Soapbox: It's The Port I've Dreamed Of, But Can Switch Deliver The Batman We Need?

The cartridge is the stuff of nightmares though.

These are PS3 games... let's just relax

Batpoll, I see what you did there!

Arkham Asylum and City, sure. We'll see how well it handles Knight. Personally I think that it will run decently enough.

If Doom Eternal can run flawlessly and with awesome motion controls, all games don’t need to render long distances since you’re almost always surrounded by buildings. There is a s no excuse if this game doesn’t run well. There are some great ports on Switch already, so they’d better not dare mess up 🆙 ne of the most anticipated titles I’ve been waiting for for ages!!!!!

It's only Knight that really should pose a problem. But if Witcher 3 can run well enough on Switch it should be doable (isn't Witcher 3 an open world game too?).

I've played them all But if the ports are decent then I will love to play them all again.

Be interesting to see how the Switch handles the open world in the last batman game.

Asylum could work, really well actually. City on the other hand is a big detailed open world and switch struggles with those (even first party took resolution is poor in many areas). Arkham knight.. I have no idea how this will work, this thing chugged on the ps4. We'll see what magic they can work.

I played through Asylum completely; never played Knight and only briefly played City. So I'm interested in this collection just for that alone. Even if the latter two games are downloads, it's not as if I was going to buy them on disc for PS4 anyway. Hope it all works out.

I'm hopeful for the sheer fact that they didn't even need to port over Arkham knight, they could have just ported over asylum and city and batswitch fans still would have been pumped so they must be confident in what they have achieved.

Speaking of Arkham asylum and city, these two games could be the definitive versions on console. The return to Arkham games don't look all that good in my opinion and from what I've heard turn me up games are using the original versions as the template for their ports so if they manage to add a bit of spit and polish and a stable frame rate we could have something special coming our way.

I adore this series and would likely replay the whole thing again. Despite finishing it three times already.

This and Mass Effect are big games I feel I could revisit for years and years.

If they pull off the port I will be really happy.

I definitely think at least Asylum and City will be very good ports especially given City's Wii U port was very well received. Could see it go either way with Knight though.

We can hope but I'm assuming it will look more like Blockman than the Bat.

Tony Hawk's 1 + 2 on Switch is passable but not spectacular technically. If this is the same team, be prepared for low resolutions and low detail in order to target that 30fps, rather than code wizardry. Especially if they are pushing out 3 games at once...

So after seeing other early PS4 games like Alien Isolation get not only decent ports but in some way better versions thanks to newer techniques developers have learned since then I am optimistic but Knight is still going to be a big ask.
The bigger concern for me is hoping the first two games are based on the original UE3 PC versions so they look and run smoothly. The Virtuos Return to Arkham UE4 ports while looked nice changed things artistically but worse there was something off in the controls. This made it harder to reliably string combos together and just felt a little wrong while playing. Like there was something tiny but crucial missing.
I hope this is a definitive collection as the series deserves that as do Batfans and given we don't know how Suicide Squad will turn out it'll be nice to celebrate Rocksteady's best achievements.

Personally, I don't have any desire to play any of the Batman: Arkham games again. I've already 100% completed all of them, and every one of them I played more than once. But for those that haven't got the opportunity to play these gems, they are fantastic games and well worth a playthrough. Especially if you enjoy Batman villains and storylines. As for how the Batman: Arkham Knight Port will run, I am pretty curious to see it myself. But I won't be purchasing the game, I'll just be looking for feedback from other people that will be purchasing it.

@Sequel Arkham City worked on WII U ages ago, now developers have more experience and Switch is more powerful than Wii U so there should be no issue for the first two games. Even Knight should run fine-dark environment and small corridors// streets with no need to render distant areas most of the time. Tears of the Kingdom is marvel in this regard, so I see no issues.

@Rika_Yoshitake Only the first two. That's what's worrying about Arkham Knight, which was on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Origins and Arkham City looked great on the Wii U. My only gripe again is Orgins exclusion. Day one purchase. About damn time!

I’m not interested. I mean I’m already overwhelmed by the amount of yet unplayed games in my switch library.

