The Complete BATMAN ARKHAM Timeline Explained!

the Batman Arkham franchise has grown to become quite an extensive series with a timeline that Glides its way through five Mainline games a handful of spin-offs a plethora of tie-in comic books a novel a VR experience and a movie but how does everything tie together well for a standalone Batman timeline it does a pretty good job of bringing all the iconic elements from across the Batman mythology together albeit with the odd curveball then there's the introduction of The Suicide Squad into the mix who each make plenty of appearances throughout the timeline before eventually starring in their own game and to confuse matters somewhat there's also Gotham Knights which despite featuring many of the same characters from the Arkham timeline is not set in the same universe so don't make that mistake I guess with Suicide Squad killed the Justice League set to expand the Canon of the Arkham verse what better time to recap the franchise's entire story so from Arkham Origins all the way through to the suicide squad's quest to kill the Justice League this is the complete Batman Arkham timeline explained foreign [Music] kicks off with Batman Arkham Origins which like the 2022 movie The Batman takes place during Bruce Wayne's second year as The Dark Knight rather unglamorously though first up on our chronology is an Arkham origins DLC challenge pack known as initiation which sees a pre-batman Bruce Wayne traveled the world on a rather unorthodox Gap year our Bruce ends up in North Korea of all places where he trains with the legendary martial arts master kirigi at his secret Castle Dojo following his training in Korea Bruce heads back to his hometown of Gotham City and establishes his alter ego of the Batman as a means to clean up the corruption Rife in the city from the streets all the way up to the top and it's this fresh young Batman that we catch up with during his second year of bat service in Arkham Origins deck the halls with bows of whatever as Arkham Origins kicks off on Christmas Eve with Batman pitted against eight assassins on a decidedly unsilent night those eight assassins including among others Killer Croc Deathstroke Deadshot and Bane are all after bats due to a whopping 50 million dollar Bounty placed on his head by a ruthless mob boss known as black mask this deadly night before Christmas sees our rather inexperienced Kate Crusader come head to head with each of these assassins as he attempts to cut to the core of the bounty black mask to absolutely no one's surprise black mask is actually the Joker in Disguise and Batman eventually catches up with and subsequently thwarts the Crown Prince of Crime before leaving him in the welcome Hospitality of the gcpd incarcerated at Blackgate Prison The Joker Is left under the care of one Dr harleen quinzel and so begins a beautiful and deranged relationship that will catch up with plenty on this timeline naturally The Joker doesn't stay in custody for too long as he soon incites a riot to gain control of the prison facility and establish a devious challenge to Batman's no kill rule Batman realizing he's way out of his depth enlists the help of Captain Jim Gordon and the gcpd to retake the prison and defeat the Joker which they eventually do despite Joker's incessant Golding for the bats to kill him the game ends with Jim Gordon letting Batman Go believing it's the best thing to do for the greater good of Gotham except there's a cheeky little post-credit sting that sees Amanda Waller visit an imprisoned Deathstroke to sign him up for a new team she's putting together known as The Suicide Squad more on them later [Music] just a short three months later we catch up with the Kate Crusader wrangling with the joker Black Mask the real one this time and the Penguin yet again with all three jailed at the titular Blackgate Prison Batman is called upon by Jim Gordon to infiltrate the penitentiary and shut each of the super villains down complicating matters somewhat is one Selena Kyle AKA Catwoman who appears to Aid our bats but is secretly on her own mission for Amanda Waller a mission to secure Bane long story short Batman takes down the Joker the Penguin and black mask and Catwoman is arrested rescued by Rick flag alongside Bane who's also in League with Walla and in another post-credits scene we learned that while flag and his team had to return Bane to the custody of the gcpd they did secure Deadshot and a lad called Bronze Tiger amidst the Blackgate riots that Suicide Squad just got a couple of new recruits you know okay so you might have noticed that there's a huge time Jump between Blackgate and Batgirl and while a fair few things happen in this period none of it really happens in the game so it's nothing really that I can show you so let me run through the key points real quick so Arkham Asylum is reinstated Dick Grayson Witnesses his parents dying is taken in by Bruce Wayne which sets him on the path to becoming Robin a path that he walks away from two years later when he moves to the nearby city of bloodhaven where he takes up the mantle Nightwing meanwhile Jason Todd becomes the second incarnation of Rodney before he takes on the Joker single handling appears to be killed a plot point that will have huge ramifications later on and then a lad called Tim Drake becomes the third flavor Robin in his many years and it's this version of Roman that we see teaming up with Barbara Gordon's background on the Arkham Knight DLC a matter of family and breathe anyway there's not much story in a matter of family it's basically Batgirl and Robin rescuing Batgirl's