Batman: Arkham Knight publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment just put the kibosh on sales of the reportedly crippled PC version of its open-world thug-slugging game. That's kind of incredible, since Arkham Knight's been out for less than 48 hours. In fact I'm pretty sure it's unprecedented in "most anticipated" game release history.
How did it come to this? Time may tell, but at this point, all we know is that when the PC version of Arkham Knight rolled out earlier this week, buyer complaints about all sorts of glitches---mostly crazy-awful performance issues---went nuclear. At this point, the game's garnered "Mostly Negative" user reviews on Steam, compared with universal acclaim for the console versions.
Longtime series developer Rocksteady handled the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game (neither of which have anything like the PC version's problems), but the PC version was ported by a third party. How the PC version in its current state slipped past Warner Bros.' quality assurance checks is anyone's guess.
Warner Bros. hasn't laid out a timeframe for the game's return in its public communique, and only says that it's "decided to suspend future game sales of the PC version while we work to address these issues to satisfy our quality standards." If you're a masochist, you can participate in the bug-hunt by posting to the game's official community and Steam forums, or filing a report with Warner Bros. customer support.
If you bought the game and you'd rather not wait, on the other hand, Warner Bros. says you can request a refund from Steam or through whatever local retailer sold you the game.