My first experience to the Arkham series was Arkham City on Wii U. Yep, Wii U. If it could work there, I don’t see why the Switch can’t. Bring on the Batman!

I hope it includes the Armored Version like the Wii U exclusive edition. The TouchPad would be choice!

As previously mentioned; Doom Eternal. Switch has the hardware it just needs the devs. Would dream of a special/deluxe remaster. 3 games, ton of goodies, steel-book maybe? Fingers crossed.

Asylum might be fine, not too hopeful on City and Knight. The City port runs abysmally a lot of the time on PS4 and Xbox as it is - top of my head I've had semi-frequent crashes, necessary-to-beat enemies getting stuck in walls, one time the Bane sequence completely skipped the fight, once the game never loaded in the closeup models so everything looked like Mario 64 (then it crashed).. If they can get it working well it'll be very impressive.

@Moonvalley How mature and constructive.

Asylum and City should be fine but i doubt Knight will look good or run well on it.

@Rika_Yoshitake - Right, a lot seem to think the genre of open world games are new and the Switch cannot simply make them work.

They're all 10 years old ultimately. Other than sheer laziness, what could stop the team from optimizing that code even a little bit?

@shgamer Why do people fall on it can run TW3 card all the time? Knight is way more demanding then TW3, TW3 is largely made up of big "empty" forests, hills and grasslands with one or two taxing city areas. Knight though has thick heavy rain, a huge dense city, big draw distances, tons of detailed destruction, insanely detailed character models and textures, fast paced Batmobile combat and driving, insanely fast combat and far more. Knight could pass as an early PS5 title if not for the 30fps framerate and low resolution.

@KnightofNi_ Doom runs on a powerful engine that scales to anything plus the Switch is ugly as hell and is not worth the trade off. Finally Knight is more advanced, more dense and more demanding then Doom.

@WallyWest I didn't say it could be done without compromises (plus it is also a matter of how much effort - read money and time - Warner is prepared to put into it - Knight wasn't the best in the series - too combat heavy imo).

@shgamer as someone who finished the Witcher 3 on Switch, the price we paid to make it run on it isn't worth it.

@Rayquaza2510 - Honestly, speak for yourself. Cause I still had my fun with it, and I wasn't going to lug around my monster of a PC to have the graphics top notch to play it on.

And people are giving Knight WAYYY too much credit, only reasonable argument is the engine it runs on isn't as flexible, even then, compromises can be made.

I loved Asylum but found City extremely boring.
If all games were in the cartridge I would consider buying this, now I have no interest.

The first two games I think will be fine, it’s knight that I’m worrried about lol.

It's staggering how often the 'loved the first two but never played or finished the third' comment comes up. The file size is my major question. The confirmation that only AA would be on the cartridge doesn't base well. It would take some grandiose optimization to get that 90g file of AK down to something reasonable. I have little doubts the Switch can run it with a locked 30/720 while docked. Anything above that is wishful thinking. Expect a Witcher 3 level of performance. 540 unlocked. Hopefully this is proven wrong.

@Gryffin "The Switch wishes it were was good as the Wii U..." Haha good one. The 3rd best selling console in the entire gaming industry wishes it were as good as one of the biggest failures in Nintendo's gaming history apparently? Clearly the Switch doesn't need wishful thinking

I was really interested in this, until I read the details about the 'physical' edition 😒

@WallyWest Well I did vote “cautiously optimistic” 😂 That said you could fill a book with all the games that, at least I thought would never make it to the switch. Top of my head:

Switcher (CDPR) is still absurd for making this work
Rocket League
Skyrim (full)
Subnautica + BZ
Easy Red 2
Dying Light
Wolfe 2
Doom Eternal
The Outer Worlds
No Man’s Sky
Ghostrunner
Journey to the Savage Planet

So either I’m easily impressed or this is happening. Or both.

Yeah, Asylum and City should easily run on Switch just fine. It's Knight that needs some serious optimization...but hey Switch is the home of the "miracle port," so, we'll see.

Not worried about the first two games at all, they're both PS3 games. Only poor optimization from the port studio could ruin these ports, but the same studio ported over the Borderlands games, so I think we're good there.

