Things aren’t looking that great for Warner Bros’ Batman Arkham Knight. According to a statement given by Arkham Community Manager CODA, Rocksteady had help from an unnamed external PC development partner. The main body of the statement given is as follows:
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.
According to some sources, the external PC development partner is Iron Galaxy. The firm is noted in the credits for providing PC support and Iron Galaxy has done ports in the past as well as helping on the PC version of Bioshock Infinite. While out-sourcing development for ports isn’t anything new, quality PC ports have become a rare thing. Without knowing the details of the arrangement, it is hard to determine if Rocksteady, Iron Galaxy or Warner Bros is at fault though all likely share some blame.
Batman Arkham Knight so far has been plagued by a host of issues for the PC port. Standard PC settings are missing, the fps is capped at 30 and both Nvidia and AMD users are complaining about stutters and poor performance. Things are pretty serious when there is a day one 3.5GB patch set to fix a host of already known issues. The increasing reliance of day one patching and releasing buggy games is troubling to say the least. While delays might be hated, releasing games prematurely is worse. Taking the time to do something right should be the standard and not the exception, something large portions of the gaming industry seems to have forgotten.
