The PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight shipped with so many problems that it was pulled from sale last week. Unfortunately for those who bought the game it seems a fix "will take some time". The update, posted by Warner Brothers Interactive's vice-president of game technology Gary Lake-Schaal, leads with:
"Rocksteady is leading our team of developers and partners as we work on the PC performance issues that players have been encountering. The work is significant and while we are making good progress on improving performance, it will take some time to ensure that we get the right fixes in place."
A list of the key areas being addressed was also shared:
- Support for frame rates above 30fps in the graphics settings menu
- Fix for low resolution texture bug
- Improve overall performance and framerate hitches
- Add more options to the graphics settings menu
- Improvements to hard drive streaming and hitches
- Address full screen rendering bug on gaming laptop
- Improvements to system memory and VRAM usage
- Nvidia SLI bug fixes
- Enabling AMD Crossfire
- Nvidia and AMD updated drivers
An initial patch for Batman: Arkham Knight is now available on Steam. It addresses some of the game's minor faults, such as fixing a bug which disabled rain effects and ambient occlusion, as well as correcting some issues that caused the game to crash.
The PC isn't the only platform that will be receiving Arkham Knight updates. The game's director, Sefton Hill, tweeted:
To clarify: PC is top priority for engine team but there'll still be updates for consoles too. Not all issues are fixed by same people.
--- Sefton Hill (@Seftonhill) June 26, 2015
The console versions of Batman: Arkham Knight received positive reviews from critics when it was released last week, but a poor porting job rendered it unplayable for many PC gamers. It later came to light that Rocksteady didn't handle development of the game on PC, and that Warner Bros chose to outsource the project to Iron Galaxy Studios.
With Warner Brothers giving such an ambiguous time-frame for when Batman: Arkham Knight will finally be fixed on the PC, we expect the number of people demanding a refund to continue rising. Even if the game is eventually patched to the point where it becomes an improvement over its console counterparts, it's unlikely to placate those who feel ripped-off at buying a title that was so poorly tested before launch.