Note that this article contains minor spoilers for Batman Arkham Origins Blackgate. Nothing that will impact your experience or the story itself, but read at your own risk.

UPDATE: Thanks to our member, kurtzislost, we've figured out this issue. When you're on the bottom/elevator floor as seen in the video, you can scan the ceiling of the pump room to find a weakened spot and blow it up, allowing you to get into the next room. We're just stupid. In our defense, it doesn't seem natural that there would be a passageway in that position. When you look at it from below, the holes are side by side East/West, but when above the holes, they shift to North/South. Regardless, we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. This is a widespread mistaken bug being reported around the internet, so we'll make sure to try to spread the word.

That being said, there is apparently a valid game-breaking bug later in the game. After defeating Black Mask, turning off the Vita or quitting the game after it autosaves will cause you to become stuck. To get around this, make sure to travel a few rooms after defeating him so the game autosaves in a new location.

Much like its big brother, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate has been met with a decidedly mixed reception. From our time with the game, however, we've been pleasantly surprised about the modern metroidvania style throwback and the excellent motion graphic novel cutscenes. Unfortunately, that came to a screeching halt around four hours into the game. Much like its kin, Blackgate is challenging; challenging enough that there are multiple times where you're not sure what to do and assume that the game must be broken in frustration before realizing there was ledge to grab onto all along.

In this particular instance, we assumed that's what we encountered. Thinking that our stupidity had got the best of us, we spent half an hour exhausting every possible option to get past an area only to finally concede and head to the internet for help. Upon researching the matter and reaching out to other players, it has become apparent that this is not simple bullheadedness, but indeed a game breaking bug. Here's why.

Near the end of the first map of the game, Industrial Complex, Black Mask must be chased down to retrieve a key card from a fallen engineer to restart the power in the area. After snagging the card, you must then backtrack to one of the first areas on the map and get the power back on. The map is fairly confusing as to how to navigate to already visited areas, so we did a little trial and error and naturally headed to the elevator. To get to the elevator, a water pump must be temporarily damaged to sneak past it. After doing this, we headed to the elevator to find it was still shut off and the previous alternate route had been disabled. We headed back to the water pump, only to find that it had turned back on. That wouldn't be a problem if it was able to be deactivated again, but unfortunately, it can't be from this side. No matter what you do and where you go, there is no way out once you find yourself in the area. The only solution? Delete your game save game and start from scratch.

Thankfully, this glitch can be avoided if you remember to not backtrack back to the water pump after grabbing the key card, but there is no way out for those who do. From our research, it seems that quite a few people have experienced this bug with no recourse but to start from the beginning.

Worse yet, we've heard unconfirmed reports of another game-breaking bug in further into the game.

In light of this situation, we've decided to hold off our review until the bug is fixed rather than judge the game based on its current broken state. We've reached out to Warner for comment and will keep you updated on the situation.