Remember that awesome gameplay demo of Rocksteady's upcoming Batman: Arkham Knight that aired during Sony's E3 conference at this year's big event? Well, it wasn't actually running on console hardware.
While a lot of the other demos were prefaced with a disclaimer about running on console hardware or in-engine footage from a development build, the one thing that was absent from the Batman footage was a note that it was actually running on the PlayStation 4.
DSO Gaming noted that during an interview from Gamespot's live coverage of Sony's E3 conference, it was revealed that the Arkham Knight footage was actually running on a PC.
You can fast-forward to the 4:38:00 mark to hear the comment made about the game from the stage conference actually being a demo build from the PC.
To sum it up in plain 'ole English for anyone who can't be bothered to watch some annoying commercials and try to find the second that the comment is made, Dax Ginn, the producer for Batman: Arkham Knight at Rocksteady Studios, simply stated...
“This is the PC build.”
So there you have it; one of the biggest games set to release in 2015 for home consoles and PC still has no console footage available. It's okay, there's still time. Just don't be surprised if the console version will be like Watch Dogs going from E3 2012 to... well... today.
The admission from Dax happened fast and fleeting like a sympathy kiss you get from the hot bridesmaid at your friend's wedding for the group photo.
Anyway, this admission – while very fleeting – was far less damaging than Microsoft's situation that happened last year, involving a bunch of kiosks running games on high-end Nvidia-powered PCs with Corsair-cooled, Intel CPUs.
Still, it's likely that we can expect minor downgrades from the PC version we saw on display during Sony's E3 conference for the home consoles.
So what sort of downgrades can you expect? Probably a lot of the same downgrades that we expect from open-world games like this; some shadow resolution here or there, a few less ambient lights, maybe some absent ambient occlusion, and of course, a hit on the resolution. The common downgrade for most games has been resolution, with games like Battlefield 4 aiming to retain a lot of the awesome visual effects that made the game stand out in the first place.
Don't be surprised if Arkham Knight is somewhere around 1080p and 30fps on the PS4 and maybe 900p and 30fps on the Xbox One, all while the glorious PC gets 4K at 120fps.
We won't know what the full damage of the suspected console downgrade will be until closer to the game's launch. So long as it looks close enough to what was showcased at E3, I don't think that gamers will complain too much.
