Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has just confirmed that Arkham Asylum and Arkham City will re-release as Batman: Return to Arkham this July. These remastered bundle will become available for purchase on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles on July 26th.
With a retail price tag of $49.99, players will revisit or step into the dark world of Gotham for the first time throughout Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. Recreated using the Unreal Engine 4, these remastered titles come as the Game of the Year editions, which means all DLC related to these titles will be included. Two base games and all the DLC comes with it? $49.99 seems like a solid deal if every single DLC pack truly arrives with the bundle.
According to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, both games will receive improved visuals, along with updated character models and environments and a touch up to the games’ lighting, effects, etc.. Rocksteady Studios won’t be handling the remasters. Instead, video game developer Virtuos will take on the task of bringing these two monumental titles to the current gen. Virtuos has worked on remastered titles before such as Heavy Rain, Final Fantasy X/X-2, Fable Anniversary and more.
Both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City took the industry by storm, proving that in a time where superhero games were stagnant, all it took was the right developer to craft an exceptional experience. Rocksteady’s Arkham series (excluding Arkham Origins) has been used an an influence point for other developers since their releases and is considered to the best Batman games ever created.
Arkham Asylum originally released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC in 2009. The sequel also launched on the same consoles in 2010, in addition to Arkham City: Armored Edition available on Nintendo Wii U a year later.
Unfortunately, the prequel to Arkham Asylum, Arkham Origins, is not included in the bundle. This is probably because Origins was not developed by Rocksteady Studios but by Warner Bros. Games Montréal.
Return to Arkham will be available to players on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in July. No word on if a PC version is in the works.