dad Jim Gordon from The Joker aboard the offshore Seagate amusement park they rescued Jimmy boy arrest Harley but Joker escapes to terrorize another day I know I couldn't believe it either [Music] speaking of Harley the timeline is Suicide Squad movie Batman assault and Arkham well bats does appear this tie-in movie sees Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad made up of Deadshot Harley Quinn Captain Boomerang king shark black spider and Killer Frost being tasked with breaking into Arkham Asylum to assassinate The Riddler so how exactly does Batman come into a film sporting his own name well he's on the hunt for a supposed dirty bomb that joker has hidden somewhere in the city how he's done that when he's back in an Arkham as anyone's guess and this leads him to cross paths with the suicide squad as they infiltrate the Asylum the squad and bats eventually go head to head where black spider supposedly manages to take out the Kate Crusader hmm the squad then catch up to the Riddler who manages to persuade them not to kill him in exchange for the knowledge of how to remove the Nano bombs Walla has placed in each of their heads the squad agree and Riddler manages to remove the bombs but in the process rather messily kills king shark and in a Twist that I reckon a fair few people saw coming reveals Batman's disguise as black spider as the squad attempt to escape Arkham Island all hell breaks loose in the ensuing chaos Harley rejoins with the joker who Reveals His dirty bomb is actually in Harley's Mallet killer frost apparently dies at the hands of Bane and Deadshot Escapes in a helicopter leaving Boomerang to the Arkham authorities all of which leaves the loose end of Batman hunting down the dirty bomb which culminates in a climactic fight between Joker and Deadshot resulting in Joker getting dropped off the side of a skyscraper in a chopper that blows up [Music] miraculously he survives otherwise we wouldn't have the story of the Arkham Trilogy speaking of which [Music] yeah here we finally are the very first game in the iconic Trilogy Batman Arkham Asylum and boy does this one sure put the bat amongst the pigeons Arkham Asylum kicks off with bats and Jokers sharing the front seat of the Batmobile with the latter effectively giving himself up to the former in slightly mysterious circumstances inevitably Joker Breaks Loose while Batman is escorting him into Arkham Joker's loose alert the warden and sets in motion his plan to seize power across the Asylum turns out Joker has got wind of the Titan project a supposedly super secret research program that the renowned Dr Penelope young has been working on basically inject yourself with Titan and you become a pro wrestler while navigating Arkham Island the world's greatest detective eventually traces the source of Titan back to a patient X who turns out to be poor old Bane Dr Young has been draining him with the Venom that turned him into the giant Brick House of a man and using it as a catalyst for her experiments with the Titan project long story short Joker makes a play for the Titan Serum with a view producing an army of Titan fueled Banner likes naturally and caught up in the mix is a veritable who's who of Batman's Rogue Gallery with Scarecrow zaz Harley Quinn Killer Croc and poison ivy all making for absolutely Stellar boss fight set pieces as Arkham Asylum races towards its conclusion Joker cordly invites Batman to a party in his honor where he injects both himself and bat with a dose of the Titan serum while Joker morphs into a WWE knockoff Batman resists the serum somehow and injects himself with an antidote that he concocted from sewer spores as you do then the two Face-Off Mano e batmano on the rooftops of the Asylum with arcade Crusader eventually coming out on top by punching Joker Square in the face with a fist covered and explosive gel which is a move that should have been useful at any other point in the game with the job pretty much done and dusted bats hands over to a somewhat beleaguered Jim Gordon and the gcpd round up all the remaining inmates and with one final flourish the game ends with a cheeky little post-credit sting which shows a randomized villain one of either Bane killer croc or scarecrow grabbing it a canister of Titan floating in the Gotham River so before we jump into Arkham City a lot actually happens in the 18 odd month gap between Arkham Asylum and its Sequel and large chunks of it take place across the tie-in comic series Batman Arkham City and Batman Arkham unhinged now it's well beyond my capabilities to try and Regale well over 50 issues worth of plot lines in a short succinct way so let me break down some of the saline points that happen that will help set the scene for The grandstanding Narrative of Arkham City firstly Quincy sharp the warden of Arkham shuts down the asylum in the wake of Joker's night of chaos and successfully runs for mayor of Gotham because nothing says success like failing to look after an Island full of deranged supervillains with the Asylum officially shut down the city looks to find a new location to house its super criminals and so Arkham City is born under the watchful eye of one Professor Hugo Strange making up a large chunk of Gotham real estate Arkham City becomes a walled off open plan jail built to house inmates from both Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Prison and yes you're right that is a shockingly bad idea last but definitely not least is the bombshell that the Joker is dying yep the iconic bat villain is on his way out it turns out the effect of injecting Titan into his lanky little body