As expected, Batman: Arkham Trilogy isn’t quite up to snuff, with constant frame rate issues, highly noticeable pop-ins, and lackluster resolution at the forefront. It’s not too hard to expect that a game as graphically intense as the Arkham Trilogy would face issues when brought to the Switch.
Digital Foundry took it through its paces, finding that the game can go as low as zero frames a second, catching on it indefinitely or until it crashes. While Arkham Knight fares better in in-door situations, its target of 30fps is actually rather difficult for the hardware to handle, with many of its flagship features hindering the game’s performance — like the drivable Batmobile. Character models are also highly simplified to keep things light on the Switch, motion blur is entirely stripped, and its resolution, while docked, stays around 810p while its portable version is 540p. Needless to say, this isn’t the best way to experience the acclaimed send-off of the Arkham series.
Arkham Asylum and City fare a bit better, likely due to Asylum’s smaller scale and City’s larger but still small cityscape. Regardless, it still has some issues, including dropped frames to around 20fps, texture issues, and unlike most Switch games, it’s actually better to play on portable mode as it seems to run better.
It’s sad that this trilogy is being done dirty like this as it’s a critically acclaimed set of games with a vast fanbase of fans hungry for more, though, we’re sure Rocksteady is too busy with the upcoming live-service Suicide Squad game to even consider returning to what made the studio great. Thus, we’ve gotten games produced by different developers.
