2015: a gaming year in review

Batman PC patch adds effects but further reduces performance

The Batman Arkham Knight PC drama continues today with the release of a patch that adds the missing ambient occlusion and dynamic rain at the cost of a further ten frames per second.

Whilst the Vic B’Stard test rig, with its 3.8Ghz i7 CPU, 32 Gigs of RAM and a GTX980, has been getting around 60fps not everyone has been so fortunate.

Those struggling to run the game anyway will, no doubt, be spitting tacks when they find that today’s patch has further reduced the game’s performance.

Batman Arkham Knight is the final part in the trilogy of games by Rocksteady and the prequel game produced in-house by Warner Games. As the most ambitious chapter yet, for PC and new-gen consoles only, the game finally opens up Gotham city to players who can now traverse the city in Batman’s famous Batmobile.

Whilst the console versions have been met with critical acclaim, the PC release has been fraught with issues, gamers have complained of frame-drops, stuttering and the lack of effects present in console version.

The day after release the PC version was pulled from the Steam store with Warner Bros. Games stating that the game will return to retail sale once the problems have been fixed.

Check out my 60fps gameplay video, below, and some of my post-patch extreme Batmobile footage showing off the NVIDA Gameworks in action.

Pre-patch Arkham Knight running at around 60fps

Post-patch extreme Batmobile action!