Founded in 2006, Bluepoint Games has slowly gained a reputation for being one of the best in the industry when it comes to remasters and remakes. From theUncharted: Nathan Drake Collection, toGravity Rush Remastered, to the much more impressiveShadow of the ColossusandDemon’s Soulsremakes, Bluepoint has proven it has the stuff, and there’s a lot that upcoming remakes and remasters could learn from the studio’s past work. That includes the rumoredBatman: Arkham Asylumremake.
Back in November, YouTuber Vara Dark took to Twitter to claim that aBatman: Arkham Asylumremake had been greenlit at Rocksteady. The notion ofArkham Asylumgetting a remake has been met with skepticism from some fans, but anything can be good, especially if the developers follow Bluepoint’s approach in a few key ways.
The Rumored Batman: Arkham Asylum Remake Should Follow Bluepoint’s Model Closely
Batman: Arkham Asylum Remake Should Keep Things Largely Unchanged
With a background in remasters,developer Bluepoint Gamesis used to taking the original game’s structure, mechanics, setting, story, and characters, and souping them all up with modern bells and whistles without compromising the game’s original vision or feel. Bluepoint’s remakes have followed a similar approach.
Although Bluepoint remadeShadow of the ColossusandDemon’s Soulsfrom the ground-up, they retain essentially all the gameplay and narrative content present in the original games. This means that whileShadow of the ColossusandDemon’s Soulshave completely new visuals, sound design, and modern technical features like updated physics systems, they still feel incredibly faithful to the original product.
IfaBatman: Arkham Asylumremakeis in the works, it needs to follow this approach. 2009’sBatman: Arkham Asylumis widely considered to be one of the best superhero games ever made, and it’s often praised for being the tightest entry in the series.Arkham Asylumfeatures virtually no filler content, everything that’s there is in service to the game’s story and pacing, and a potential remake can’t mess with that.
While it might be tempting to add more open-world content or drastically change the game’s combat and stealth systems, aBatman: Arkham Asylumremake should simply focus on giving the original game’s content a modern technical overhaul.
Batman: Arkham Asylum Remake Should Borrow Bluepoint’s Community Secrets
But Bluepoint Games hasn’t been afraid to sneak one or two elements of its own into its remakes. In both of its remakes, Bluepoint has added a brand-new secret that’s been a little tricky to solve. The complexity of these secrets has often brought the community together, getting thousands of players to search for the solution and share notes as one big team.
In2018’sShadow of the Colossus, this secret was tied to the mysterious new set of incredibly hard-to-find golden coins scattered across the game’s map. Finding all 79 coins will cause a secret door to appear, with the powerful Sword of Dormin being hidden behind it.Demon’s Soulscarried forward this concept of coins and doors, hiding a full set of Penetrator gear behind a secret door that could only be opened after trading 26 Ceramic Coins with Sparkly the Crow.
This would be an acceptable type of new addition in aBatman: Arkham Asylumremake, with it not affecting the original game’s content at all. This hypothetical new puzzle could be a great way to bring the community together, and even reward fans witha new Batsuitor a tease for a futureArkhamentry, just likeAsylum’s Arkham City Easter egg in the original game.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
WHERE TO PLAY
Return to Arkham and experience two of the most critically acclaimed titles of the last generation - Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, with fully remastered and updated visuals. Batman: Return to Arkham includes the comprehensive versions of both games and includes all previously released additional content.Batman: Arkham Asylum exposes players to a dark and atmospheric adventure that takes them into the depths of Arkham Asylum –Gotham City’s high security psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Use Batman’s legendary gadgetry, strike from the shadows, and confront The Joker and Gotham City’s most notorious super villains.Batman: Arkham City sends players soaring into Arkham City - a heavily fortified sprawling district in the heart of Gotham City. Batman Arkham City introduces a brand-new story that draws together an all-star cast of classic characters and murderous villains from the Batman universe, as well as new and enhanced gameplay features.
