“The Power of the Cloud” sounds like it could have its own video game, but it’s a phrase that’s been thrown around by developers a lot, lately. Many of them have claimed that some of the things that we see in our favorite newer games wouldn’t be possible without it. Cloud computing has actually been around since as early as the 1950s, but only gained the attention of the general public around the late 2000s. It has improved a lot since then, of course. None of this “cloud” nonsense would matter to most people on a daily basis, but hear us out.
Cloud computing allows us to stream stuff into our games using our internet-enabled consoles. It basically allows for a significant upgrade to our gaming experience.Batman: Arkham Knight developer Rocksteady has been boasting of how what we’ll be getting in the last installment of the Arkham trilogy is something that “wouldn’t have been possible on the last gen,” and it’s all thanks to cloud computing.
We already understand that the Xbox One is significantly more powerful than the Xbox 360, but what does it mean for us, the regular people? The Batmobile is fast. But with the power of the cloud, they’ve made it faster. Previous graphics limitations left us with the task of imagining that the Batmobile is fast just based on the near-incomprehensible blur we see outside of the vehicle. The Xbox One has stepped up its game and is capable of delivering crisp, highly-detailed images of the environment, even when you’re zooming by in the Batmobile. This technology also ties in pretty well with Arkham Knight’s seamless maps by doing away with the concept of unexplorable areas, leaving us with an extremely open world.
Will the game still work without the power of the cloud behind it? Probably. But why would you wanna miss out? It's kind of funny how Microsoft showed off their cloud computing technology back at E3 2013, then became quiet about it. It looks like they were just quietly preparing for this moment, where the Xbox One’s prowess would be displayed the best way possible. Sorry, last-generation consoles, the next gen wins this round.
Batman: Arkham Knight will be released on June 23 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
