Arkham City delayed on PC, Diablo 3 and BF3 betas announced

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Word has trickled down from Warner Bros. that the upcoming sequel to 2009's Batman: Arkham Asylum has been postponed. The good news is that it hasn't been delayed on all platforms, so folks with an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 will be able to glide through Gotham as the caped crusader on time (October 18 in the US). The bad news, if you haven't gathered by now, is that PC gamers will have to wait until some undefined day in November.

Batman: Arkham City picks up about one year after the events of Arkham Asylum and introduces some classic villains not seen in the previous entry, such as Catwoman and Mr. Freeze. The title has been developed with Unreal Engine 3 and will feature support for PhysX and 3D Vision. Gameplay will focus on the same open world, stealth action elements, and along with adding various new weapons, most of the old ones have been upgraded.

Batman: Arkham City Mr. Freeze Trailer

In unrelated gaming news, Blizzard has announced that Diablo III's beta rollout is underway and fortunate souls among us should receive an email invitation shortly. It's unclear how long the prelaunch phase will last, but invitations will be served in several waves over the coming weeks. As usual, gamers are being selected largely based on their system specifications. You'll find the complete opt-in details and frequently asked questions here.

EA has also unveiled Battlefield 3's beta schedule and system requirements. Folks who preordered BF3 or purchased the Limited Edition of Medal of Honor will gain access to the beta on September 27, while the rest of the world will be invited two days later. The beta will serve as somewhat of an appetizer, as players will supposedly be limited to "Rush" mode on "Operation Metro," the first playable BF3 map shown at E3 earlier this year.

Battlefield 3 Operation Guillotine Teaser

DICE suggests PC gamers should play with a quad-core processor, 4GB of RAM and a DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB of VRAM or more (the GTX 560 and HD 6950 were specifically mentioned). Minimum requirements call for a 2GHz dual-core processor from the Core 2 Duo or Athlon X2 families or better, 2GB of RAM and a DX 10.1-compatible GPU with 512MB of RAM. PC gamers will also require EA's Origin platform to play the game.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/45546-arkham-city-delayed-on-pc-diablo-3-and-bf3-betas-announced.html

 

[RH00D]

On some BF3 forums it was suggested that the recommended specs may have been inflated. My theory for this is that they want people to have more than adequate hardware so that we don't end up with people coming in with a dual-core and 5750 expecting to play on ultra then throwing a rage fit claiming the game is badly optimized or some other foolishness.

 

[agissi]

I hope its bloated but I tend to think not with the stunning visuals I see. What a sick looking game! I'm waiting for AMD's 7xxx series for this one! Said to be out December 11 - January12.

 

[pcnthuziast]

While I'd venture that my GTX 470 will suffice for BF3, the upgrade bug has bitten me yet again... like it always does around this time of year. lol

 

[St1ckM4n]

Looks so delicious, I want to eat my monitor.

 

[bugejakurt]

Not a surprise that Batman: Arkham City was delayed on the PC. Same as Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. I believe this is a tactic to increase the market share on XBox360 and PS3 which return the most profit for a gaming company... Most of all cracking a game isn't so easy on consoles unlike on the PC.

 

[Guest]

If they delayed it to get extra time to polish the PC version it's all good, if the reason is to increase console sales or time to implement invasive copy protections not so much. Asylum did have hooks into the game itself to mess up pirated versions, maybe this will have something similar? Luckily we aren't dealing with Ubisoft so can't be THAT bad... hopefully.

 

[bugejakurt]

Guest said:
If they delayed it to get extra time to polish the PC version it's all good, if the reason is to increase console sales or time to implement invasive copy protections not so much. Asylum did have hooks into the game itself to mess up pirated versions, maybe this will have something similar? Luckily we aren't dealing with Ubisoft so can't be THAT bad... hopefully.

Believe me PC games, irrelevant of how complex copy protections are, pirates always find a hack through time.

 

[Wagan8r]

I'm afraid that my lowly GTX 260 is going to cry come October. I was planning on upgrading before the game came out, but now both the GTX 600 series and HD 7000 series have been pushed back to 2012.

 

[Burty117]

wagan8r said:
I'm afraid that my lowly GTX 260 is going to cry come October. I was planning on upgrading before the game came out, but now both the GTX 600 series and HD 7000 series have been pushed back to 2012.

I am in the exact same situation! GTX260 that will no longer overclock from its factory settings (guess I must have burnt something out) and I also planned on upgrading before the game came out oooww well, the best things come to the people who wait i supose...

 

[TorturedChaos]

I think I'm going to need to upgrade my poor GeForce 8800 GT 1GB to play D3 at a decent quality.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

im still not buying bf3 if it doesn't have LAN network support, and 14 of my LAN gaming buddies wont buy either... which is a shame 'cause the game looks damn good from the videos I've seen.

 

[lipe123]

IAMTHESTIG said:
im still not buying bf3 if it doesn't have LAN network support, and 14 of my LAN gaming buddies wont buy either... which is a shame 'cause the game looks damn good from the videos I've seen.

Nothing is stopping you from making a private game for you and your 14 buddies. Who the hell in this day and age has no internet available, get real.

It's the only way pc games can try and protect themselves from being copied to death further diminishing the already weak market.

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

lipe123 said:

IAMTHESTIG said:
im still not buying bf3 if it doesn't have LAN network support, and 14 of my LAN gaming buddies wont buy either... which is a shame 'cause the game looks damn good from the videos I've seen.

Nothing is stopping you from making a private game for you and your 14 buddies. Who the hell in this day and age has no internet available, get real.

It's the only way pc games can try and protect themselves from being copied to death further diminishing the already weak market.

Have you ever tried shoving 16 players through a 1.5mbit connection? it tends to result in problems...

I understand their need for anti piracy, but there is no reason they can't still have LAN but just require authenticating with an online account for each session. they are just using bullcrap excuses to be lazy and give the finger to the game pirates at LANs.

 

[jeffz6]

I just hope it allows to to host a private game. A feature missing from BC2 ? Lan match with online authentication is perfect! Even if it means you cannot level up from lan games, but have options to turn unlocks on or off in your own privite game.

 

[Inarius03]

st1ckm4n said:
Looks so delicious, I want to eat my monitor.

LOL, it does look that good indeed.

I think the old 4870 1GB might need to be upgraded for this one

 

[fpsgamerJR62]

That DICE specifically mentioned the GTX 560 and HD 6950 in the recommended requirements for BF3 is probably a suggestion that we gamers should take heed of. With October just around the corner, looks like it's time to upgrade my rig's GTX 275 and probably the Phenom 2 X4 955 CPU too. Excuse me, while I go break the old piggy bank .