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It's a sad fact that this generation's big releases are often playing catch-up on their promises post-launch - a "release now, fix later" mentality that developer Rocksteady thankfully doesn't appear to subscribe to in its excellent Batman Arkham Knight. Having played the PlayStation 4 review code extensively, we're pleased to see the game is set to launch in a very refined, polished state. As the finale to the Arkham saga, it's a superb production, but crucially it also turns in a slick, stable playing experience with solid performance on day one.A full analysis is under way, but in the meantime we can offer a quick, spoiler-free taster of in-game performance based on the PlayStation 4 version of the game (naturally, we'll cover all three versions next week). Full disclosure: footage here runs from a Sony debug unit, using code that Rocksteady is clearly comfortable handing to critics ahead of launch. As such, you'll likely spot a familiar Eurogamer name (amongst other production info) watermarked into our captures - Warner Bros was unable to provide clean code ahead of its embargo. Regardless, the analysis still paints a solid picture of what you can expect on release in a few days.
First off, in line with most open-world games this generation Arkham Knight is capped at 30fps, in this case backed by an adaptive v-sync. This works out nicely in practice: unlike the last-gen iterations of the series that used a similar setup, dips below 30fps on PS4 are relatively uncommon across the run of play. In effect, this means tearing only creeps in at exceptional points, such as heavy interplay with physics while driving the Batmobile. Thankfully screen-tear is also difficult to catch by eye even when it does flare up, owing to Gotham's darker colour palette.
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