Arkham Knight is the only real concern here. But I think they can pull off a Dying light or Witcher 3 situation. If that's the case, it'll be fine.

I'm just interested in the first two. Knight was gorgeous but it seemed bloated.

wat ticks me off is that they put the first game on cartridge while the second one is download only which i call laziness seriously the third one i would agree to be downloadable but not having the second game on the same cartridge is a hard pass for me.We shouldnt be giving money to certain devs who takes the lazy route theres no excuses at this point.

@Gryffin wen it comes to lazy ports thats not the switch fault it falls on the dev squarely especially if their being this lazy.

And why shouldn't Switch deliver a trio of Gen 7 to early Gen 8 games? At least short of optimization going south, but that's a wild card on any platform out there.

City on PS4 is bad, unlocked framerate, it plays worst than the PS3 version and it was never patched. Knight still looks great, and though I didn't enjoy it as much as the other two games, I'll be really suprised to see it running well on Switch. I also liked Origins a lot and its a shame to see it skipped again.

So, with two PS360 games and a PS4-XBone game, I’m hopeful that the latter will work out as well as it did on the PS4 at least. I am expecting the first two games to translate well. I love and have played those Batman games (and PS3 Batman Arkham Origins / Oranges ) and would love to have them in handheld mode on the Switch in the same way I love playing Assassins Creed in that fashion.

It’s not my first rodeo with these games and economically, why should I double dip, but I’m very tempted to buy this and play them in handheld mode IF they all run okay.

I’m optimistic

I'm exactly the same type of Batfan (5/10).

@Rika_Yoshitake The first two are, tho it’ll likely be a port of the PS4 versions. Knight was always PS4. That complicates matters.

@Rika_Yoshitake actually they are probably doing the ps4 and Xbox one, return to Arkham versions, so no these are not the ps3 versions.

@Gryffin Tl;dr You don’t like the Switch so it’s a failure.

@dskatter plus the versions of asylum and city are probably the ps4, and Xbox one so I would think. Plus the switch would have the most recent patches for the ps4 games which could run better than ps4, Xbox, because those don’t always run consistently.

There have been so many better ways to play this for years what is the point?

@Audiogore0733 True. I keep hoping for an Arkham Knight PS5 patch to unlock 60fps, but I doubt it’ll ever happen at this point.

@Synthatron_Prime More games for more players is always good.

@KnightofNi_ Some of those bad ports, some have been scaled so much they shouldn't have been ported and most are not on the level of what Knight is.

@Audiogore0733 Dude the Switch is far weaker then the PS4, almost nothing on it runs better then the X1 versions yet alone PS4. Also reports are saying the Switch is getting the original PS3/360 versions not the remastered last gen versions.

@Znake Doom Eternal runs great on Switch, but it most certainly does not run flawlessly, not by any stretch of the definition.

@JackieCMarlow I finally shed the game twice on both ps4 and the Switch and had more fun with the Switch version for awesome motion controls. Yes jumping between the two, ps4 has 60fps and it is more smooth but the motion controls made it far more fun for me. I didn’t experience a single slowdown and cutting frames so that was enough.

Unreal Engine offers great scalability, most games simply don't use all the available tools to them because it is too much work or they lack the expertise. I bet they will deliver with this one, this team has vast experience porting PS4 games on Switch.

By now, the assumption that the Switch cannot run any game released before 2017 is wrong, Arkham Knight will do just fine, since it will have the optimization the game always needed.

@WallyWest the switch is getting Arkham knight which is a ps4 game so it would make since for the switch to be getting the ps4, Xbox, versions and not the, ps3 and 360 versions of asylum and city.

@Sisilly_G even it's have technical limit, I liked game cartridge likes Switch. I liked to touch it, see it have beautiful cover, play it likes Lego. You can't do this with Blueray

@Jemae yeah you will scratch the disk LOL

I'd be more excited if I didn't just buy all of these games on Steam for $5 last weekend.

After GTA vice city on Switch. I don't trust Rockstar to polish this prior to release.

I don't have a lot to add to the conversation here other than echoing what others are saying. If Arkham City can run beautifully on Wii U, I'm optimistic that it and Asylum will run well on Switch. Heck, without the GamePad to worry about, it might even run better!

