Batman: Arkham Knight has finally returned to the PC platform, as the Inquisitr has previously reported. Unfortunately for publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, it was not the triumph they were hoping for and they are already offering full refunds. Rather unlike his films, players are not praising Batman for returning, and they’re not particularly happy the dark knight has risen; many of them would prefer at this point that Batman simply go away .
Warner Bros. even attempted to mark previous reviews of the release copy as “pre-release” on Steam in an attempt to bolster the abysmal score the game had obtained from its initial, bug-filled (some critics say “unplayable”) release, but as of this time the store is still showing that reviews are “mixed” with only 46 percent deemed “positive.”
Wow, so Warner tried to get all Arkham Knight reviews listed as “pre-release” so they wouldn’t count in its rating. https://t.co/CGsbZvDOBE
— Misty (@mistydemeo) October 29, 2015
Batman: Arkham Knight‘s PC release was, to put it mildly, a mess. The game released in a completely unplayable state for most players, and was almost immediately removed from Steam and pulled from store shelves. Warner Bros. resolved to get to the bottom of the issues, and it was eventually revealed that the PC version was not actually ported by the game’s developer, Rocksteady Games; a “a small external team” had been contracted to make the port. This team was actually Iron Galaxy Studios, who had also ported the previous game in the series, Batman: Arkham Origins. Unfortunately, Arkham Knightwas difficult enough for Rocksteady to get working on consoles, and Iron Galaxy has a history of releasing poor ports. Arkham Knightwas likely the worst to date.
Warner Bros., meanwhile, continued to work on the issues, having pulled the game in late June, and an interim patch was released in early September which allegedly improved game performance but still failed to make Arkham Knight playable for most PC owners. Warner Bros. promised to re-release Batman: Arkham Knight on PC by the end of October, complete with a new patch and all DLC brought up to current with console players, minus console exclusives.
As the final release came on October 30, Warner Bros. made an announcement via Arkham Knight ‘s Steam community page suggesting that most of the issues had already been resolved back in September.
“Our September patch fixed the majority of the performance issues that the game released with back in June. There were a lot of changes that went into that patch.”
“Our October patch was focused on a large number of functional and stability-related bug fixes, including issues reported by the community. Outside of adding PC support for the Season Pass DLC & Photo Mode features, the following noteworthy PC bugs were addressed…”
The community’s response was less subtle.
Now, as Destructoidnotes, Warner Bros. seems to have thrown in the towel, offering unconditional refundson Batman: Arkham Knightuntil the end of 2015; additionally, they note Batman: Arkham Originshas suffered much the same fate, with Warner Bros. eventually admitting defeat and declaring an end to further bug fixes.
As Gamespot is reporting, the official announcement of refunds once again went up on the Steam community page for Batman: Arkham Knight .
“We are very sorry that many of our customers continue to be unhappy with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight . We worked hard to get the game to live up to the standard you deserve but understand that many of you are still experiencing issues.”
“For those of you that hold onto the game, we are going to continue to address the issues that we can fix and talk to you about the issues that we cannot fix.”
A refund is also available for anyone who purchased the game’s DLC Season Pass, but it is not offered separately; the Arkham Knight refund is all or nothing.
It’s an inglorious end for the Arkham series on PC. Hopefully, Warner Bros. will this time be able to make good on their promise of further fixes for those who stick it out, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
[Image via Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment/Rocksteady Games]
