Much like Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Batman: The Telltale Series begins with a heist. It’s a solid hook, and it serves to set the stage for the struggles that Batman/Bruce Wayne will face throughout Episode One – Realm of Shadows. For a game that is titled Batman, the first episode is very much Bruce Wayne’s story, and the Caped Crusader seems like merely a tool through which his story is told.
At this point, the story of Batman has been told in so many different ways that it’s easy to think it would become stale. For some people, that’s certainly possible. What works for Telltale’s Batman is that is focuses on Bruce Wayne and the politics in Gotham City. Telltale wanted to create their own take on Batman, so the narrative isn’t tied to any existing iteration of Batman in any form of media. In fact, one iconic villain’s backstory is completely reworked.
Although Bruce and Batman are one and the same, it essentially feels like you are playing two different characters because the gameplay is different depending on who you are at the time. Bruce’s sections are filled with long conversations and difficult choices that will affect his relationships with other characters going forward, whereas Batman’s sections have intricate fight scenes (by Telltale’s standards) and crime scenes that need to be pieced together like you are a detective.
Because parts are divided up between Batman and Bruce Wayne, this does lead to some pacing problems. The opening and ending are riveting with fast-paced fighting as Batman, but the middle of the episode is much slower, setting up Bruce’s political maneuvers. About halfway through the game, there is even a Batman section which feels noticeably different from the others as all you are doing is detective work for most of it. Piecing together a crime scene is as simple as connecting a line from a dead body to the charred marks of an explosion on the floor. While a majority of the slower parts have tension filled conversations and mystery, they’re bookended by action scenes that don’t offer more than flashy fights until the very end.
I enjoyed my time as Batman, but being able to play as Bruce is where the episode shines. Bruce is a public face in Gotham, and Telltale starts off by putting him in a position to help Harvey Dent become mayor. Because so much is at stake, you need to be careful about what choices that you make. Do you let Bruce shake the hand of a known mobster in the presence of Gotham’s wealthy in order to help Harvey, or do you snub him and risk his anger? Every choice as Bruce had me questioning whether I was making the right decision or not. These choices can potentially make or break relationships, the ramifications of which are yet to be fully shown. I like knowing that my decisions have consequences and can affect the politics of Gotham, even if I don’t always know how they will unfold.
I appreciate Telltale’s effort to make a unique story so people won’t be able to predict what will happen to Batman this time around, this just left me feeling confused for a good portion of the episode. I couldn’t always tell where the story was trying to go. Not that I want to completely guess what happens, but there was no real direction until the ending which has a big revelation. As of now, it is hard to tell where Telltale will take the narrative and who will be made an outright villain or ally.
Playing a Telltale game always gives me a sense of trepidation, not because of the choices that I will need to make, but because many of their games run terribly. The issues caused by lag, freezing, and just painful animations were horrendous in their past titles. I’m quite happy to say that the problems that used to plague many of their games are not present in Batman, at least on Xbox One. There were still a few awkward animations here or there, but overall, Batman ran extremely well. Numerous times in other series such as Tales from the Borderlands or The Wolf Among Us, I would miss out on crucial decisions or QTEs because the screen would lag and take a few moments to catch up to the action. I never encountered this while playing Batman.
Summary
Batman: The Telltale Series still has a ways to go before it can prove that it can live up to its potential, but the first episode has the series off to a good start. The ending offers a fantastic twist that leaves me intrigued for where the story will go next, and I eagerly await episode two.
Jennifer is a games journalist, former games journalist and PR Manager at Gearbox. They contributed 234 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: went on to write for Windows Central and later managed PR for Gearbox Software.