Batman: Arkham Knight may have gotten off to a rough start when it launched in 2015 but it seems to be faring better than its spiritual successor. Batman: Arkham Knight was released for PC and consoles nearly a decade ago and despite it too being a game that was pulled from a major online retailer shortly after launch due to an incredibly buggy and unoptimized state it eventually reached a point where PC owners could enjoy it. Now fast forward back to the present time and while Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League may not have launched in a similar state, two weeks in it still hasn’t managed to gain enough momentum to overtake its predecessor. A glance at the current Steam charts shows somewhat surprising, and at least for Rocksteady Studios, depressing figures.
According to Steam (1, 2), not only has the nearly ten-year-old game recently had more online players than Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, it’s all-time peak is essentially double. Ironically enough the latter’s release coincides with a renewed interest in the former’s as can be seen in the bottom chart. Now that last part shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given that the developers have said the new game does take place after the events of Batman: Arkham Knight and that there are easter eggs, or traces, of the events from that game to be found throughout Gotham and sequel games often trigger nostalgic revisits of their predecessors.
Unfortunately though, at least for now, it seems that Rocksteady’s latest offering, which has been criticized as being a game-as-a-service (GAAS) despite the developer stating that the only purchasable offerings are optional cosmetic items, appears to be off to a slow start.
The End of An Era
Batman: Arkham Knight marked the end of an era on several levels. It was the ending for the award-winning Arkham Trilogy and featured one of the last voiceovers from the legendary Kevin Conroy who passed in 2022, alongside Mark Hammil as The Joker. It also marked the end of multi-GPU support for the franchise, which up until then had been something PC gamers had enjoyed the benefits of, and led to a very rocky start since many couldn’t enjoy a 60 FPS experience with the game even at 1080p back in 2015. After many patches, and eventually powerful enough GPUs and other PC hardware becoming available, the game has managed to age well and attract new players.