Fan recreates Batman: Arkham Asylum in Unreal Engine 4 with enhanced visuals and combat

YouTube creator RRe36 has been working on a project that ports the visuals and mechanics of Batman: Arkham Asylum into Unreal Engine 4. RRe36 recently released new gameplay footage showcasing the progress.

The project, called Arkham Unreal or Unreal Engine Batman Arkham, started several years ago when the creator began extracting assets from Batman: Arkham games and importing them into Unreal Engine 4. This initial work led to experimenting with recreating gameplay mechanics. Over time, as RRe36 learned more about Unreal Engine, the systems became increasingly sophisticated. Eventually, the project featured nearly fully functional movement capabilities like the grappling hook and cape gliding. Enemy AI and combat mechanics followed, as demonstrated in the latest footage.

The recent video shows Batman fighting thugs in the sewers and archives. The combat system feels identical to the original Batman: Arkham gameplay. What's more, the fan project looks significantly better than the original. Higher quality textures and improved character models are clearly visible. The cape features new and substantially better animations.

For a solo developer effort, the results are impressive. The project genuinely captures the atmosphere and style of the original Batman: Arkham Asylum, and in some aspects looks even better. This is exactly the kind of game many Batman Arkham fans would love to play. Unfortunately, the remaster remains unavailable to the public and no release is planned. Using assets from the original games would almost certainly trigger copyright issues. Additionally, the project is massive – the total size reaches approximately 130 GB, with 80 GB of files and around 50 GB for a custom engine build.

RRe36 has no plans to recreate the entire game. The creator currently focuses on elements that seem interesting to work on. While the project provides a glimpse of what a Batman: Arkham Asylum remaster on UE4 could look like, it's not a complete remaster.

Why does RRe36 use Unreal Engine 4 instead of Unreal Engine 5? According to the creator, Unreal Engine 5 offers nothing that would justify the additional work of migrating. The fan project lacks massive dynamic environments that would benefit from features like Lumen, and doesn't use ultra-detailed models that would take advantage of Nanite. Therefore, using Unreal Engine 4 makes more sense for this project.