were not good of course a load more happens but those are all the essential points to this timeline so if you want to find out more go and read the comics eh right with all that housekeeping out the way let's dig into Batman Arkham City's meaty narrative the game kicks off with everyone's favorite billionaire playboy getting kidnapped by the penguin voiced by famously authentic Cockney actor Nola North our mate Bruce manages to escape the deformed mobster and makes his way to the rooftops to Don cape and count and start kicking some ass and first up on the ass kicking list is one Harvey Dent AKA Two-Face who is quarter cat heads or tails kitty cat and owning two cats in real life I know that's a difficult task and has her suspended over some nondescript toxic waste which always seems to be lying around in Batman stories that saves Catwoman but his attention is immediately diverted to a bullet trying to Lodge itself somewhere in his Cranium using his world's greatest detective skills Batman tracks the source of the bullet to a nearby Church Tower where lo and behold it's Joker behind the trigger bats tracks his Nemesis to the sionist power plant where he falls for the old fake Joker Switcheroo and promptly gets infected with Joker's disease-ridden blood for his faux pas and so Begins the main Narrative of Batman Arkham City Batman's one-man crusade to find a cure for the Titan infused virus burning through his body I guess I should also mention Professor Hugo Strange sometime around now too seeing as he is The Game's main antagonist well as bats Zips Glides and punches his way around Arkham City stranger's presence and booming voice lingers over proceedings threatening something known as protocol 10. Protocol 10 is ready to begin as the the hours count down to whatever Protocol 10 is Batman bounces between iconic villains as he chases down Mr Freeze for help in finding a cure this desperate Mission takes in the penguin again now secure within the Gotham Museum and crucially Rochelle ghoul whose immortality presents the key to cracking the Cure long story short bat secures The Cure before losing it immediately to Joker and confronts Hugo Strange while Protocol 10 is triggered turns out Arkham City was all just a ruse for strange to kill off every criminal in Gotham thus ridding the city of crime altogether admittedly by committing the ultimate crime in the process but I'm sure he doesn't really care about that anyway Batman stops him only for a Twist in the form of a knife in Strange's back courtesy of racial ghoul who it turns out has been spearheading this whole circus from the very beginning before he dies strange triggers protocol 11 which is much simpler than its predecessor and basically just blows up his penthouse suite and Batman and rage escape the resorting explosion and free fall from the tower which ends well for precisely one of them and not so well for the other Arkham City reaches its conclusion with yet another Batman vs Joker climax only this time clay faces and writers of the party after dealing with the transmorphing villain bats next The Cure and watches on as Joker succumbs to his illness ice cold bats and with that the game ends with Batman carrying the Joker's corpse right out the front gate of Arkham City [Music] foreign before I dive into the trilogy closer let's take a quick look at what happens in the 10 or so month gap between Arkham City and night and the short answer is not a lot obviously I'm simplifying things as stuff does happen presumably Batman works out and stuff but like the gap between Arkham Asylum and City most of it doesn't really contribute to the greater narrative one of the key plot points in the wake of Arkham City is the closure and subsequent Redevelopment of that titular jail and with Joker very much dead Gotham City falls into a period of relative calm I say relative as there are still a handful of iconic supervillains at large among them are the Riddler who gets his own tie-in book the Riddler's Gambit Harley Quinn who's the focus of not one but two separate story DLC Packs the second of which Caesar breaking poison ivy out of jail and neighboring bloodhaven and most importantly the Arkham Knight whose entrance on the Gotham scene is comprehensively chronicled in the Arkham Knight prequel comic book series but that's not the end of it right before Arkham Knight kicks off on Halloween a Batman 13th year there's Batman Arkham VR which I almost hesitate to place on this timeline because well none of it really actually happens but what the hell you see Arkham VR plays The age-old Narrative trick that it was all a dream which is a massive copper in terms of Storytelling but hey I'm not writing these games to keep things simple Arkham vrc's Batman investigate The Disappearance of both dick Grayson's Nightwing and Tim Drake's Robin both of which end up dead at the hands of Batman himself in a psychological episode that Freud himself would have loved to analyze it's absolutely Bonkers and as I said none of it's real although it might explain why Batman's so hesitant for Nightwing and Robin to help in Arkham Knight speaking of which [Music] here we finally are the grand finale of the Arkham Trilogy and Rocksteady really threw the proverbial kitchen sink into this sprawling narrative in an escalation of the previous two games Gotham itself is now under attack at the hands of the Scarecrow who handily gives everyone a heads up that he's about to do some evil this leads to a mass Exodus of the city leaving just the rotten eggs behind and surely saving Rock City from having to render a fully open world Gotham