If there’s one complaint to be weighed towards both Batman: Arkham City and Arkham Asylum it’s that players never truly get the chance to experience the Bat Cave. Though Arkham Asylum did feature a cave wherein Batman would regroup and gain mission intel, it wasn’t the official Bat Cave.

But now, according to a preview on Game Trailers TV’s Thanksgiving episode, and with a confirmation by Arkham City’s official Twitter, it looks like gamers will finally get to explore the Bat Cave.

Included as part of a challenge map DLC collection that boasts previously released maps Iceberg Lounge and Joker’s Carnival this yet-to-be-priced package will release on December 20th, just in time for Christmas. In fact, those who have yet to pick up Arkham City should keep on the look out to see if any of the major retailers roll out the same deals they made available for Black Friday today. (Currently Amazon is selling the game at a pretty sizeable discount for Cyber Monday)

Aside from confirming Game Trailers’ scoop and giving a firm release date for the Bat Cave DLC, Rocksteady and Warner Bros. have been relatively mum with details thus far. In fact, we don’t even know what this Bat Cave will look like or what the challenges that ship with the map pack will involve.

It’s actually kind of surprising considering the amount of marketing effort that went into hyping Robin, Catwoman (who, like it or not, is DLC), and Nightwing that we didn’t know about the Bat Cave challenge map sooner.

Popular opinion had been, pre-Arkham City launch, that gamers would get their first glimpse of the Bat Cave once Rocksteady’s series went full open-world Gotham. That still may be the case, but gamers are now at least getting a peak behind the curtain at Rocksteady’s design.

What do you think of Rocksteady letting gamers mess around with the Bat Cave in challenge map form? Would you rather have seen a big reveal saved for the next Batman game?

Batman: Arkham City’s Bat Cave Challenge Map DLC will be available December 20, 2012 for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Source: Arkham City News