One of the year’s biggest and highest quality games is Rocksteady Studios’ “Batman: Arkham Knight.”

As per usual with many big budget games, developers will release a series of downloadable content after the game’s launch.

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Often times this extra content can be accessed by purchasing a season pass. The season pass will contain all the scheduled additional content to the game at a reduced price to buying it all individually. The risk with this method is sometimes the player has no idea what will be included with the season pass and might not want all the content, so a player is paying for more than they want. Occasionally, the added content is not worth the season pass price tag.

The first piece of playable content added with the season pass for “Batman: Arkham Knight” is “Batman Arkham Knight – Batgirl: A Matter of Family.” The player can gain access to it by buying it individually for $6.99 or the “Batman Arkham Knight – Arkham Knight Season Pass” for $39.99.

The content is set chronologically before the events of the first game in the Arkham series, “Batman: Arkham Asylum,” and after the events of the spin-off and origin story “Batman: Arkham Origins.” The spin-off and Batgirl content were developed by Warner Bros. Games Montréal.

The player controls the female heroine Batgirl. The player teams up with Robin and enters an abandoned theme park to free police officers and Police Commissioner James Gordon, Batgirl’s father, from Joker.

Playing Batgirl is a welcome change to the standard formula of mostly playing Batman or another male character. She adds a different feel to the game in her movements and personality, like when playing as Catwoman.

This addition to the game has all the right aspects of a top-notch downloadable addition to this already fantastic game. Unfortunately, this all falls short when it is realized the downloadable content does not add anything new and barely lasts more than an hour.

Batgirl can do mostly what Batman can, but is a little limited. The upgrades unlocked as Batman do not carry over to Batgirl, so the player feels weaker right off the bat, no pun intended. She is also missing many of Batman’s gadgets, so adjusting to her lesser arsenal can be a little rough. She can still take down entire groups of thugs at a time with ease though.

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Batgirl does have one new tool, her hacking device. Batman’s hacking device is only used for opening locked doors. Batgirl is a master hacker so hers can be used on a variety of objects in the environment to distract or take down enemies. Unfortunately, this tool really feels lazy on the developer’s part. Most of the objects Batgirl can interact with using her hacking tool are things Batman would be able to utilize with his other devices. The extra interactions she gets are not enough to really make this tool feel fun.

The issue is most people will probably have played the full game and completed it by this point. This new content will feel like they are taking a step back.

This would have served as a good tutorial level. It is a very small open environment with a few places to explore, and features a majority of weak enemies.

The lackluster storyline, which is over before a player can get invested in the plot, is also a problem. The credits are already rolling by the time a player starts to get a feel for everything and the finale is just another typical fight. It is great to control a strong female character like Batgirl, but there is not enough here to completely get our fill.

The concept of this additional content was very interesting and had potential, but what players get instead is a very short and unfulfilling hour or so which is hardly worth the individual price of $6.99.

3 out of 5 stars