Batman: Arkham Knight

Well, after the many delays and some heavy anticipation on its shoulder, the Dark Knight has returned. The fourth (and possibly final) entry in the Arkham series that began 6 years ago has finally arrived. So does Rocksteady delivery the climatic finale we so crave for? Does Arkham Knight live up to all the hype?

Well, that depends on what system you bought it for. I’ll get to that later.

The game itself, at its core, remains the same as what you’ve experienced in previous entries, with many upgrades and new features layered over them. Whether it’s stealing enemy weapons and using them against your opponents, or tagging up with Batman’s allies in a fight (including Catwoman, Robin and Nightwing) or getting the drop on multiple enemies from above with a Fear Takedown. Arkham Knight introduces a multitude of new layers to almost every aspect of the game.

As is standard for the Arkham series, you aren’t just against one super-villain. While Scarecrow and the mysterious Arkham Knight take centre stage for the main story, many faces will show themselves in this game, with the likes of Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Riddler, and so on, with a few surprises both friendly or otherwise in store. Overall, the game once again serves up an ensemble cast running the gamut of the Bat’s history.

Even though much has been added into this entry, some things have been unfortunately reduced. Of particular mention is the Riddler’s Challenges and the ability to play as Batman’s allies. In the case of the challenges, they have been replaced by an array of AR Challenges, and the amount available in the base game compared to the last two entries is rather small. Also in the last two Arkham games, you could play as other characters in these challenges, but that is completely gone now. Your only opportunity to play as the other characters is either in Tag Team Battles, which are only found in specific points in the story, or to fork out more money for the side stories that feature these characters.

Speaking of the side story DLC, most players will have access already to the Harley Quinn story, which came with most pre-orders. However what is offered is little more than a few battles and progression through a small area only to reach Nightwing as a boss fight. Sadly it’s over in less than an hour. Not a good sign for those who have already forked out for the £33 season pass.
Overall though, this doesn’t need DLC to justify itself. By its own merits, Arkham Knight is a great game, one that redeems the series after the let-down that Origins was. It’s not perfect, but does it need to be? The Arkham series is still one of the best superhero videogame series available, and this game closes out the story in style. I would hope, however, that this series does indeed end with this entry, as where else can it go? Rocksteady have already said that they are finished with the series, and if Origins proved anything, only they can do it justice. So let’s enjoy this last moment of glory with Batman and his friends, and then see what Rocksteady have for us next.

If you own a PS4 or an Xbox One, you can stop reading here. Now, about that PC version…

Well, what can I say that wasn’t already stated outright by others? My setup consists of 2 GTX 970’s and an i5 CPU, and it struggles with any long-distance travelling, be it via gliding, or the Bat-Mobile. But that’s just the start for a lot of people, as many are complaining about the locked frame rate (30fps). You can unlock it by going into the ini settings, but doing this causes frequent lockups and crashes. And if you don’t have a crazy setup, then it will only get much worse, as the game runs badly on even its minimum requirements, and even worse if you are the unlucky owner of an AMD card. In short, it’s bad. Really bad.

Now for their part, Rocksteady/WB Games have withdrawn the game from sale on Steam (for now) while they attempt to fix the problems, but time will tell if they not only fix the serious performance issues, but bring the game itself up to a PC gaming standard. At a time when Witcher 3, a game which boasts even crazier graphics capability, runs far smoother, this isn’t really an acceptable standard. Here's hoping that they come through so that PC players can enjoy this great game how it was meant to be played, and not as an unfinished port.

This title was reviewed on PC