Batman: Arkham Knight is just a few days away, people. But maybe you haven’t played the previous Arkham games in quite some time or just don’t have access to them anymore and aren’t entirely sure how things have been leading up to this epic conclusion. Never fear, we here at Twinfinite are ready to help you out!
Seeking Asylum
Another day, another failed plot by Joker to destroy the people of Gotham City that was thankfully thwarted by Batman. As our story opens, the Caped Crusader is taking the Clown Prince of Crime to the Arkham Asylum House for the Criminally Insane.
Same shit, different day, but Batman’s more suspicious of his foe this time.
Joker gave up without a fight, when normally trying to take him out is much more of an event. As he’s sent off to his cell, Joker reveals that getting captured was all part of his plan to take over the asylum with the help of his main squeeze, Harley Quinn.
All the members of the Joker’s gang were transferred from Blackgate Prison following a fire that they totally started happened randomly and by coincidence, so the clown has the muscle to back up his takeover.
And no one can even so much as enter Arkham from the outside, because if they do, Joker’s bombs set all around Gotham City will detonate. Say what you will about the guy, he definitely knows how to cover his bases.
Thus, the Dark Knight must go in alone, aided only by his gadgets and his trusty tech genius ally Oracle, who frequently supplies him with gadgets for him to get around the asylum.
Along the way, he encounters two ‘roided up Joker goons whose blood matches Batman’s strongest enemy, Bane. After fighting off a particularly bad trip based on his fears courtesy of good old Scarecrow and saving Commissioner Gordon from Harley Quinn, Batman finds the mercenary turned villain.
Instead of being hyped up on Venom like he normally is, Bane is a weakling who divulges to him that an Arkham doctor (Penelope Young) developed an enhanced version of his Venom serum called Titan to help patients survive more taxing therapies.
The Joker caught wind of this and started funding her so she could continue her research and he could use it to create an army of superhuman henchmen.
But again, Batman gets another hit of that Fear Toxin and hallucinates the night of his parents’ deaths. Because when you’re Bruce Wayne, you’re either thinking about that or breaking some punk’s kneecap with a flick of your finger.
And wouldn’t you know it, Doctor Young also happens to be stuck in the asylum and hanging out with everyone’s favorite serial killer, Mr. Zsasz! Batman saves the doctor, but Joker isn’t too keen on her sharing her research and blows her up.
Batman learns from Harley that Joker’s got a Titan production facility in the botanical gardens, where Poison Ivy is just hanging out and doing her thing.
She tells Bats that the antidote to Titan (which is made by genetically modified plants) can be made from spores found only in the sewers inhabited by good old Killer Croc.
On the way there, Batman is hit with Fear Toxin yet again (seriously dude, seek help) and finally confronts Scarecrow… who is then dragged off by Croc to be an appetizer for the main Bat-course.
While Batman heads to the sewers to get the spores and take down Croc, Joker injects Ivy with some Titan and she unleashes plants all over the asylum.
Batman’s only able to get one dose of the antidote thanks to Ivy wrecking his equipment, which he pays her back for by defeating her. Joker calls out Batman to end this once in for all, the two meet, and Batman takes a Titan filled dart meant for the recaptured Gordon.
By sheer suspension of disbelief, Batman’s able to fight off the Titan and use the antidote on himself, but Joker’s having none of that and decides to take some Titan himself.
Batman beats him down, Joker reverts to normal (or whatever counts as normal for him), and the day is saved as Batman goes off to stop Two-Face from robbing a bank.
…Or is it?
Six months after the Arkham uprising, the asylum’s administrator, Quincy Sharp, has taken credit for Batman’s actions as a way to boost his mayoral campaign.
His constant public gestures put the terrorist Titan addicted duo T&T on his back, which ends up getting 300 civilians killed. Naturally, Sharp uses this as a way to declare martial law and give himself unlimited power in a state of emergency.
Batman starts investigating Sharp’s records and discovers that Sharp’s all but ready to make him a public enemy.
He suspects that someone’s manipulating Sharp from the shadows, but before he can nail down anything concrete, Sharp goes and unveils Arkham City: half of Gotham walled off to house all the criminals (including the superpowered ones) from Blackgate and Arkham.
The criminals will be free to do as they please, with their only rule being to not escape.
Joker, Penguin, and Two-Face already have gangs set up and are working on creating turfs for themselves; with six months to live, the clown is content to just cause as much chaos as he can before he expires and the Penguin is gathering all the guns and bullets he can for a small war.
Sharp’s thugs round up anyone who has so much as a minor conviction and puts them in Arkham City, along with political prisoners who know too much about Sharp’s puppeteer, psychiatrist Hugo Strange.
The gates close on Arkham City one final time, and Batman’s unable to dig up anything on Strange. Unfortunately for Bats, Strange is able to dig up plenty on him, enough to learn that his secret identity is Bruce Wayne.
