Batman Arkham Knight Jim Gordon

After a couple of delays, Batman: Arkham Knight is finally on track for release this coming June. In addition to a new trailer which confirmed and showed off some of Batman's closest allies in Robin, Catwoman, and Nightwing, fans also received information on a season pass featuring a wealth of content that includes character skins, bonus items, new activities, and a trio of story campaigns.

One of the story packs coming in the Arkham Knight season pass called 'A Matter of Family', centers around Batgirl as she hunts down a villain in an entirely new area outside of Gotham City. Questions over who this Batgirl is arose after the reveal and while fans of the Batman comics may already know who the person under the cowl is, Rocksteady has gone on record to finally answer that question and confirm the character's identity.

Taking to Twitter to reveal the news, game director on Batman Arkham Knight and Rocksteady Studios co-founder Sefton Hill confirmed that Barbara Gordon is indeed under the mask. Fans have been debating who would be taking up the mantle of Batgirl considering that the hero has been portrayed by two characters in the comics.  The first and arguably most famous version being Barbara Gordon, daughter of Police Commissioner Jim Gordon, while the other being Cassie Cain, daughter of David Cain from the League of Assassins.

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Speculation about Batgirl's identity took off after the story pack reveal mainly due to the fact that Barbara Gordon is also the wheelchair bound character, Oracle, in the core game. Barbara's been featured as Oracle in all of Rocksteady's Arkham games to date, though in Arkham Origins, she was not yet confined to a wheelchair. Considering that this story expansion pack serves as a prequel to the main Arkham Knight story line, using Barbara Gordon as the lead makes sense as the events take place before her famous run in with the Joker in the comics.

'Batman: Arkham Knight' Season Pass Details Revealed - Batgirl

It'll be interesting to see the direction that Rocksteady Studios chooses to go with Batgirl's story and whether or not they decide to use the opportunity to show how she becomes Oracle borrowing elements from the famous "Killing Joke" comic arc. In that story, it's The Joker who paralyzes Barbara, leaving her unable to walk which eventually helps her turn to computers and hacking – becoming Oracle. With Mark Hamill announcing his retirement from voicing the Clown Prince of Crime back in 2011, Rocksteady may have to go in a different direction. Granted, Troy Baker handled the role well when he voiced the character in Batman Arkham Origins so Rocksteady does have a few options if this is the direction they're going.

Warner Bros created controversy as they initially revealed the season pass was priced at $40 without any concrete details as to what's included. Since rectifying the problem by revealing the abundance of content in the season pass and with two additional prequel story packs available through preordering the game, Batman Arkham Knight is set to feature the most content in any of the Arkham games so far. It makes sense when you consider this is set to be Rocksteady's final work within the Arkham universe, so the developer obviously wants to go out with a bang.

What do you make of the reveal? What do you think Batgirl's story DLC will entail?

Batman: Arkham Knight is releasing for PC, PS4, and Xbox One on June 23rd, with Mac and Linux versions due later in the year.

Source: Twitter