Batman: Arkham Knight Season Pass Contains Six Months of Content

[Steven Bogos]

Batman: Arkham Knight Season Pass Contains Six Months of Content

The season pass for Arkham Knight promises six months worth of content, but is rather vague on what that content actually entails.

Another AAA game, another $40 season pass. Today, Warner Bros. has announced the Batman: Arkham Knight [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/batman+arkham+knight] season pass, giving Batman fanatics a chance to pay money for content that doesn't actually exist yet. This time, the pass is even more ambiguous than usual, promising new content for six months post-launch including new story missions, additional super-villains invading Gotham City, legendary Batmobile skins, advanced challenge maps, alternative character skins, and new drivable race tracks.

Some of the extras are fairly straight forward (alternative character skins and new race tracks), but others... less so. What do these new story missions entail? What does "additional super-villains invading Gotham City" mean? What is the legendary Batmobile and how does it differ from the regular Batmobile? Furthermore, it offers no indication of how frequently the Season Pass's content will trickle down over the six months, and how large each content update will be.

The season pass will set you back $39.99, but you can purchase it together with the base game in a new "Premium Edition" for $99.99. It is worth noting that the base game has a RRP of $59.99, so purchasing the Premium edition doesn't actually save you any money over buying the two separately, and appears to have no additional extras included.

The previous Arkham [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/batman%20arkham%20city?os=batman+arkham+city] games contained DLC that allowed you to play as new characters in challenge maps (such as Nightwing), as well as small, self-contained story missions and cosmetic extras.

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[Tatsuki]

Eugh burn it in a fire.

I love the Arkham games and a lot of the previous DLC has been good. But for the love of god if you are trying to sell me something, actually sell me something, not a vague promise of 6 months of content. There's no real way to quantify 6 months of content to each individual person just like there is no way to quantify the length of an RPG in a way that is useful to everyone.

So Arkham... just shut up and leave me alone.
Till you come out... and... I buy you.

 

[marioandsonic]

...Or maybe I'll just wait until the inevitable Game of the Year edition comes out that will have all of the content already loaded into the game?

 

[Baresark]

If you say a season pass comes with everything, then it has the potential to be worth it, but since they don't say it will include all DLC, time to wait for the super cheap GOTY edition.

 

[The_Great_Galendo]

I find it mildly disconcerting that the bundle of the two products together is actually more expensive than buying the two apart. I mean, it's only a cent, but still. Is this season pass specifically designed to test the intelligence of their customers?

 

[mysecondlife]

GOTY edition at $10 - $20 it is!

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Season passes... bleh. When this generation of consoles was released, everyone was glad to see that game prices didn't go up, but I'll argue that they did. Every game has a goddamn season pass now, the content of which isn't even guaranteed to you any sooner than 'At Some Point.' I think Bioshock Infinite is where I swore off season passes for good - it doesn't even matter that the Burial at Sea content was good, they took their sweet fucking time with it and were never specific about when it would be coming. I'm aware that there were some issues at the time between Irrational Games and 2K, but that only serves to further underscore the point of why buying DLC is risky and needlessly expensive, especially when all the developer promises in return for more than half the price of the game is 'some cool add-ons at some point.'

WB is saddening me as a publisher with all this - the Mortal Kombat X Kombat Pack is a rip-off and it doesn't even guarantee you all the coming fighters, and hell, one of the fighters it DOES guarantee you is built into the game's friggin' story mode, all ready to roll out and everything! It's the reason I didn't buy MKX and why I won't buy Arkham Knight... for now. As others have said - GOTY Edition, yo.

 

[Grabehn]

I laughed when I read "6 months of content", though "Wait, so they're giving you 4,300 hours of missions?". I tend to forget that all that means is "whatever's released during the 6 months following the launch", even dumber of me since most extra content in the Arkham series was just skins and 10+ missions.

I've never bought nor cared about "season passes", all I get when I read about those is "PLEASE buy the game, we will give you moar stuff... At some point".

 

[Dead Metal]

Yeah, waiting for the Game of the Year edition, I learned from previous mistakes. Not going to bother with the hassle like last time.
So it'll take another 12 months, don't care, that way I at least get the full game and spend less than the day one version costs.

 

[laggyteabag]

Looking at the other Arkham games, generally the only DLC actually worth its salt is the one piece of story content, and the other DLC content is generally skins that I will never use. I will probably wait until we get some more exact details as to what the season pass will actually come with, but even then, I will probably just get it on sale.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Sigh...

I think the most bullshit thing about the season pass is that the exclusive content, even the pre-order DLC, won't be available. You have to wait until the exclusivity expires.

As I said: BUUUULLLLLLLSSSHHHHIIIITTT

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Since when has "6 months" been a legitimate unit of measurement for content? If we're talking Telltale's content, that's what? One episode worth £3.99?

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I'll take the story mission stuff, but that's it. Not interested in more challenge maps or skins. Going to be cheaper to pick and choose for me.

 

[K12]

Offering a season pass like this is just a guarantee that I'll wait until the inevitable GOTY edition comes out. I might have bought Arkham Knight at launch otherwise.

Also "6 months of content" is completely meaningless.

 

[porous_shield]

Preordering and seasons passes are a suckers game I will not partake of. I'm only interested in the main game and story missions and none of the other stuff. Those story missions better not feel like they were stripped out of the main game.

 

[TheSmileyManGuy]

Season passes... bleh. When this generation of consoles was released, everyone was glad to see that game prices didn't go up, but I'll argue that they did.

The irritating thing is , here on the U.K game prices actually DID rise with the release of the new consoles; while games generally used to cost £39.99 - roughly $60 - every new release I've seen for X1 and PS4 has been priced at £54.99 - roughly $85. And that's ignoring the all-too-common multiple special editions, £30/40 season passes and microtransactions gamers have come to expect. This [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-11-18-video-game-price-rises-spark-uk-inflation-bump] article goes into the issue in more detail and with more context and knowledge than I could hope to provide, if you're interested.