The PC edition of Batman: Arkham Knight appears to be carrying noticeable bugs and glitches, especially for those using AMD graphics cards, with message boards lighting up as players report numerous problems.
Chief among the PC version's technical issues are sporadic freezes, frame-rate stutters, and audio glitches. Some players had expected issues after Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment adjusted its system requirements, leaving with it a warning about AMD compatibility problems.
[Update 1: Developer Rocksteady has released a statement: "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."]
[Update 2: A mass of disappointed customers have begun to criticise the game on its user Steam page. At the time of going to press, 70 percent of customers have not recommended the title, with some 2,000 customers penning negative reviews.]
[Update 3: Retailer Green Man Gaming has pledged to offer refunds if the next patch for the game does not fix most of the issues.]
[Update 4: Ahead of its patch, publisher Warner Bros has offered guidelines on whichBatman Arkham Knight PC settings people should select to curb some of the problems.]
[Update 5: Warner Bros. has suspended sales of the PC version of the game until the issues are fixed.]
[Update 6: Graphics card giant Nvidia has said it is offering its QA and technical assistance to help quell the problem.]
[Update 7: GameSpot has produced a graphics comparison video, below, which shows that the PC edition lacks some of the key graphical features of the PS4 version.]
[Update 8: Warner Bros. has requested that UK retailer Game cease selling PC copies of Batman: Arkham Knight. Update ends.]
[Update 9: Principal developer Rocktsteady Studios has said it supported Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment's decision to pull the PC version from Steam and has its best engineers working to fix the game's problems. Update ends]
Gary Lake-Schall, the VP of game technology at Warner Bros Interactive, wrote on Steamthat "there are some known issues with the performance of Batman: Arkham Knight for PC owners using AMD graphics cards."
He added: "We are working closely with AMD to rectify these issues as quickly as possible and will provide updates here as they become available. We thank you for your patience in this matter."
Following the publication of this message, AMD has released numerous driver updates in a bid to help resolve the glitches. Nvidia has done the same, though it should be noted only those using AMD cards have found problems.
Technical discussions on the games forum NeoGAF offer some unofficial workarounds to various problems, including means to lift the 30-frames-per-second cap.
Batman: Arkham Knight shipped across North America and Europe on June 23.
GameSpot's Batman: Arkham Knight review was praiseworthy overall, but aired many reservations.
