u/Greedy_Aide4451

We always debate whether TDK's Joker is a traumatized veteran or a mob victim, but honestly, merging the two makes his descent into madness infinitely more compelling.

Imagine a guy who is already a highly trained black-ops asset or military interrogator. He's seen the absolute worst of humanity, he operates entirely off the grid, and his sanity is hanging on by a single thread: his wife.

Then she gets in too deep with the wrong people. The loan sharks track her down and use the classic underworld punishment, forcing a credit card into her mouth to tear her cheeks wide open. Desperate to comfort her, this already-fractured operative takes a blade to his own face to prove that scars don't matter. But the sheer horror of what he does is the final straw, and she abandons him.

That is the exact moment his mind fractures permanently. It’s not just a psychotic break; it’s a terrifyingly lucid epiphany that the rules of society—love, loyalty, finance, justice—are a complete illusion. He takes all of that elite tactical training, strips away every last ounce of morality, and embraces complete nihilism. He stops caring about everything and decides that true fairness only exists in total, unfiltered chaos.

This completely reframes his entire crusade and his obsession with the Caped Crusader. He isn't just terrorizing the city for the thrill of it. He’s on a mission to validate his own shattered reality. He looks at Batman and sees a reflection—another deeply traumatized guy, but one who is desperately clinging to a rigid set of rules.

By burning the mob's millions, rigging the ferries, and tearing Harvey Dent down, he is actively trying to drag Gotham's greatest protector into the abyss alongside him. He wants to prove that the hero's moral code is just a fragile mask, and that underneath it all, Batman is just as broken and empty as he is.

All it takes is a little push.

It’s confirmed, this is DC’s next big project 🤣🤣🤣

As a gay man, I always knew there was something more going on between these two 🙄

This is a reference to the movie, right ? Opinions ?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where this franchise started versus where it ultimately ended up. Playing through the Return to Arkham version recently really put things into perspective for me. While the visual upgrades and lighting tweaks in the remaster breathe some new life into the environment, jumping back into the original game highlights how stiff some of the core mechanics actually are.

The foundation of the FreeFlow combat is obviously there, but it lacks that buttery, responsive smoothness of the later entries. And the gliding—man, compared to the mobility we got used to later, it feels incredibly restrictive. A modern polish on just those movement and combat mechanics would make the game practically flawless.

Now when it comes to atmosphere, Asylum is untouchable. It completely nailed the terrifying, claustrophobic "Serious House on Serious Earth" vibe.

The dark, grounded visual designs for the Batsuit and the island itself were a massive part of that success, entirely avoiding any of the campy or brightly colored aesthetics of past eras in favor of a gritty, Grant Morrison-inspired nightmare. Even though the game didn't physically feature every rogue in the gallery, the world-building alone kept your imagination constantly spinning with possibilities for the future.

But looking back, it's really frustrating how quickly Rocksteady lost their grip on that specific tone. By the time we reach the conclusion in Arkham Knight, the continuity feels incredibly jarring. It’s not just the massive jump in scale; it’s the weird foundational changes.

Bruce’s face model is completely different. Jim Gordon loses that classic animated series design that anchored the first two games. Gotham goes from the haunting, distant skyline we viewed from the Asylum cliffs to a completely evacuated playground designed specifically for a tank, completely ditching the idea of a sleek, advanced Batmobile. And with Joker dead, the whole dynamic just felt entirely off.

Honestly, the root of the franchise's discontinuity traces right back to the ending of Asylum—which is the only part of the original game I would genuinely rewrite. Letting Poison Ivy completely tear apart the island was a massive narrative mistake. By destroying the super-prison, they forced its decommission and practically boxed themselves into the Arkham City concept.

Tucking those City blueprints and Scarecrow easter eggs away in the warden's office might have seemed like brilliant teasing at the time, but it rushed the overarching narrative. If they had just kept the island intact and held off on immediately setting up a massive walled-off city, they would have given themselves so much more breathing room to build a cohesive, long-term franchise. Instead, they took the story in a direction that burnt through their best plotlines too quickly, forcing the main series to essentially close its doors in 2015.

I love these games, and I'd gladly still be buying new mainline entries today, but they ultimately backed themselves into a corner way too soon.

DO YOU AGREE ?

Gotta say…..Gotham finally feels like Gotham, and I’m loving it 😵‍💫🙏.

It’s Lego, so they pulled some tricks that the Arkham verse could have never gotten away with.

