Batman Arkham Knight PC sales suspended until fall

By Aliya Barnwell July 16, 2015

warner bros admits defeat and offers refunds to arkham knight pc owners arkhamknight02 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Word on the street is Arkham Knight for PC has some serious bugs. So serious in fact, that sales are on hold until Warner and Rocksteady get their act together and fix the major performance issues. Now, Kotaku Australia got its hands on a copy of an internal EB Games email that says Arkham Knight won’t be fixed until “spring,” (referring to the Australian spring, which coincides with autumn in America). Of course, that could be as soon as September, or as late as November.

Sales of the PC version of the newest game in the Batman franchise were suspended on June 25, two days after release, when reports of audio and graphics issues flooded Steam and other forums. Stores returned hard copies, and even Steam downloads are shut down. Rocksteady knows what’s wrong and is working with AMD and NVIDIA to fill the graphical holes. Until they do, though, anyone who wants a copy of Batman Arkham Knight for PC is going to have to hunt for it (think small non-chain electronics stores in bad neighborhoods), since the big retailers are playing ball by sending back the hard copies and Steam downloads aren’t available.

Shipping the hard copies back and forth seems an inherent waste considering nothing about the discs themselves will actually change. The game will most likely be fixed via a downloadable patch, so except for the obvious risk of the rough, low-FPS graphics Arkham version continuing to leak out into the gaming populace, it would have made more sense to save the gas and the trouble.

Those who grabbed Batman Arkham Knight for PC right away can choose between being annoyed that they’re stuck with a game that is so marginally functional, or being annoyed that Warner Bros. won’t just release the DLC. The logic is that those who want to suffer through the problems will do so, and those who can’t take the rough textures will wait for the patches. According to this gamer, the textures are a bit cringe-worthy, and yes the audio has some issues, but there is a work-around for the 30-frames-per-second cap, and the game is playable in a general sense, though with none of the polish typical of the earlier games.

A lot of people are probably appreciating their consoles a little more now.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Aliya Tyus-Barnwell is a writer, cyclist and gamer with an interest in technology. Also a fantasy fan, she's had fiction…

Gaming

Will this year’s Call of Duty game be on Xbox Game Pass?

Key art for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War season 2.

Activision Blizzard, which is now owned by Microsoft, is gearing up to announce the next Call of Duty game soon and release it later this year. There's been one major point of contention ahead of this year's Call of Duty: Will it be on Xbox Game Pass at launch? A new report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that is the case.

Historically, Microsoft has added all its first-party games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda to Game Pass the day they launched. That applies to big AAA releases like Starfield, as well as more experimental titles like 2022's Pentiment and Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, which releases next week. Microsoft's public messaging thus far has teased that 2024's new Call of Duty game, expected to be a continuation of the Black Ops subseries, will come to the Xbox Game Pass. That said, Microsoft has not officially confirmed it, so there have been conflicting reports on this actually being the case.

Gaming

Is Helldivers 2 coming to Xbox?

A soldier in silhouette in Helldivers 2.

Helldivers 2 was a massive hit right out of the gate for developer Arrowhead Game Studios, and the game's popularity has only grown since its release in February of this year. Shedding the top-down perspective of the first Helldivers, this cooperative third-person shooter took the world by surprise by being equally hilarious, fun, and challenging. It demands everyone work together to overcome massive hordes of bugs while also dealing with the fact that one player's slipup could derail the whole mission in the most humorous fashion. It's a total riot, and it's not hard to see why.

However, players on Xbox haven't had an opportunity to join in on the fun, as the game is only available on PlayStation 5 and PC. Since so many modern games have timed exclusivity, you may be wondering if that's the case for Helldivers 2, and we've got the answer for you below.
Will Helldivers 2 ever come to Xbox?
It's very unlikely that Helldivers 2 will ever come to Xbox consoles. The primary reason for this is that Helldivers 2 is published by Sony Computer Entertainment, which is a direct competitor to Microsoft. Sony is known for being very protective of IPs and brands, meaning the company tends to keep its published games off of competing consoles.

Gaming

Marvel’s Midnight Suns dev confirms romance options were never in the game

Magik after opening a portal for the first time in Marvel's Midnight Suns.

When Marvel's Midnight Suns was released in 2022, some were disappointed that players were unable to romance any of the superhero characters in the game. While players have wondered whether or not that was Marvel or Firaxis' decision, Midnight Suns' Creative Director Jake Solomon has now affirmed to Digital Trends in an interview that he truly never considered romance for the game.

"I’ve seen people say romance was a part of this, but it never was. I never even brought it up to Marvel because I couldn’t find a way," Solomon told Digital Trends as part of a wider discussion about his work on XCOM and Marvel's Midnight Suns, as well as the formation of Midsummer Studios. "I think the best way for romance to work is for the characters to respond to what the main character wants, right? I think it has to be like that, so it’s hard to mess with these really defined characters. They have these defined sexualities, and it would be hard to fulfill fantasies for all players in terms of what it is they want to do."