The Batsuit in Batman: Arkham Asylum
While brooding in his study over how to be a more effective crime fighter, Bruce Wayne saw a bat come through his window and perch on the bust of his father.
Seeing it as a sign and realizing that "criminals were a superstitious, cowardly lot," Bruce adopted the persona of a bat in order to conceal his identity and strike fear into his adversaries. It was a result of this incident that Batman was born.
Design
Bats are hunters, mysterious and unpredictable. They stalk their prey, observe intently, then swoop in to strike. Bruce must create the illusion that he is faster, stronger, and more powerful - even otherworldly.
Bruce assembled the first Batsuit from the Batcave and borrowed various parts from Wayne Enterprises. The suit was made from Kevlar with crematic padding over the chest, calves, arms, and back. Tear-Resistant with Kelvar Bi-Weave that could stop slashing weapons and protect against most firearms and reinforced joints that allowed flexibility and mobility. He designed a cowl-shaped helmet with graphing exterior housed Kevlar paneling, which made it impact resistant and protected the wearer from small-caliber firearms and concussive blows. An advanced eavesdropping device was concealed within the cowl's right ear and enabled Batman to listen in on conversations from a distance and was able to communicate to Alfred in the Batcave. He borrowed an experimental device from the WayneTech Applied Science Division called Detective Mode.
The cape was a memory cloth that was developed by Wayne Enterprises that had been shelved and never utilized. At first glance, it looked like a simple, flexible fabric. Nylon on the outer layer was like a parachute, but when a current was applied the loose molecules realigned and became rigid, which allowed him to glide over long distances, Additionally the material was water and fireproof and the winged tips could be used to disorient foes in combat. Black ballistic combat gloves reinforced knuckles with brass and Kevlar, that also contained 3 custom made gauntlets that were used to block knives and other slashing weapons.
Inside the gauntlet was a mini computer linking to the Batcomputer that was capable of summoning the Batwing, criminal files, maps and was able to locate anyone in Gotham City. A Utility Belt with magnetized holding pouches to carry his gadgets and other weapons non lethal he finds useful, and Ballistic shinguards and black combat boots with steel toe tips.
Bruce later designed a lighter suit from the WayneTech Applied Science Division that afforded good protection along with being more flexible and allowed him to be more agile so he could focus more on combat and stealth.
Becoming a veritable tech armor designed to enhance and support his abilities as Batman, as Bruce's career as Batman continued, he evolved and updated the suit to keep ahead of the technology in the streets of Gotham, using the resources of Wayne Enterprises to do so. Eventually the suit itself became a kind of totem and symbol for himself and others, an example of the realm of darkness defending the realm of light - the aptly named Dark Knight.
Once faced with the treat of the Scarecrow's attack on Gotham, Batman realized he needed to be faster and more mobile out in the field. Lucius Fox then sent him a new suit that increased his speed and mobility, but also increasing his tolerance to impacting forces. Lucius constructed this new suit with tri-weave titanium fibers, with flexible liquid armor plates on top. The benefits of this suit not only allow Batman to be faster and more agile, but it also allows Batman to survive the G-Forces applied to his body when ejecting out of the Batmobile. Additionally if the suit wasn't capable of withstanding a gunshot and actually wounds Batman, suit would compress around the wound and stop the bleeding as revealed by Robin.
Gameplay
Batman: Arkham Origins
The Batsuit in Arkham Origins
The Batsuit could be upgraded with XP in Combat Armor and Ballistic Armor. See Arkham City Section for more.
Cold Cold Heart
Batman started out using the Arkham Origins Batsuit, but switched to the XE Suit after realizing that he would need a more armored Batsuit to take on the likes of Mister Freeze. It had heating on some of the areas of the suit.
Arkham Asylum
The Batsuit could be upgraded with XP through the WayneTech upgrades menu. There were 4 upgrades in total, each upgrade increased Batman's maximum health by 25%, for a total increase of 100%. This meant that buying all the upgrades increased Batman's health to 200%, doubling his resistance to damage. The suit's design was based off the Animated series.
- Armor Upgrade 1: Military grade spun para-aramid fibers molded into the Batsuit chest piece provided greater protection from attack.
- Armor Upgrade 2: Super lightweight Nano-engineered polymer plating incorporated into the Batsuit created a more resilient outer shell.
- Armor Upgrade 3: Ultra-strong micro plating developed by Waynetech, layered between the regular armor and the undersuit provided further protection.
- Armor Upgrade 4: When the Batsuit's armor was soaked in a top-secret prototype formula developed by Lucius Fox at Waynetech, its durability and protection was greatly increased while retaining full movement and flexibility.
Following the completion of the game's story mode, an alternate Armored Batsuit could be chosen in the Challenge Mode.
Arkham City
The Batsuit's upgrade menu had 2 sections: the Combat Armor decreasing damage from hand-to-hand combat, and the Ballistic Armor decreasing damage from firearms. Both could be upgraded up to 4 times and the settings for it were both reasonable and plausible. This was the same for Arkham Origins.
Nine months later, it held a holographic screen projector in the right gauntlet; however, unlike the Knight suit's version, the projection was in black and white rather than color.
