Batman: The Enemy Within is the second season from the Telltale series and it’s an interesting story where Bruce Wayne has to work undercover. Episode 3 continues Wayne’s undercover mission as he has to find out what the group of villain’s true intentions are. Things are not easy because Catwoman has joined the party too!
Bear in mind, some spoilers about previous episodes will be discussed here as I talk about episode 3. Anyway, episode 3 is called ‘Fractured Mask’ and it came out earlier this week. Despite the game being called ‘Batman: The Enemy Within’, this episode further solidifies it should have been called ‘Bruce Wayne: The Enemy Within” instead.
Most of episode 3 is Bruce Wayne hanging out with Catwoman and/or Joker as they try and help out Harley Quinn locate The Riddler’s backsite location. Bruce Wayne has to find out why Harley Quinn and the villains are so obsessed with The Riddler’s plan without blowing his undercover position.
There are a few good moments in this episode mainly because you are forced to make some tough decisions. Since both Bruce Wayne and Catwoman aren’t really villains, the player has to decide who the real mole of the team is. You also have to defend (or not defend) a henchman that saves Bruce Wayne from being exposed by Harley Quinn.
Despite the back and forth interaction between the villains and Bruce Wayne, ‘Fractured Mask’ offers little when it comes to action and becoming The Batman. The first episode still remains to be the best one of season 2 as you were able to battle The Riddler and solve a lot of mysteries as Batman in full costume. Ever since episode 1 ended, episode 2 and now episode 3 just focuses too much on Bruce Wayne.
It sometimes gets boring playing as Bruce Wayne all of the time since he’s not allowed to do much that will blow his cover. You only get to be Batman for a few minutes in this new chapter, but there aren’t many action sequences included here. You’re pretty much just only finding clues to where this Blacksite location is and what’s the purpose of it.
That said, I did enjoy some of the controversy and sticky situations that Bruce Wayne is able to get himself into. I opted to act like a real douchebag to Commissioner Gordon that led to him arresting Wayne for assisting the villains. Thankfully, Amanda Waller was there to save Wayne’s butt from being put into jail but this is just only a few highlights I liked about episode 3.
However, the episode doesn’t offer too much when it comes to story progression. It seems as if most of the clever ideas and suspense was all used up in the first episode. Most of the gameplay here in episode 3 just revolves around Bruce Wayne investigating and finding clues. There’s no epic boss fights or stealth missions here like in the exciting first episode.
The third episode also ends on a cliffhanger so you will have to play/download the remaining two episodes in order to find out what happens next. Hopefully the final two episodes are more exciting as I miss actually playing as Batman. It’s kind of getting boring playing as Bruce Wayne for two straight episodes!
Verdict
Sadly, Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 3 ‘Fractured Mask’ continues to go downhill from the exciting first episode. Even though I like the amount of villains featured in this season, nothing really interesting happens thanks to Batman not being able to appear. The cliffhanger suggests things are about to change in the last two episodes so hopefully they feature more action sequences for Batman to finally kick some more butt.
[Editor’s Note: Batman: The Enemy Within was reviewed on PS4 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