I would like to see a City Armored Edition skin for Batman, but beyond that, I won't ask for too much more than those two being well-ported. And if Knight is ported well, that's just icing on the cake, I think.

That said, between this and the Metal Gear Solid collection? I think I'm going to be looking into 1TB MicroSD cards when the annual sales start happening. >.>

@Thwomp_Stomper
You’re the best 😂

Here’s hoping we’ll be saying Holy miracle ports, Batman! later this year.

Honestly though, as long as the games are playable and don’t have atrocious load times, I’ll be happy. I’ve been enjoying games since TV pong consoles - not because the graphics were awesome, but because they were fun.

Asylum and City will be perfectly ok. If you're fine with 20-30fps and sub 720p resolution, Knight will be fine. It's going to look awful, but it'll play well enough. Also, though, I don't really understand why anyone would want these games on the Switch. Portable, sure, but on the Switch specifically, I don't see the point. These are games designed with incredible environmental surround sound and to be played on the biggest screens possible, playing them on a Switch is doing them a huge disservice.

I guess if you've NEVER played them and ONLY own a Switch (which is, frankly, wild) it'll be A way to play them, but nowhere close to the BEST way to play them. They all (including Knight) run perfectly on modern low-end PCs and the entire collection can be had regularly for around $10, is currently $12 on PS4/PS5, and $25 on Xbox (or considerably less on the grey market).

@Moistnado it's Rocksteady, but they are not doing the port anyway. And strangely enough, R* did not do the recent GTA "Definitive Editions." THAT was Grove Street games, who ALSO just recently made Ark run incredibly well on the Switch.

@GeneJacket I just will always prefer a portable with headphones. And I adore weird downports. I can't wait to see how these turn out.

@Gryffin this goes beyond a sweaty take, it is downright greazy.

@dartmonkey
The '89 DLC for ARKHAM KNIGHT is fantastic. However, you can't complete the Batmobile-centric missions with the Burton Batmobile. Only a few of the skins allow the switching to "tank-mode" for Batmobile combat and bomb extraction. You can always switch back and forth, though, before loading. The Batfleck DLC is pretty solid too. Sad to see the Animated Series' skins from ARKHAM CITY left behind.

@GeneJacket
I have beaten all 3 games. ASYLUM, CITY, and ORIGINS several times. At this point I just want to be able to lay on my couch or in bed while my kids and wife use the TV and I run around as Batman.

I got the first three games for free on Epic's portal. I don't know why anyone would be excited for this or pay more than a few bucks for all three somewhere else. I'd pay around $10 for these ancient games combined on the switch. Truth.

I’m going to take another crack at these. I only like ‘89 and TAS (before the artstyle change) and I was too young for Adam West Batman so for me the Arkham series was too dark for me to enjoy (and jarringly so as many of the TAS voice actors came back for the series). I’ve read enough comics to know that is more like actual Batman but as I despise Batman otherwise (seriously he is my most detested hero) it made it hard for me to play the games. I’m hoping to take smaller bites this time to get through them. As such I hope they are good ports.

@Gryffin I'd say technologically the Switch is revolutionary. That's why everyone is rushing to copy Nintendo's design. Tends to happen that way though.

@Wheatly I have Eternal on PS5, and played it for maybe 15 hours. I've played Eternal on Switch for maybe 50.

As much as i would like to be optimistic, i paid 9 dollars for this collection on PS4, they can do whatever magick they want, I know they can't beat that.

One thing that excites me about switch version is, in the trailer, it looks like asylum and city are the original versions of the game, not the remasters.
I have arkham remastered on my series x, and got to say, for me, they are ugly ports. Hate the way batman looks in asylum, the 45 fps is a real put off, and cities framerate isn't great.
If they can get both original version of games running at 30 fps on switch, ill be very happy.
As for knight, that's another story

Who cares? Just buy a PlayStation or an Xbox and get a much better experience there. If that's not an option, you either don't have the money (so presumably you have more pressing issues than video games - don't play Batman on Switch, spend the time working) or you're not that into gaming (which is fine, read a book or something?). Switch is for Zelda and Mario (and Metroid, and Donkey Kong, etc.). I can't see why anyone in their right mind would want to play a game that was available elsewhere on it.

