Batman: Arkham Knight deserves a remaster after the failure of Gotham Knights

Gotham Knights was a complete disappointment from almost every angle. While a failure in itself, it was impossible not to compare it to Rocksteady’s fantastic Batman: Arkham Knight. This 2015 title put the rest of the series and set a high bar for all future DC games. Gotham Knights didn’t even come close to this bar and went on to point out how much Arkham Knight deserves a modest remaster to fill the void of DC games it left.

Part of the need for a modern re-release stems from the stunted PC version. It started out in such a terrible state that it was withdrawn from sale for over four months, and while it received a few updates, this port never quite got the care it deserved. Digital Foundry stated in 2019 that this version was still poorly optimized and only runs in a reasonably acceptable state, as modern machines can overcome some of their technical problems with brute force.

PC gamers deserve a cleaner version of the game, but console gamers would also benefit from a boost. Arkham Knight came out about a year and a half before the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, meaning it didn’t get any improvements from those half-stepping systems. Some last generation games can use their PS4 Pro and Xbox One X upgrades to run at higher frame rates or better resolutions when played on PS5 or Xbox Series X|S, helping to future-proof older games . However since Arkham Knight Never updated to support these mid-cycle consoles, the game is still limited to 30 frames per second and doesn’t even come close to playing Ultra HD resolutions.

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Arkham Knight would benefit from performance and resolution increases since the artistic direction and atmosphere are so solid. While faces can now look a bit wooden outside of cutscenes and some of the combat animations don’t always match, the detailed character models, vivid environments, and seamless transitions in and out of cinematics make up for it Arkham Knight still incredibly beautiful to look at today. His Gotham City is moody and beautifully lit by dozens of neon lights splitting through the fog and perpetual downpour. The skyline is filled with all sorts of elaborate buildings, while the streets are littered with thugs of all sorts of factions wreaking havoc to reflect the chaos of the story. Gotham Knights‘ Gotham City is dead in comparison and hardly has a personality of its own.

Gotham Knights‘ Gameplay is also flat and is yet another area in which Arkham Knight outshines it. Whereas Gotham Knights‘ Brawls are muddy, imprecise and rhythmless, Arkham Knight‘s combat simultaneously has finesse and meaty punches that sell Batman’s bone-crushing brutality. The cadence of countering, punching, using gadgets, and activating special moves to maintain a combo is engrossing as the non-stop onslaught of attacks forces the player to constantly act. The different enemy types combined with the number of abilities players have at their disposal dynamically mix to ensure no two fights ever feel the same. It’s as empowering as it is repeatable, and almost no team outside of Rocksteady has come close to hand-to-hand combat Arkham games; a void made even clearer by Gotham Knights.

His stealth is also empowering, but in a different way as Batman plays with his prey, using shadows and tricks to track them down. And while its tool set also gives players a ton of choices, stealth plays a more prominent role in the broader scope of the experience. Not many games have two equally brilliant gameplay pillars, and even fewer have two that work on opposite ends of the spectrum. Melee combat is frenetic and relies on reflexes, while sneaking is more tactical and thrives on tension. They balance each other beautifully and hence the Arkham Games have such an excellent pace. Many games are still not as multifaceted as this shows Gotham Knightswhich is a tedious drudgery due to its pointless combat, stealth, and RPG systems.

Batman: Arkham Knight is not only a remarkable video game that would benefit greatly from a modern coat of paint, but also an excellent Batman game, one that has been sorely lacking in the medium for the last seven years. Arkham Knight has already aged spectacularly well for the most part and would be vastly improved with some new accessibility options and modern tech upgrades as the foundation is still so solid and unique. Nvidia leaked a remaster of the game was supposedly coming, but unfortunately nothing was announced. Gotham Knights was a poignant reminder of Batman’s absence and his decline in gaming. AAnd since WB Games Montréal couldn’t build on Batman’s legacy, it would be nice to get a remastered version of his last great adventure while we wait even longer for a new one to come out.