower room. That means you'll have no prior save point to return to, and your only recourse will be to restart the game entirely.  

Clever gamers like YouTube user KeinZantezuken have discovered a workaround for the Burnley Tower glitch by avoiding the first room entirely — but only by exploiting yet another glitch that launches Batman onto the tower roof.

MORE: 7 Game Boosters and Overclocking Tools

At the time of the posting, WB Studios, the publisher of "Batman: Arkham Origins," had not responded to our request for comment.

Email jscharr@techmedianetwork.com or follow her @JillScharr and Google+.  Follow us @TomsGuide, on Facebook and on Google+.

Jill Scharr

Jill Scharr is a creative writer and narrative designer in the videogame industry. She's currently Project Lead Writer at the games studio Harebrained Schemes, and has also worked at Bungie. Prior to that she worked as a Staff Writer for Tom's Guide, covering video games, online security, 3D printing and tech innovation among many subjects. 

15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ninjustin
    I like the game It's on par with the other Arkahm games but yeah that Burnley Glitch is something that should have never made it out the door. Did no one play the final code? The only other glitches I've noticed is the fact the Intro movies to the game sound all staticy but i believe this was the case in the pas games as well. Hopefully they'll patch it before the weekend because I'm right at the tower. I guess I could skip it but It would be nice to complete.
    Reply
  • SteelCity1981
    way to ruin a franchise this is just horrible. I can't believe this made it into production without any game developer noticing.
    Reply
  • baberarjumand
    I just finished the game, and there were some glitches here and there, but nothing to break the experience. I got stuck at the mentioned Burnley Tower glitch yesterday and I had to reload my previous autosave to get out of that room, but today I just wanted to try the Burnley Tower again and it went smoothly, no more Batman getting stuck there.

    There are a few glitches here and there, but nothing to the extent this article makes it out to be, it still is a very entertaining and satisfying experience.
    Reply
  • razor512
    Most modern games never have the single player campaign beta tested so it is up to the companies QA to spot these issues.

    PS many glitches can be countered using memory editors or trainers to simply change your characters location.
    Reply
  • weierstrass
    Those are not bugs, they are puzzles made to keep the game challenging.
    Reply
  • opmopadop
    To ninjustin : Its the same typical software house crap I see at my work.

    Day 1. Burnley quest; passed all QA, move on.
    Day 27. A different area of the game has a problem with climbing into the grate that was overlooked.
    Day 28. Rush to fix 'grate' problem found at the last minute.
    Day 29. Release... Oops, bug in Burnley quest that has flagged "passed" written all over the QA paper work. Drag everyone in the same room for some fun...
    Programmer blames tester for not testing his last minute fix properly. Tester blames programmer for not explaining that his 'fix' affected all the grates. Manager blames everyone because he is overworked (or lazy, pick your fav). yadiyadiyada

    During crunch time, people always rush, always assume, always blame someone else. Nothing different here.
    Reply
  • icepick314
    slow article...

    2 patches rolled out this week...

    first was for multiplayer and second for the single player glitches like Burnley Tower...
    Reply
  • icepick314
    "WB Montreal, the development studio, has not announced plans to release patches for the game, though it's likely that patches will come at some point in the near future."

    they did announce patch releases on Steam forum....
    Reply
  • timaahhh
    They finally fixed the Burnley tower glitch. There are a ton of issues with this game. One of the last missions you have to catch 20 Blackgate escapees one of them just clips through the map every time you try to apprehend him. I was finally able to catch this hacker though :). The first fight killer crock, is so full of glitches its almost unplayable. His character model flashes dark and light like a strobe light and drops the frame rate down to almost unplayable at times (though this glitch seems to happen to far fewer people). You think for the first fight in the game this would have been caught. The story and voice acting of this game even without Conroy and Hamill are freaking amazing.... The since of scale and actual size of the game are outstanding. The game is paced really well you can fly through it or take your time with the side missions. The mechanics more or less are unchanged, but since they are so good that's not a bad thing. Those freeking glitches though....
    Reply
  • rwpritchett
    Even after the patch, I'm still seeing the glitch where it's not letting Batman perform a glide kick on thugs while flying. Sometimes I can get it to work by alternating pressing the right and left mouse buttons, but it's supposed to be a single left-click and he locks on to target and goes after them.
    Reply