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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. 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. 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.From 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 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. 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.
Of course, Rocksteady adds much more to the equation on its own. 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). The seamless nature of the animation system, with its single camera swoops to and from the Batmobile cockpit, also deserves huge credit. 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.
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