‘Batman: Return To Arkham’ Release Date Announced, No ‘Origins’ In Remastered Collection

The Batman: Return to Arkham release date is almost here. Warner Bros. Games’ collection is about to hit current-gen consoles with remasters of Batman: Arkham Asylum and City.

It seems Warner Bros. kept a tight lid on rumors during production and stayed silent ever since the announcement was leaked last year. For this reason, it was believed that the announcement was for vaporware (a term given to software which was never finished or released), and they had canceled the collection entirely.

Ever since the PlayStation 4 was released and the announcement was made that there wouldn’t be any backward compatibility due to hardware issues, remasters have been the only hope for fans who wanted to ditch their PS3 consoles but not the games. The Last of Us was the first of a long and slow release schedule where developers brought games from previous consoles over. We have to buy them again, but it’s usually at a discount.

The Batman: Return to Arkham release date will continue that trend set by titles such as Dishonored, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Prototype, the Resident Evil series, and the recently announced Dead Island. Unlike Prototype, Batman: Arkham Asylum and City are getting an updated look so it’s cleaner and more crisp, taking full advantage of the current-gen consoles’ capabilities. For a price similar to the Dead Island Definitive Collection, Warner Bros. Games is giving us the two titles that proved the superhero genre profitable and worth the attention of more than just comic book fans.

When the Batman: Return to Arkham release date hits on July 26 for $49.99, we will be getting upgraded versions of these classics. There won’t be a remaster of Batman: Arkham Origins, however.

Considered the low point of the series and having not been developed by Rocksteady Games, Origins went back in time and tried to explain how it all started. Unfortunately, it was riddled with problems such as basic combat mechanics, which didn’t work like they should, and a multiplayer option that only drew attention to its biggest weakness. It also altered the way Joker and Harley Quinn met. For completionists, there were playable sound files that explained this, and Origins ignored them entirely.

The announcement of this remastered collection also answers the question of why the Batman: Arkham games hadn’t been made backward compatible on Xbox One. It appears that Warner Bros. Games had planned this and kept the rumors silenced until now.

Fans can only hope that the Batman: Return to Arkham release date doesn’t come riddled with glitches, as Rocksteady handed development for the remasters to Virtuous, the studio behind Heavy Rain and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Rocksteady Games handled development for the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight, and it was so bad on release that they literally had to recall and re-release it.

Thankfully, there haven’t been any noticeable remasters gone wrong on the PlayStation 4. They have mostly been faithful to the source, right down to the details, and that is where games like Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City shined. The details let the fans know that the developers did their research and gave the games a backstory far beyond what the game’s main story offered.

Hopefully, those details will be maintained on the Batman: Return to Arkham release date. All of the DLC will be included in the remasters of these classic titles with “game of the year” bonuses included. No PC release has been announced, so that might put a slight damper on this collection.

The Batman: Return to Arkham release date is what many gamers have been waiting for, and it’s almost here.

[Image via Warner Bros. Games]