Remastered games at their core are supposed run better than the original game.
Return to Arkham was one of a few remasters that managed to actually perform worse, struggling to even hit a solid 30 FPS, let alone manage to hit the 60FPS target of the PC version. As a massive fan of the series itching to replay the classic games, I was bitterly disappointed like many others, especially considering the amount of work that went into moving the whole game to Unreal Engine 4.
On top of the poor framerate, there were numerous bugs and crashes as well as visual inconsistencies between character models with lighting also being unnecessarily bright in scenes. One thing was certain: the game was released in an unfinished state, but despite the hysteria online, it wasn’t all bad. A great deal of work had been put into the game to overhaul the look of open environments along with better overall textures and lighting. I personally thought it mostly looked good and had great potential.
It was crazy to me then with so much work that went into the game and a month later with no word on a patch. It seemed like no stability improvements were ever coming and I was ready to declare it gaming’s most disappointing remaster.
That was until last night when patch 1.02 was released.
Rough patch notes
– Fixes game crashes experienced by some players
– Additional framerate/performance optimisations
– PlayStation 4 Pro visual enhancements added
While vague at this time, I can confirm with a brief playthrough that both games seem to be running much better. We won’t fully know how much has changed until Digital Foundry are able to test the new build. It does seem highly doubtful everything has been fixed, but it’s at least good to know that work is being done for a remaster that deserved a great deal better.
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