In yet another case of a PC port not getting all of the attention it requires, players are left wanting more out of Batman: Arkham Knight. While the game only released today gamers have been plagued with frame rate issues, frame rate caps and some even missing DLC. Batman: Arkham Knight is the last game in the popular Arkham series of Batman games and features the return of Rocksteady Games as the company developing it.
In case you want to stay up to date on all of the news there is currently a NeoGAF post running where people can list all of the issues that they are having with the launch of Batman: Arkham Knight. The game also currently has a mostly negative steam review currently with 1720 negative reviews received against the 760 positive, it's also worth noting that you can only make a review for a steam game after you have purchased it. This is the first case of a AAA PC port having this many issues since the introduction of Steam refunds, through this only applies to those who purchased the game via Steam.
- The first issue was one that fans were made aware of even before the release of the game when a new patch came out with a worrying message for those planning to play the game on AMD graphics cards. As also stated in the earlier post both nVidia and AMD have released updated drivers specifically to ensure that the running of Batman: Arkham Knight will go as... smoothly as possible.
- A lot of PC gamers are still reporting that whether they play the game in 30 FPS or 60 FPS they are still getting plenty of instances where the frame rate is dropping dramatically, users are reporting particular problems when driving the batmobile.
- It hasn't taken fans long but the hard lock on the 30 FPS, surprising as the benchmark has no max FPS, that the game has shipped with has also had a work around implemented so if you want to be able to play Arkham Knight in 60 FPS you are required to go into the games installation folder and follow the path Batman Arkham Knight\BmGame\ Config\BmSystemSettings.ini and search for the setting that reads "MaxFPS=30" and simply change that 30 into a 60, or whatever other number you would like your max frame rate set to.
- Some users have also had issues where when checking the game cache causes the entire game to redownload, even one case where the game deleted itself entirely.
- Denuvo DRM is apparently also active in the game, this has been known in the pass to hinder performance of games and was present recently in titles like Dragon Age: Inquisition and Lords of the Fallen.
- Finally some of the specific nVidia game works features such as fog and smoke are causing many frame drops but it seems enhanced rain and hairworks aren't causing issues.
Moving away from technical aspects, it seems that a PC release like this explains why review codes for this game were being sent out to the press for PlayStation 4 but PC review copies have only been distributed today. It was also changed yesterday that those who were to get free copies of Batman: Arkham Knight because of nVidia card purchases were initially meant to have preorder key 56900 that included the base game, Harley Quinn story and the Gotham's Future skin packs but had that switched to 71669 which removes the Harley Quinn story pack from that grouping.
On their forum Rocksteady has made the following comment
We're aware that some users are reporting performance issues with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight. This is something that Rocksteady takes very seriously. We are working closely with our external PC development partner to make sure these issues get resolved as quickly as possible.
TechRaptor has contacted Iron Galaxy Studios, those responsible for the PC port, and Warner Brothers and will update this article when more information has been made known to us.
What do you think of the PC launch of Batman: Arkham Knight? Have you had any of these issues or even more that we're not aware of? Might this be the first change people get to try out Steams digital return system?
