When Batman: Arkham Knight launched back in 2015, its PC port was in very rough shape, but following the years since its release, the game has turned into a much better product and the PC version now has extra features compared to the console versions. When looking back at what went wrong with Batman: Arkham Knight's launch, part of the reason why the PC port was in such bad shape was because Rocksteady outsourced it to a separate company, which happened to not meet its deadlines for release. Had Rocksteady developed the PC port in-house alongside the console versions, this disaster could have likely been prevented.
Following the release of Batman: Arkham Knight in 2015, which concluded the current Batman: Arkham story and timeline, it took several months to get the game in playable shape, as there were hundreds of issues that were still present in the PC version of the game. Experiencing severe lag spikes, textures not loading, and even prompting blue screens were among its major issues at release. Some of these issues were pretty bad - prompting a blue screen could wipe progress or even corrupt the save file, resulting in having the player start over from the beginning.
When Batman: Arkham Knight launched, it was flooded with negative reviews and criticism regarding its PC port and how it was nearly unplayable, sprouting memes and comedy videos about how bad it was. It was also criticized because Batman: Arkham franchise never showed much detective work that other Batman properties have centered around, delegating most of the detective cases to scanners that track blood or footprints. Rocksteady wanted to amend this and fix the game as soon as possible to turn public opinion around. By the end of 2015, Batman: Arkham Knight was in much better shape, and Rocksteady has continued to deliver hotfixes and updates to ensure that the game will continue to run nicely over time.
Batman: Arkham Knight's PC Port Has Improved Greatly
By the end of 2015, Batman: Arkham Knight had already received a substantial amount of content updates and bug fixes, removing the lag issues, texture glitches, blue screen occurrences, and opening the door for modders to make things like ray tracing mods for Batman: Arkham Knight. Smaller issues resided for many years afterwards, with the latest hotfix for the game only coming a few months ago. But, by the end of 2015, Batman: Arkham Knight was a pretty complete package, with the final DLC pack releasing in December of that year and many other features coming shortly after, such as a 90 FPS option and improved PC graphical options that were too buggy to run before.
Batman: Arkham Knight concluded the timeline of the Batman: Arkham games and introduced the largest open world, the most playable characters, and the most usable gadgets of any of the games in the franchise. The title capped off a series that had dominated the market since its first entry with Batman: Arkham Asylum in 2009. It also opened up the gaming market for future superhero titles to be inspired by Batman: Arkham, like Wonder Woman or Superman games, as well as act as a foundation for games like Marvel's Spider-Man, the Gotham Knights, and Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, which releases sometime next year. Batman: Arkham Knight is available on most systems and is very much playable on any PC storefront in 2022.
