Arkham Origins (Full Cinematics) - Hard, No Upgrades or Shock Gloves - Part 8: Showdown at Blackgate

This is where the Shock Gloves restriction really hurts, and Bane is zero percent of the problem. This stretch of the game contains two of the most difficult combat encounters in the entire Arkham series back to back. While the fully upgraded Shock Gloves make an absolute joke of these fights, without them there's an extremely high risk of dying. The first fight at 0:40 is fairly dangerous itself. There are up to three guns, two Stun Batons, an Armored Thug, a Shield, and several minor melee weapons. You must pay careful mind to enemies retrieving guns or going for the Stun Batons, specifically. One of the guns starts in the open so I can use the Disruptor on it, but without upgrades I can't disable the Gun Racks. Fortunately I can use the nearby Propane Tank to take out the Armored Thug, making things slightly easier. 2:50 The closeup! Why! I've died before on I Am The Night mode in the area around 3:45, so this part of the game always gives me anxiety. It's so difficult to catch the full dialog at 6:10, which is a shame because it's kind of funny. This fight's easy, I don't even really count it. Yet somehow I manage to lose over half my lifebar here. I'm please with my route for the Predator section at 8:30. There's a lot of enemies here so having a tightly controlled route without Detective Vision wasn't easy, but using the Explosive Gel to take out several enemies at once greatly reduced the challenge. The first two enemies have to be taken down with very precise positioning in order for this to work out right. I was hoping to get 5 guys here but I only got 3 this time, so I burn a Smoke Pellet to clean up before they scatter, canceling Detective Vision's auto-activation with an attempted grapple. At 14:10 we reach the first real obstacle. This fight is tremendously tough. Two Martial Artists, two Shields, and one Knife present at the start, and an Enforcer joins halfway through. Combining these unit types is too chaotic without upgrades or Shock Gloves so I have to prioritize getting rid of the Martial Artists. I open by using the Remote Claw to distract one with a Fire Extinguisher, Ultra Stun the other, then burn a Smoke Pellet so I can use a Ground Takedown. Starting the fight this way greatly increases my odds of winning. Now I have to kill a single Martial Artist without killing too many other thugs first. This is easier said than done, as it's very difficult to get Batman to target a Martial Artist in a group this large. I guess he's trying to avoid getting countered, but it's super annoying when your goal is to down the Martial Artist first. I finally get him around 15:50, right as the Enforcer arrives. The game follows immediately with the next dreadful encounter at 18:45. An Enforcer, two Venom thugs, a gun and two knives at play, and a Martial Artist to boot! In practice runs I've actually had the Enforcer pin me to the wall while the gunner shoots me to death with my limited default health. The first priority is to reduce the Venom thugs to normal thugs with Instant Takedown, hopefully using the Enforcer to build quick combos. After this I'm trying to use more Instant Takedowns to finish other enemies, but Batman keeps targeting the Martial Artist with it because... of course he does. The Enforcer actually kills the Martial Artist for me at 20:00, otherwise I don't know if I would have won or not. Just an awful fight under these run conditions. The Bane fight at 22:48 is a rehash of his battle at the Royal Hotel, except you only have to do a single Instant Takedown to trigger his next bull rush. This actually makes things easier and I shouldn't have taken any damage here except I mistimed my first roll. The second phase at 25:00 is even easier. I can't avoid the Shock Gloves here as it's a story element, and it means I can just walk up to Bane and punch him freely. This renders the additional thugs widely irrelevant, although one does cost me another hit by turning my Dodge into a Redirect (it's still dumb how this works). TN-1 Bane at 29:20 can be an intimidating boss, but he's simple once you know one trick. He'll only start destroying grates if you perform a Grate Takedown on him. If you pop up and do Silent Takedowns instead, he'll let you do it ad nauseum. I didn't wind up using that approach here, but I'm sticking to the grates in general as it's very safe. I do manage a no damage TN-1 without Detective Mode, so I'm happy with that. Everything after 33:20 is pro forma, there are no threats after TN-1 Bane is beaten, as Gordon can kill Martial Artist with surprising ease. Joker's song is at 42:40 and the Deathstroke bonus scene is at 48:45, and a check of my final upgrade status at 49:49. 0:00 Blackgate Exterior 3:00 Blackgate Sewers 6:05 Blackgate Riot (Interior) 21:15 Bane 28:20 TN-1 Bane 35:00 Finale with Joker 41:45 End Credits