Alarm bells were ringing when the press release for Batman: Return to Arkham – the PlayStation 4 compilation featuring Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City – revealed that the remaster would be re-engineered using Unreal Engine 4. For those of you not intimately familiar with the development of the originals, Rocksteady used a heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3 for the trilogy.

Switching engines makes sense from a technical perspective, but the results according to the above comparison video are mixed to say the least. Virtuos, the Chinese team behind the Final Fantasy X/X-2 re-release, has really tweaked the artstyle, blowing out all of the colours and losing the original's grimy look in the process. Considering that the Arkham trilogy's gothic dressing is one of its primary selling points, that's a pretty big deal.

The studio's still got a few months left until release, so maybe the final product will come out swinging after all. Things aren't looking promising right now, though, eh?

[source youtube.com]