Batman: Arkham City Lockdown
Alternate Batsuits were available for Batman: Arkham City Lockdown, with each suit possessing a varied balance of Health, Damage and Speed. Players could choose which suit most fitted their combat style.
- Arkhamverse Batsuit - Health 100, Damage 100, Speed 100
- Batman: The Animated Series Batsuit - Health 90, Damage 120, Speed 100
- The Dark Knight Returns Batsuit - Health 135, Damage 110, Speed 90
- Batman Beyond Batsuit - Health 80, Damage 80, Speed 115
- 1970's Batsuit - Health 85, Damage 70, Speed 120
- Earth One Batsuit - Health 100, Damage 130, Speed 85
- Bruce Wayne - Health 60, Damage 70, Speed 110
- Batman Incorporated Batsuit - Health 145, Damage 90, Speed 100
- Batman: Year One Batsuit - Health 70, Damage 125, Speed 95
The Batsuit (V8.03) from Batman: Arkham Knight
Batman: Arkham Knight
Batman starts by using a modified version of his suit from Arkham City, with the inclusion of a holographic screen projector in the right gauntlet, allowing Batman to communicate with Oracle and other allies face-to-face.
Upon request, Lucius Fox delivers the "Batsuit Version 8.03", an advanced suit designed with flexible plates overlaying a MR-fluid (magnetorheological fluid) armor layer, and incorporating the latest in cutting-edge technology.
The tri-weave bodysuit consists of an outer and inner layer made from a titanium-dipped tri-weave fiber mesh, with the MR-fluid based liquid body armor sandwiched in between. The proprietary WayneTech Smart MR-fluid hardens in response to impact, providing superior shock absorption and allows for greater force to be put into counterattacks. The liquid body armor layer is also more flexible than ceramic or fiber-based alternatives used in previous suits, allowing for greater maneuverability to facilitate quicker elimination of multiple targets in quick succession (Fear Takedowns). The suit's subsystems are symbiotically integrated with the Batmobile, allowing for quick launch using the vehicle's electromagnetic eject mechanism (analogous to projectile launch from a rail gun). The suit is designed to withstand up to 6gs of acceleration, which increases navigational capability by allowing high acceleration manoeuvers without risk of injury (vis-a-vis gliding, grapnel boosting, and high-speed ejection from the batmobile).
In addition, the Batuit v8.03 incorporates the aforementioned holographic projector, as well as the ability to remote control the Batmobile using haptic controls mounted on the gauntlets. The gauntlets themselves possess retractable blades and sensors that work in conjunction with Detective vision to analyze foreign samples and upload data to remote sites
Note: Magnetorheological (MR) fluids are 1 of 2 types of liquid body armor currently undering development in real-life; the other being shear-thickening fluids (STF) (aka Dilatants - a class of non-Newtonian fluid). More about liquid armor here
In the case of the Batsuit v8.03, the WayneTech Smart MR-fluid layer will consist of iron nanoparticles suspended in an oily liquid. This leaves the armor flexible in normal use, but when an electrical current is applied to circuits running throughout the armor, the resulting magnetic fields re-aligns the iron particles and hardens the armor to protect batman from impacts. Interestingly, the Batsuit's liquid armor is stated to harden on impact not via electrical current, a property of dilatants (see above) not MRFs. The likely explanation is that the suit incorporates piezoelectric/piezomagnetic elements that generate magnetic fields when forcefully struck (or when forcefully striking).
Gallery
Trivia
Hoax Zorro "Batsuit"
- The Batsuit in Knight resembles the armored suit in both Asylum and the Armored Edition of City.
- The developers of the game made it so that the owners of the PC Batman: Arkham Asylum could alter the color appearance of the Batsuit, enabling players to create their own varieties of Batsuits to use in the game.
- The Batsuit is an obtainable item at the Xbox Avatar Marketplace. The suit costs 400 Microsoft Points.
- To show the brutality of the environment in Asylum and City, the Batsuit gets cut, shot, and torn, at various points in both games.
- In City, Catwoman's suit also got torn, cut, and shot in a similar fashion.
- The Batsuit in Origins, however, would only receive scrape marks on the gauntlets due to its much heavier armor.
- The grey utility belt in Origins might be a reference to the one in Batman: Year One.
- The Sinestro Corps Batsuit for Batman: Arkham City was free to download when you purchased a copy of Green Lantern on Blu-ray exclusively at Best Buy. This was an exclusive for the PS3 version of the game. However, with the release of the Costume Pack for Arkham City downloads, all suits had universal availability.
- During Batman: Arkham City's release, a falsified rumor was generated of a Zorro-esque skin for Batman being available. It was later found to be a hoax.
- If counting only the main suits within the Arkhamverse canon, the Extreme Environment suit, in Cold, Cold Heart, was the only Batsuit that had white lenses in the cowl by default, which gave Batman the traditional "white eyes" (as opposed to the other suits where the lenses only appeared white-eyed in Detective Mode), mostly commonly seen in Batman: The Animated Series..
- In Knight, Batman starts out with the Batsuit from City and later upgrades to the Batsuit Version 8.03.