Batman: Arkham Knight was a train-wreck at launch for PC, and Nvidia have come to pull Warner Bros. Interactive out of the wreckage.
Batman: Arkham Knight was such a mess that Warner Bros. Interactive had to pull the game from Steam after an influx of refunds, and likely to save face. Rocksteady have already said that they:
“Totally supported [the] decision to suspend PC version. We have our best engineers at Rocksteady working like crazy to help fix the issues ASAP.”
It’s all hands on deck, as Nvidia have taken their battle-station to help fix the mess Warner Bros. Interactive made. Tom Petersen, Nvidia engineer, has said that they are “fixing a ton of things, that are not necessarily related to us.”
So, Nvidia are fixing anything and everything, not just problems related to their drivers. The company has it Gamesworks team, and QA testers working simultaneously to fix the issues. Nvidia clearly had very little time with Batman: Arkham Knight, as the game would likely have not released in the state it did if they had their way. Nvidia claims that their mission in fixing the disaster of Batman: Arkham Knight is part of their initiative of making PC gaming the best it can be. Tom Petersen spoke about Nvidia’s wider objective, he said:
“When a huge title like that comes out [and] it’s got problems, we’re going to dive on it. We’re going to apply our resources. And it’s the same guys, it’s the GameWorks guys, it’s the QA guys, that are getting in there and looking at the port and trying to figure out what’s going on,”
So, Nvidia had to pull Warner Bros. out of the mess they got themselves into, and it seems like Rocksteady and Nvidia are the only ones putting in the work to fix Batman: Arkham Knight. Warner Bros. has a history of dumping broken products onto Steam and leaving it to stew, but this time they were not counting on Steam refunds. For once, Warner Bros. has to release a whole, finished product and Nvidia knows this. The fact that Warner Bros. can’t even say when the game will release again means the product was not even complete on it’s first release and it demonstrates the huge workload ahead for Nvidia and Rocksteady.
Batman: Arkham Knight‘s PC port is offensive to gamers as whole, and Nivida has a lot of sour people to sweeten. However, Tom Petersen did say that, “It plays great, it’s a ton of fun, the effects are amazing, and I’m pretty sure when Warner Bros. makes it available on Steam again, that people are going to be delighted.”
Lets hope they mean it this time, and we aren’t going to find out months down the line that we have been lied to. Again.