Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment recently announced a highly controversial $39.99 priced season pass for their upcoming Batman: Arkham Knight video game. With the caped crusader’s next adventure scheduled to take place worldwide on June 23, many started to wonder why the studio felt the need to talk about unspecified additional content before the main game even had a chance to hit stores.
Fast-forward and it looks as though WB Games is finally starting to shed some light on what players can expect from the season pass. Below is a quick overview of some of the content that will be rolling out over the next six months after the core game is released.
Batgirl: A Matter of Family
This brand new piece of story centric DLC will allow fans to play as Batgirl for the very first time in the Arkham series. The expansion takes place prior to the events of Arkham Knight and includes a new location separate from the main campaign.
The Season of Infamy
Batman is featured in several brand new story missions centered on legendary super-villains invading Gotham City. Rocksteady Studios ha s promised new story arcs and gameplay features to keep everyone coming back for more.
Gotham City Stories
Fans will be granted access to several of Batman’s allies and participate in numerous narrative missions that take place before and after the events of Arkham Knight .
Batmobiles, Challenge Maps, and Character Skins
As with standard Arkham series season pass offerings, we can expect a variety of challenge maps and character skins to dive into. Players can also look forward to driving several different types of Batmobiles across various custom-built racetracks.
At the heart of everything described above, the one area that stands out the most to fans is obviously the prospect of experiencing the grittiness of Gotham through the eyes of Batgirl. Does this experience alone justify the hefty price of the season pass and instantly make it a day one purchase? For now, I’d say it absolutely does not, for several reasons.
For starters when this season pass was first announced, Warner Bros. and Rocksteady Studios were very vague about what exactly it would include. Further details were only made clear after both fans and critics expressed their anger over the pricing and lack of information as to why they should purchase the pass on day one. While it’s a known fact that Warner Bros. will try and succeed in milking this franchise for all it’s worth, it also should be stated that consumers have a right to say no to this practice by voting with their wallets. Announcing a season pass and then not revealing what people are getting for their money is a bad move and truthfully we all deserve to know what we are getting in exchange for investing our hard earned money into a product.
Another reason why this season pass isn’t worth buying immediately lies in another calculated move that was done by Warner Bros. the very same week. The studio revealed that a Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition is expected to hit stores on May 5. Anyone who is familiar with how WB handles their releases knows that a game of the year edition of Batman: Arkham Knight is an absolute guarantee down the road. This all reverts back to the studio’s attempt to catch diehard fans while they have their undivided attention and selling them more in the process. While this is a sound business strategy by the studio, we again could have the upper hand in this situation by just waiting to get the full game at a reduced price when it’s rereleased at a later time.
With all that said, Batman: Arkham Knight is one of this year’s most anticipated games and therefore it may be hard to convince everyone not to invest in the season pass. I will, however, suggest that we all at least look at how this news is being handled by both parties and learn from it. Then and only then can we make the best-informed decisions and ensure that we are getting the most bang for our bucks.