with actual citizens knocking about but maybe that's just me being cynical and so Gotham is left to the criminals that define it all the favorites are here penguin is smuggling weapons two faces Robin Banks hell even Man-Bat is flying around the rooftops but taking top billing is the titular Arkham Knight a masked vigilante in Batman's image that has some serious beef with the Dark Knight arm to the teeth and backed up by a private militia he's a formidable foe hence Batman having to evening the odds turns out the Arkham Knight is in League with Scarecrow to set in motion a bioterrorism attack that will hit the entire Eastern Seaboard caught up amongst it all is beleagued cop Jim Gordon and his daughter Barbara who unbeknownst to him is actually working for Batman as Oracle The Dark Knight eventually tracks down scarecrow's base of operations for his attack known as the cloudburst and while he's limiting the blast radius he's infected by scarecrow's fear toxin which mixed with the mutated blood running about an assistant from Arkham City leads him to start seeing hallucinations of his good old pal Joker which in my opinion is an inspired way to get a deceased Joker into your Flagship Batman game Bravo Rocksteady I digress with Batman seeing the Joker everywhere he hits the Mean Streets of Gotham to put a stop to the Arkham Knight in scarecrow which leads to some pretty dark places for the series Chief among them a sequence where Batman is unable to save a kidnap Barbara from seemingly shooting herself in the head on top of that arcade Crusader is unable to stop the cloudburst from going off which bathes Gotham in an eerie or orange smog for a sizable chunk of the game admittedly with the help of Ivy who also kicks the bucket in this game Batman is able to reverse the cloudburst but most of the game is still pretty Doom and Gloom for our dear bats then there's the ongoing mystery of who the Arkham Knight is and the answer is drum roll there's a there's a there's a desk over there just so you know Jason Todd yeah the second incarnation of Robin who Batman thought had died at the hands of the Joker Well turns out he didn't and he's seriously pissed hence the Vendetta Against The Dark Knight after a prolonged fight Batman eventually gets through to Jason and appeals to his better nature from there Batman and Gordon Tracked Down the whereabouts of scarecrow and find out that Barbara isn't dead it was all a fear toxin-based hallucination Batman hands himself into the Scarecrow in return for Barbara and Jim's safety and he's taken back to where it all started Arkham Asylum there scarecrow broadcast the big reveal of who the Batman is to the world and injects Bruce with more than enough fear toxin to kill the poor bloke what happens instead is Bruce goes deep within himself literally fighting the manifestation of Joker in his mind until he has full control again it's really trippy controlling his fear and With a Little Help From A redeemed Jason Batman is able to overcome scarecrow and the pair take him down and lock him up in gcpd with Scarecrow behind bars and The Dark Knight identity revealed Batman sets about cleaning up the remaining threats in Gotham before initiating the Nightfall protocol which sees Bruce fake his own death in a massive explosion at Wayne Manor allegedly and the trilogy finally comes full circle in an ambiguous final scene which mirrors Bruce parents death where a pair of muggers are confronted by a shadowy figure on a rooftop is it someone else taking up the mantle of Batman a fear-induced hallucination or is it Bruce still alive and now a more extreme version of Batman utilizing scarecrow's fear toxin who knows one thing's for sure a lot happens in Batman Arkham Knight [Music] all of which leads us to the final game in the series Well for now at least Suicide Squad kill the Justice League after all those teases back in Batman Arkham Origins and Origins Blackgate and well the film as well the suicide squad have been a long time coming while very little is actually no known about the story of the game we do know that it takes place right at the end of the r Converse timeline and sees Arkham Asylum inmates Harley Quinn Captain Boomerang Deadshot and king shark recruited by Amanda Waller for an assassination mission in Metropolis their targets well the title kind of already tells you that I guess you see classic Superman villain Brainiac has made his way to Earth and has Brainwashed the Justice League notably Superman the Flash and Green Lantern into going rogue and that's pretty much all we know at this stage but there's plenty of potential for the story to evolve in a now batman-less world so watch this space I guess and that Pals is the Batman Arkham timeline fully explained do let me know in the comment section down below what other gaming timelines you might want to see and while you're there make sure to subscribe as we've got plenty on the channel already stuff like Metroid Halo Uncharted and Resident Evil thanks a lot for watching guys I'll see you next time

Channel: GameSpot

Views: 317,391

Keywords: batman arkham timeline, batman timeline, batman arkham chronology, batman arkham timeline explained, batman timeline explained, batman explained, batman arkham asylum, batman arkham city, batman arkham knight, batman arkham origins, suicide squad kill the justice league, gaming timelines, timeline explained, batman lore, history of batman games, history of batman arkham games, batman, arkham asylum, arkham knight

Id: c1dv6aHLz5o

Length: 20min 57sec (1257 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 24 2022