I don't know about the team, but I'm sure they can manage. These are old games from the PS3, so should manage on the switch.

@karlhendrikse Oh, the Switch is portable. I hope that helps.

@Audiogore0733 Not really. Those remasters weren't great and ran poorly even fully patched, considering Knight will see a mountain of downgrades anyway why port remasters that would be need downgrades as well when you could port the 360 versions that won't require much work and would be cheaper to port.

@TruthisRare You shouldn't be getting 45fps on Series X, if Asylum/City framerate is uncapped (i can't remember if it was or not?) then the raw power of the PS5 and Series X should brute force it to 60fps.

I may need to load City up now on my PS5 to see if there's a difference.

@Rika_Yoshitake Arkham Knight isn’t. It’s a PS4 and Xbox One game.

Honestly Asylum and City should run fine on Switch theoretically. It’s Knight that we need to be more worried about.

Dying light, no mans sky, asssins creed, L.A. noir, Remnant:from the ashes, outer worlds, Ark: survival evolved, borderlands, bioshock, The sinking city.(Mic drop). These are all prime examples as to why batman will run on switch with ease, those games offer much larger worlds, better graphics and a butt ton more mechanics then batman has ever had. No mans sky is just about an infinite universe where you can explore not maps, butt entire planets, not just a solar system, millions of solar systems, quadrillions of planets, no load times. Just no man sky alone gives me hope that anything can run on the switch with enough work.

@Rika_Yoshitake well not Arkham Knight…

I love the 'Arkham' series and have played the games multiple times over the years and I am glad to see they are getting a release on Switch so people who don't have other consoles get a chance to play them for the first time but I am pretty disappointed they didn't include 'Arkham Origins' in the collection (especially when they are trying to promote it as a complete package when it is not) because that is one of my favs and I would love to see that get a remake like they done for 'Arkham Asylum' and 'Arkham City' in the 'Return to Arkham' collection with modern graphics 'cause I loved the design of the city and the Christmas theme.

With the 'Arkham' series still very popular among fans and getting so many remakes they should make another game. 'Gotham Knights' is fun and I love being able to play as Batgirl but it is just not as good as the 4 Arkham games and is lacking with some things.

@WallyWest I have been recently replaying the 'Return to Arkham' collection on X Box Series X along with 'Arkham Origins' and 'Gotham Knights' and they look and work fine to me and the graphics for 'Arkham Asylum' and 'Arkham City' don't look that different than the graphics for 'Gotham Knights' which is the latest game.

Wii U played city pretty good. So the first two games should run ok. Knight is the one that will bring some problems. Hopefully they can make it work. Cause if they couldn’t Nintendo would not have them in the direct.

@Teksetter Precisely the point Robin. As long as the Joker isn’t up to his usual antics, we should expect good ports that will bring justice to Gotham. Though, it wouldn’t hurt to check the Bat computer to get more clues on how well they may run…quickly Robin…to the Batcave!

My opinion: Why I love the switch is portability. I have a 1TB microSD card in my switch OLED. I have a decent sized case for all my physical game cards. My boys have an Xbox One and a PS4. I don’t care. That’s why games like this excite me. I can pick up and play any genre of game any time and anywhere I want. I’m also excited for MGS collection. Just so cool to have all these amazing games in a system I can pull out on my lunch break or anywhere else I want.

@WallyWest Yeah that’s just untrue. Again, I know as I own each one. I’ve played them. Not just on Steam like many seem to. Easy Red 2 is the only rough title and it’s an indie sandbox… not a port. No Man’s Sky had a poor update. The rest are great.

I know it's the rocksteady Corporation but I would have preferred that this package would also include Batman Arkham Origins - I love the holiday setting

It won't be on the cartridge so just here for the batpoll.

First two should run perfectly smooth. Arkham Knight? Aaaaah doubtful.

the first game is the best of 3, so I'm looking forward to it ... the other are plus.

@Paraka kind of rude to say “speak for yourself “

I don’t mean high price compared to other systems, that’s something that doesn’t make much sense to compare.

