Look, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are getting an HD rerelease; it’s just fait accompli at this point. However, as of right now, Warner Bros. Interactive and Rocksteady haven’t pulled the trigger on an official announcement, despite more leaks than a Three Stooges plumbing job.
As usual, though, if a company doesn’t want to make an official announcement, the Internet will do it for you.
In addition to the leaks from the past, now, a new one has hit the Web, thanks to the Italian site for GameStop (via GameSpot). The listing has the Batman: Return to Arkham HD Collection available for preorder at 50.98 euros, which, thanks to the magic of Google, I learned is $58.14. Obviously, it was taken down, because no one can know about the super secret HD Collection that everyone knows is coming.
As we’ve learned from the previous leaks, it looks like this HD edition will only include Asylum and City, leaving out Arkham Origins — which wasn’t developed by Rocksteady — nor does it include Arkham Knight, which you already bought, anyway.
Both games will apparently be optimized for current-gen graphics and include all of the DLC the titles put out, making it a pretty solid value for the half-dozen people out there that never played the originals.
So, when is Warner Bros. going to cave and just make an official announcement? Well, E3 isn’t too far off, right? Though unless the HD Collection is going to blow people away, it might be a waste to compete with the rest of the news at the show with recycled material.
Either way, this thing is inevitable, so I would expect something to come from Warner Bros. or Rocksteady before the end of the month. In a perfect world, it would coincide with the announcement of more DC-based games from the studio, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.
Just in case Rocksteady does decide to return to the Bat-universe, we have a few ideas for where the franchise could go (hint: Nightwing game) after Arkham Knight. Just be sure to give us a writing credit and some free Bat-swag if you listen to our (admittedly wonderful) ideas.