But let me just say….IT FREAKING WORKS! 🤩

Aside from the fact that the city is more alive than any iteration of Gotham we have seen in the past, I also like that they have seemingly leaned into the Schumacher and Burton versions of Gotham, which to most of us feel more iconic than even the modern Reeve’s Gotham (which is peak cinematography btw).

The Arkham verse, in my opinion, tried to do its own thing, and detached their iteration of Gotham from the pop-cultural presentations audiences had seen for decades in the various film franchises.

To me, this left Arkham Gotham feeling far less iconic and memorable than the one we are getting in LOTDK!

Burton and and his ‘spiritual’ successor had very different views on the look and feel of Gotham due in part to what they felt the audiences at the time were looking for, but somehow TT games and their partners appear to have taken inspiration from both and created a dynamic, breathing city.

The caveat for diehard Batman fans like myself, however, is that it is still “Lego” at the end of the day, and not a realistic take on the hero and his city…..but it is pretty darn cool, and and very fun to play.

If “LOTDK” doesn’t use their reimagining of the 1989 “Batman” film’s joker parade scene to justify introducing aerial combat / traversal in the game, I am gonna be slightly disappointed after spending money on the most expensive Batman game to date ($90 for the Deluxe Edition).

Let’s take a look at how Batman games in the past have disappointed us die-hard Batman fans (yes, this list is subjective and limited in scope, but hear me out):

1). Batman: Arkham Asylum - Phenomenal and ground-breaking combat, inspiring tons of future super hero games; but it started the tradition of looking for riddler trophies (something that got less popular and enjoyable as the series went on), had no contact with Alfred or much (if any) mention of alter ego Bruce Wayne, and exploration was limited in scope to an island, but that beautiful Gotham panoramic in the distance kept us wanting more.

2). Batman: Arkham City - A huge step (or leap) forward for the franchise, and a great story, and more emotional risk for the characters; but they KILLED THE JOKER and we still didn’t get Gotham per say, but instead a crumbling part of the city fenced off to be a super prison. But again, that panoramic of larger Gotham is very tempting.

3). Batman: Arkham Origins - A great game for many reasons, and loved the winter environment; but Joker replaced Black Mask, they gave us a Gotham that still isn’t true Gotham (and part of it was the Gotham we had in Arkham City), everyone was on a mandated curfew so the city didn’t feel alive, and we couldn’t actually use the Batwing and still had no vehicles for traversal.

4). Batman: Arkham Knight - Finally, a real Gotham! Nope, that’s right, Arkham Knight’s Gotham looked nothing like the panoramic in ‘Asylum’ or ‘City’ which was hugely disappointing and kinda broke the continuity of the projects a little bit for me. And there were no civilians because the city was evacuated; basically, it wasn’t a functioning city. And despite having the Batmobile with various skins, we still had no vehicular aerial traversal and driving around the city actually gets pretty boring because the city is just not dense enough to make it a convincing metropolis. A step forward, yes, but not true Gotham!

So, will “Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight” finally give us a Gotham that is “true Gotham” (and yes, we can define that differently depending on what aesthetic or comic version of Gotham we prefer, but it at least needs to be a functional city); and will we get aerial traversal like some of the older LEGO Batman titles???? What about sea traversal????

I’m very hopeful that in the future we will get a Batman game that finally gives us a real, functional, sprawling Gotham, and access to all of Batman’s “wonderful toys” (including those that fly and float)!

I’m very hyped for this game, and will no doubt enjoy it (it is Batman, after all…..even if in Lego form); but I’m looking for this game to hopefully check some boxes that the previous releases have shunned.

What do you all think?

*Disclaimer: I am aware that game studios design aspects of their game to fit the overall requirements for gameplay, and I’m not criticizing that; I’m just saying we haven’t ever gotten a true, comic accurate Gotham City or Batman in terms of scope and depth. Also, I know that studios are limited in terms of what they can do by technology; but that is changing fast! How fast???…..maybe LOTDK will show us.

For obvious reasons, it isn’t canon to the DCU’s main storyline (which I assume is taking place on Earth 1 but no idea if that’s true).

But is this series technically an Elseworld’s project like that of Reeves The Batman saga (meaning it is completely unattached to the mainline DCU altogether), or is it a story that unfolds in a parallel universe / alternate reality within the world of the mainline DCU ???

Any ideas ?