So I have 100% Arkham Knight, though I have yet to do New Game Plus mode. I really enjoyed it, the Batmobile was fun as hell. But now that I’m finished I found a big problem with the game, the challenges. Now in previous games I loved the challenges, they were a great way to extend game play by giving us more difficult an unique obstacles and actually helps you learn what you’re capable of in the game. But here the challenges are dominated by the batmobile, which frankly I felt like I had enough of in the game, silent/loud predators and combats challenges felt nonexistent. I was finished with them in no time.

Now here is my gripe, in Arkham City you had four characters to choose for any challenge instantly quadrupling the amount of game play you get. Plus the unique traits of each character keeps the game fresh and interesting. In Arkham Knight, there are 8 playable character (Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Catwoman, Azrael, Red Hood, Harley Quin, and soon Batgirl). However all of the challenges are Batman only, aside from one Azrael combat challenge (The same one we played in his side mission) and one, I repeat, ONLY one dual combat challenge with Nightwing (Also the same one we played in his side mission). That’s right, to have dual play with both Catwoman and Robin you’d have to play through the game again. In the main story dual play felt like a tacted on feature, while cool it only gives you an unsatisfying taste of the other characters. I was expecting that there would be a number of challenges that would allow my to play as each individual character as well as dual play with Batman. I was even hoping to be able to choose any combination of characters, imagine how amazing that would be, it could extent replay value by so much.

The Last and most incredibly disappointing things were the Harley Quinn and Red Hood DLCs. While the game play was really fun like Arkham City’s character DLC, the “story” was insanely short. It takes about 10 minutes to finish each DLC and as I mentioned before, you can’t play these characters in ANY challenge map. Making those 10 minutes the only game play you get with them. I got these DLCs free with a pre-order, but honestly I still feel ripped off and if these cost more than $2, they wouldn’t even be worth the money. After the great job Arkham City did with this, it’s just huge let down to what is otherwise a great game.

While I’m at it, why are they so reluctant to let us free roam with a different character? Within a week a PC mod was available to play as ANY playable character in free roam, which looks fun as hell. I don’t have a gaming PC so I can’t take advantage of that, but it would make these “story” DLCs so much more fun and involved. We would even need the Batmobile, during the main game you just rush through Gotham City and don’t get a encourage to explore it like we did in Arkham City. Using other character can give us that encouragement. Rocksteady is said to have a bunch more DLCs planned, I really hope they address these problems because it’s the only thing keeping Arkham Knight from being the perfect game.

Update: I have played the Batgirl DLC and it is awesome, exactly the type of DLC I was expecting from the Red Hood and Harley Quin DLC. Still it’s annoying as hell that I can’t play any of the challenge maps with her.