We all know the tale; WB Games put out a sub-par version of Batman: Arkham Knight on PC. After multiple complaints, the company pulled the game from retail and Steam while promising to fix the game alongside their partners, Rocksteady, Nvidia, and Iron Galaxy Studios. This was four months ago, and as of yesterday, WB Games has added that the title back onto Steam. Gamers everywhere were assuming that meant that all the issues were ironed out, and their copies would be patched, and all would be well. Right?
Well, not exactly. It seems that reports are coming in that the game is still running very poorly. I can also attest to that as I’ve attempted to play the game on two of my gaming rigs, which are still well above medium and high-end.
System #1
Intel i5 3570k overclocked to 4.3Ghz
SLI GTX 970’s
2x 250GB SSD’s Raid 0 (OS) / 3TB 7200 rpm harddrive (games)
32GB DDR3
Windows 10 Pro
System #2
Intel i5-4590s overclocked to 3.6Ghz
GTX 780
1x 256GB SSD (OS) / 2TB 7200 rpm harddrive (games)
16GB DDR3
Windows 10 Pro
So as you can see, both PCs are pretty decent and should run the game 1080p @ 60 fps with ease. “Should” being the keyword here. On both systems, running Windows 10 and using medium settings, both PCs are unable to maintain a 60 fps @ 1080p, and in some instances, I experienced drops between 40-50 frames per second. And while it seems the game is a little better than it was before, I should be able to run this at 60 fps, but I cannot do so. The game’s SLI performance is still pretty bad as neither SLI nor Crossfire support is fully functional in the game yet. Yes, you read that correctly; SLI and Crossfire support is still busted as well.
“We are still working with our GPU partners to add full support for SLI and Crossfire. In addition, we are working with these partners to address stability issues on certain cards related to the latest drivers.”
However, after four months, you would think this shouldn’t be the case, but sadly it is.
It also seems that there are issues with running the game on Windows 7 machines, as prolonged sessions may result in hard drive paging issues in which the one fix is restarting the game. Windows 10 users need to have at least 12GB installed on their PCs, which may or may not be true; however, since I’m running 16GB in both of my machines, I wasn’t about to pull a stick out to test this. However, I’ve seen enough reports to state this claim is true, which is pretty sad considering that not everyone runs 12GB or more in their gaming PCs.
So after four months of working on Batman: Arkham Knight, we’re still left with a game that is still pretty rough around the edges. And while I won’t deny that the game is in better shape than what it was when it launched, that’s telling you how bad the original launch was. At this point, I’m pretty much done with attempting to play this game anymore. Between the release of several other AAA titles on multiple platforms, it’s a safe bet that I’ll never touch the game again, despite how much I enjoyed the previous Batman Arkham entries.
So instead of sending off the series on the PC with a bang, the game that deserved better has let off nothing more than a fizzle as far as I am concerned. If there was any possible way for myself and other PC gamers who were tricked into purchasing this to get their money back, then it needs to pursued.
Oh Master Bruce, what have they done to you?
P.S – You can check out the updated patch notes and complaints here.
