And then when we finally got our hands on the hardware, he was like 'Yeah, no worries, I always knew it was going to be this way'." In an interview with marketing director Dax Ginn, he explains: "our tech guys - and especially our lead engine coder Dustin, he was building an engine that was a prediction of the horsepower that he thought the consoles. In Rocksteady's case, the indications are that the team hedged its bets correctly from the start, and the pay-off has been huge this year. An absence of loading screens also sets it apart from last-gen hardware, where RAM proved a limitation in streaming open-world environments - particularly as dense as this rendition of Gotham.īut how has Arkham Knight proven such a solid fit for current-gen hardware? Bearing in mind the specs for PS4 and Xbox One were largely a mystery to developers at the start of development in 2011, some guesswork was needed.
The seamless nature of the animation system, with its single camera swoops to and from the Batmobile cockpit, also deserves huge credit. The scale of Gotham City is unlike anything we've seen on the engine, as well as the procedural method to enemy encounters - cut-scenes that dynamically weave into play as you traverse the city (often inviting you to a new side-quest). Of course, Rocksteady adds much more to the equation on its own. Looking at the demo and final game side-by-side, the end result is uncanny in its similarities, especially in the use of lighting effects, point-light reflections, and the integration of Nvidia's Apex tech for cloth simulation across its characters. It's an approach that likely struck a chord at Rocksteady at the time, a team that in the same year had just wrapped up development of Arkham City and looked towards its next venture - seemingly too early to catch Unreal Engine 4's wave. But in playing the game this week, the evidence strongly suggests that Unreal Engine 3's impressive Samaritan tech demo in 2011 paved the way for many of the game's crowning technical achievements.įrom the city's crisp neon reflections and bokeh-dotted backdrops to the colour-shaded rain and smoke, the Samaritan teaser didn't just bring a spec feature-list, but a pretty close match for what would become Arkham Knight's final aesthetic. It's fair to say Rocksteady sized up each console's strengths well ahead of producing its first current-gen title, and it's paid off in one of the best Batman games we've seen in years. Despite the drama surrounding the PC release leading to its subsequent withdrawal, there's a sense of success in the console space as PlayStation 4 owners, and indeed those on Xbox One, get a superb rendition of Batman: Arkham Knight.
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