REVIEW
batman : return
There is little doubt that the Arkham games are some of the best gaming experiences that last generation had to offer . With a 92 and 96 on Metacritic respectively , 2009 ’ s Arkham Asylum and 2011 ’ s Arkham City received widespread critical acclaim from both gamers and Batman fans alike , thanks to developer Rocksteady ’ s superb polish and the games ’ outstanding voice cast , storytelling , and combat system . Last week saw the release of Return to Arkham ; a remastered collection of these two games which includes all of their DLC , and the promise of updated visuals making use of the superior specs of current-gen hardware .
The first major update by Virtuos , the development team behind the remastered collection , was porting both games from Unreal Engine 3 over to Unreal Engine 4 . This is relatively uncommon for the remastered space , as other re-releases ( such as the Bioshock Collection ) continue to use their original engines , just with updated graphics , 1080p resolution , and an improved frame rate . to arkham
The main changes you will see in Return to Arkham are favoured towards improved graphics rather than improved performance . Updated character models are the most notable difference , specifically , the textures of their clothing and skin . While their hairstyles are still pretty stiff and unnatural looking , the clothing textures of characters now show significant detail – you can even identify fabric types on an insignificant , deceased security guard . Batman himself looks incredible , with his suit , cowl and cape all looking their best .
Unreal Engine 4 also brings with it updated lighting , with noticeable changes in the colouring of cutscenes , lighting models , and the overall mood of both games . While this lighting is technically better , its effect can be a little hit or miss throughout the games . There are improved shadows and reflections , but the brighter atmosphere can reveal other graphical shortcomings , and at times can be conflicting with the dark and gritty aesthetic we ’ ve come to associate with the series . Again , this is most noticeable on the character models , which are sometimes so vibrant that they can look out of place amongst their surroundings . While overall , the improvements made to graphics are welcome , they may have been at an expense to the games ’ performance . Frame rate looks to be an issue for both Asylum and City , with City ’ s performance on PS4 hovering around 30-35fps , with performance spikes from around 20fps up to
60fps . Asylum differs in that it has a 30fps cap , yet still experiences performance stuttering at certain points throughout the game .
The increased computing power of current-gen hardware has at least improved the loading time for Asylum . Walking through automatic doors around the island ( particularly the ones that scan you in the Penitentiary ) used to bring gameplay to a halt as the game repeated animations until the next area loaded . Now , these transitions are near flawless and Asylum experiences very minimal loading times . When a game gets remastered for a newer console , I think it ’ s reasonable to assume that the better specs will see an improvement in performance over the original game running on older hardware . Unfortunately , this does not appear to be the case with Return to Arkham . While there are definitely improvements in some areas , ultimately the game runs best in its original PS3 and Xbox 360 state . While I ’ m very thankful for this rerelease ( Asylum is my favourite game of all time ), I ’ m somewhat confused why they ’ ve decided to remaster the series if it was not going to reach a decent performance .