You may have heard through online ranting recently that Rocksteady have announced the price of Batman: Arkham Knight’s season pass, and in my opinion, they have the right to be upset.
Firstly, let’s start by saying that Rocksteady came out with the season pass just a few days ago without any description of what would be included in said £32.99/$39.99 pass. So, not really off to a good start. At least detailing what consumers would be paying for would be appreciated. The only bit of information we had was the following quote:
“This season pass for Batman: Arkham Knight delivers new content every month for 6 months, featuring new story missions, more supervillains invading Gotham City, new legendary Batmobiles, advanced challenge maps, alternative character skins, and new drivable race tracks.”
Now I know what you’re thinking…Race tracks? Anyway at least now we have more details on what to expect. See below of full list of what to expect if you fork out for what has been announced as “prequel content”:
Batgirl: A Matter of Family
An all new prequel story expansion in an entirely new location where you play as Batgirl for the very first time in the Arkham series – check out the first render of Batgirl.
The Season of Infamy
Play as Batman in all new story missions featuring legendary super-villains invading Gotham City, with new story arcs, missions and gameplay features.
Gotham City Stories
Play as Batman’s key allies in narrative missions extending their storylines, from both before and after the events in Batman: Arkham Knight.
Legendary Batmobiles with Themed Tracks
Drive the most iconic Batmobiles from Batman’s 75-year history, on custom-built race tracks, each themed to that Batmobile’s specific era. Every Batmobile will be drivable across every race track.
Crimefighter Challenge Maps
Engage in a series of new challenge maps utilizing the unique play styles of Batman and his allies.
Character Skins
A variety of skins from across the eras for Batman, Robin, Nightwing and Catwoman.
As we fully ramp up development on the Season Pass, we will be sharing even more details on each monthly content drop. We hope you enjoy playing Batman: Arkham Knight as much as we’ve enjoyed making it.
Doesn’t Batwoman look amazing? Yes she does. Unfortunately you will only be able to play this character and prequel storyline if you purchase the season pass! Here we go again, just like Catwoman in Arkham City, we have to pay to be to access a small chunk of the finished game. You may make the argument that this is a prequel story and may or may not having nothing to mainly do with the cantered story line, but the problem is that the content will be there day one and ties into the main game except this time you just have to pay extra for it.
Look how much backlash Mortal Combat X got for having Guro only available only through pre-ordering when hes on the bloody character select screen. This issue was also seen with Dragonball: Xenoverse with super saiyan 4 Vegeta. You cannot access him without pre-ordering.
The Batman Series were one of the first to actually take a playable character (not just a skin or item of clothing) and put it behind a pay-wall and looks like they have done it again. Just like the Catwoman story mode, we again have a full playable Batwoman and story which ties into the main plot and put behind pre-order/DLC content, and this time in the form of a season pass.
There is so much controversy into how much a huge AAA game cost to make these days as development times have increased, more detailed games, and the ridiculous advertising. But this really isn’t the way to go about it.
I personally have never paid for a season pass because you never truly know what you are buying. It’s just another step of pre-ordering that could be anything boiled down to absolute nothingness to make sure developers and publishers make more money off the consumer. And it makes me more upset that this will most likely all be included 6-9 months down the line in a “game of the year edition” in Arkham City.
Maybe I am wrong and the season pass will give you more than your money’s worth, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Batman: Arkham Knight is set to release June 23rd, 2015.