Compared to other Switch games is what I am talking about, it’s great you enjoyed it and so did I, but I am not blindly going to act like the port did not sacrifice too much because it did, I have played worse performing games on other systems in the past, and did enjoy them too.

Heck I even love the OG Goldeneye on the N64, even as of today but I am not going to act like the game runs fine.

There is a huge difference between enjoying a game and enjoying a game but admiting it’s flaws.

I’ve heard Steam Deck doesn’t even run Knight well during the Batmobile sections, so I’m expecting some serious hiccups or lowered graphics in those sections. Doesn’t mean it won’t be fun tho

First two games should have zero issues running on a Switch. Knight is more ambitious, but even then it’s still a 2015 game so if the port is handled right [Steam deck not running it well is more on now botched the PC job was considering it ran better on game consoles] im not expecting worse then minor hiccups.

I think people are concerned over nothing. The Switch really isn't much less powerful than a base PS4/Xbox One, we've seen impressive ports before like Witcher 3 and Doom Eternal. Visuals will probably take a little hit, but I'm confident it will run fine. Arkham Knight is a game from 2015, it's not like they're porting a big AAA game from a year ago.

Cautiously optimistic. Knight has my slight concerns, but as ppl have pointed out, it's a 2015 game. Switch has handled arguably equivalent "level" games well. I hope we get the WiiU port of City, by the way. With gyro.

The good news is it's not Virtuous doing the port. Their Arkham ports on PS4/Xbone were terrible. I'm sure the Switch will be able to handle Asylum and City without issue (it would be cool if we got the Wii U's enhanced port of City on the Switch, including gyro aiming).

I'm not to bothered if Arkham Knight doesn't run well as I didn't like that one anyway and won't be revisiting it. The world was too large and spread out to justify the inclusion of the Batmobile and the story was disappointing too.

@Rika_Yoshitake
The first two are. The third is a PS4/XB1 game, so it's still another case of that "water-downed" port.

If they would of just released the first two or just Arkham City i would of been stoked but to get all 3!? Still haven't finished knight but its been like a decade since I've played the first two... and if knight sucks on switch well i can still play it on pc and ps4...

This isn't the Arkham "Trilogy" as it doesn't contain the third game "Origins". This is just 1st, 2nd and 4th game put out in a bundle.

@ParadoxFawkes were getting 3 out of 4 games, not bad.

@Deviant-Dork i have origins on wiiu have yet to play it really more than a couple hours , it doesn't seem too bad the combat timing feels off but it seems like a decent game I don't understand why its hated so much

Are they selling these individually or packaged only? Not sure what I want to play as I've only got limited gaming time nowadays. As with graphics and performance not that worried since I'm not picky. Currently enjoying Cyberpunk on my PS4 slim and I think it looks decent despite all the hate it gets.

@Deviant-Dork Rocksteady doesn't recognize Origins as part of their trilogy. It was made to fill a gap in WB Games' schedule and keep shareholders happy, as Knight needed more time and was delayed, and they had nothing to do with it (it was developed by WB Montreal, who went on to do Gotham Knights).

@ParadoxFawkes Origins isn't awful, but it's a massive step down as a follow-up to Arkham City, WBM made some changes to the combat that makes it feel off, it was notoriously buggy at launch, and Warners made WB Montreal stop patching it to work on DLC (they fixed the biggest issues, but left a lot of smaller ones).

Switch came out March 2017. Unless I'm mistaken that means it's a 6+ year old chipset. Not 7+.

Why so much skepticism? Are you forgetting what this game and The Witcher 3 have in common? They are both considered the most high-quality and graphically demanding console games of 2015, yet one of them already came to Switch before so... maybe Arkham Knight would've been possible there too right?

If they port the games is because they can run on the Switch. Period.

How good they can run ? As you can expect from the Switch hardware. Honestly, if you people STILL do questions like that after 7 years you probably should sell your device and go elsewhere.

Can't wait to play Asylum and City on the toilet! I'm hopeful that Knight will run competently, but am expecting it to have numerous cutbacks to make it stable, so I'll stick to playing my PS4 copy of that one

@Synthatron_Prime The point is to play those games in the Nintendo Switch console that some people own.