Batman: Arkham Knight PC Patch Works Miracles, But Is Pulled

Publisher Warner Bros on Wednesday deployed a patch for the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight, but has since removed it due to the update apparently going live prematurely.

The 626MB patch was delivered to a specific group of Steam customers who had all agreed to play beta builds of the game. Early reports from these users were overwhelmingly positive. However, Warner Bros quickly pulled the patch just hours after it first went live, apparently due to the new build being released ahead of schedule.

Warner Bros has previously stated that the Arkham Knight PC patch should go live at some point in September.

Some beta participants who played the patched version wrote on a Steam discussion board that Arkham Knight's PC frame rate was stable and smooth, and early indications suggest that many of the game's notorious launch problems have been resolved.

One beta user, going by the name 'Saerydoth', wrote: "Holy...wow. Just opted into the beta patch. EVERYTHING maxed, all gameworks settings on. 4GB used out of 6 (980ti). Constant 60fps. I think I might've dropped to 55 once when driving but it's butter smooth."

Another user, going by the name 'Snot', published a screengrab of the extensive new graphics options in the game, which also includes a gauge that shows how much V-ram is being used. That image can be found below.

Batman: Arkham Knight shipped on June 23 across Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. However, upon release, a mass of reports from players had indicated that the PC edition was in an incomplete state.

That led to a punishing two weeks for the publisher, as fans continued to discover a whole litany of technical problems with the PC build. After apologising and announcing its intention to build a patch to fix the numerous problems, Warner Bros decided to pull the title from Steam. The game has been unavailable on PC since.

Developer Rocksteady recently released a statement saying it was working on remedying the port's problems, while more significant ongoing work was being done. Posting on Twitter, studio co-founder and director of the Batman: Arkham series, Sefton Hill, said the studio has its "best engineers" helping to fix the issues.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros was accused of having known of Arkham Knight's PC Problems "for months" prior to release, however these claims--purportedly from internal QA employees--are not proven.