In the six months since Batman: Arkham Knight hit shelves, gamers have been waiting to see if that $40 season pass Rocksteady made available would ever be worth the hefty price tag. So far, the bits of DLC have included a few short "episodes," which wound up being glorified challenge maps; a few racing tracks that lost their luster after a few go-arounds; and a collection of alternate skins that proved to be the highlight of the entire package.
This was all supposed to change with the release of the new Season of Infamy: Most Wanted DLC pack, which features four expanded missions that bring back classic Batman foes from previous Arkham titles: Mr. Freeze, The Mad Hatter, Killer Croc and Ra's al Ghul.
So does the pack make the season pass finally worth it? Is it even worth the $9.99 price that you can nab it for without the pass? Well, it's almost impossible to endorse a $40 expansion to a game you already paid full price for, but with this new content, Arkham Knight is shaping into one of the most expansive games available this generation — putting to shame titles like Star Wars: Battlefront, which uses DLC as a necessity, not an extra for hardcore fans.
Unlike the individual episodes, like the "Matter of Family" map, these additional plots play out like the game's Most Wanted missions — placing players back into the open world of Gotham, taking care of one objective at a time. Because each mission varies wildly in terms of quality, tone and gameplay, I'll break 'em down individually.
In From The Cold
The pack's best mission is also the one that's also the most heartfelt. Focusing on Mr. Freeze's never-ending struggle to cure his wife Nora, "In From The Cold" places Batman in the wreckage of a ship that has been overtaken and ripped apart by mysterious glaciers. From there, you meet Freeze, who tasks you with tracking down Nora and returning her.
The gameplay here is fairly straightforward: stealthily clear out some guard posts, then rumble with a few generic hoods and finally battle some militia tanks in the Batmobile. That's not what makes "In From The Cold" work so well, though; it's the story that holds it all together. Freeze's ill-fated marriage and the sacrifices both he and Nora make for one last moment together lend a tragic beauty to Arkham's grim and gritty veneer.
