Apparently, it was raining in the original Batman: Arkham Asylum. I didn’t realize this, even with all of the graphics turned to max on my gaming PC. It’s this fully-realized Arkham that has everyone so excited for the upcoming remasters when most remastered games have felt like unnecessary cash grabs.
In retrospect, we really pushed last generation’s hardware beyond their capabilities for probably a half-decade before we graduated to the Xbox One and PS4. The framerate comparisons in the side-by-side looks at these, new, perfect Arkham games compared to the originals are just sad, and I was someone who played them on a somewhat beefy gaming rig. We know that these games were never optimized well for PC, but they also were the go-to titles to show off whatever tech Nvidia had up their sleeve.
Now we’re here, with the Arkham series finally represented in developer Rocksteady’s vision, and they look great. It’s also a look at how far we’ve come. I replayed these games just last year, and I was still impressed despite the original game coming out over seven years ago. Now, these games have been polished and given a facelift that puts them right alongside Arkham Knight, and I can’t wait to go back for a third playthrough to see if they’re more than just a pretty upgrade.