Review: Batman: Arkham Knight: Season of Infamy

Ice to see the end of the Season Pass

I’ve refrained from reviewing most of the DLC for Batman: Arkham Knight outside of the Batgirl add-on, because of the short nature of the mission-based tales.

But Season of Infamy has four missions, so that means it’s four times as good, right?!

Batman: Arkham Knight: Season of Infamy (PC, PS4, Xbox One [reviewed])
Developer: WB Games Montreal
Publisher: Warner Bros.
MSRP: $9.99
Released: December 22, 2015

Infamy is a bit confusing. It’s not an “Arkham Episode,” that’s detached from the story by way of a menu option. It’s an actual extension of the narrative, taking place before Batman initiates the Knightfall Protocol (the ending), and it’s integrated into the open-world campaign. In other words, if you’ve reached 100 percent completion in the game, just load up your file to start the DLC. Four new missions pop up as a result of booting up Infamy, which you can complete in any order, featuring Mr. Freeze, Mad Hatter, Ra’s al Ghul, and Killer Croc. Each one is roughly 30-45 minutes long.

Let’s start with the Mad Hatter, the weakest link in the chain. His effectiveness as a Batman villain has always been questionable, and that goes double for his appearance in Arkham Knight. He was fine as a throwaway sidequest included in City, but the return of his presence does little to justify a premium price here. You’ll be done with his bit in less than 30 minutes, running around Arkham with a minor series of fetch quests before confronting him at the Gotham City Police Department headquarters, and enduring another hallucination that amounts to nothing more than three easy combat challenges. It’s a neat concept but it’s so fleeting that I barely had time to digest it.

Killer Croc is another of those one-dimensional foes that often functions as the muscle of an outfit — a trope that leads you down a predictable storyline in the Infamy add-on. A prison ship has crash-landed compliments of an escape attempt by Croc, and you’ll gallivant across the environment, chasing him down for a bit (with more fetch quests in tow of course). Consisting of a few platforming sequences and some combat, there’s basically no thinking involved here in just about every facet of the short quest. It works better than Mad Hatter’s portion though because most of it isn’t comprised of re-used environments, and there is a nice brief reunion with Nightwing.

Mr. Freeze on the other hand, is a villain that has always had a more interesting, nuanced characterization. He’s not truly evil in the traditional sense — rather, he sees his schemes as a means to an end, to save his wife Nora. The actual objectives for his quest aren’t all that enthralling, but it’s the only one that features Predator sequences, and the concept (and the exploration of his relationship with Nora) is compelling enough to see the tale through until the end. Plus, it has a Batmobile sequence that has more of a reason to exist than most of the ones in the campaign.

Ra’s al Ghul’s quest is the other highlight of the pack, taking place mostly in Eliott General Hospital. Hush’s part in Knight was extremely disappointing, especially after the buildup from City, so it’s nice to see his family’s legacy featured front and center to some degree. Along with some brand new zones you’ll also work through a rather intriguing subplot featuring the League of Assassins (who are some of the only new enemies in the Infamy pack), and the Lazarus Pit — one of the wackier bits of Batman lore. There’s also a choice at the end that’s actually pretty interesting that I won’t spoil here.

As a premium add-on, Season of Infamy really fails to produce much that feels like it’s essential to the Arkham Knight experience outside of two tales. But on the other hand, it has a number of nice little touches, most notably a small expansion of the GCPD HQ, adding another wing (along with some easy WayneTech upgrade points), and the mission structure in the weaker two stories is competent at the very worst. If you really loved Knight and have been avoiding all the DLC thus far, Infamy is probably worth checking out at some point — even if it’s the only thing you buy piecemeal.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer.]}