THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL GAMES ON PC

From trainwreck ports and moral panics to lootbox disasters

- Robin Valentine

Batman: Arkham Knight

RELEASED June 23, 2015 | DEVELOPER Rocksteady Studios | PUBLISHER Warner Bros

How broken does a port have to be to get pulled off sale entirely? In June 2015 we found out, with the average PC player experiencing the shadowy streets of Gotham at about 10fps – if they could run the game at all. At the time, PCG advised readers to “treat Arkham Knight as a game still in development”. Just a day after launch, sales were suspended, retail stock was recalled, and refunds were offered to anyone who wanted one. It didn’t return to sale until several patches later in October 2015, though it still had plenty of issues, and in the end Warner Bros was so keen to apologise to PC players that they gave Arkham Knight owners all the previous Arkham games for free as a peace offering. Ultimately, its technical woes overshadowed the game.

Doom

RELEASED December 10, 1993 | DEVELOPER iD Software | PUBLISHER In-house 

It’s easy to forget, but on release Doom’s gory combat and demonic themes kicked up a storm of controversy, one of the earliest moral panics about violent games. Things got really ugly when it was linked to the Columbine school shooting – the perpetrators were fans of the game, and one mentioned in his journal that he imagined the planned massacre would be like playing it. The resulting media coverage essentially set the template for games being linked to real-world violence.