Batman: Arkham City sequel – What do the Easter eggs tell us?

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Arkham Asylum, it’s fair to say, was packed with sequel-related Easter eggs and teasers to a borderline nonsensical degree. And now that Arkham City is with us, Rocksteady have done it again. But as with everything carried over from the first game to the second, the hints have been scale up to a head-spinning degree.

It’s taken a while, but I’ve fine-toothed the game to within an inch of its life, pulled together all of the clues and worked out everything you need to know. Settings, heroes, villains and plot-lines. I have them all locked down, and you can sue me if it doesn’t turn out that I’m right about all of them in two years’ time.*

*Not legally binding.

Oh, and it should go without saying, but… HUGE ARKHAM CITY SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

1. The Joker will have an heir

This is a biggie. You might not have noticed the evidence, given that Rocksteady squirrelled it away like a squirrel hiding a tiny needle in a miniature haystack, but the fact is that Miss Harley Quinn is with child. Find her old Arkham Asylum outfit in Mr. J’s office upstairs in the steel mill, look down, and you’ll spot a pregnancy test. It’s positive. Don’t think for a second about the mechanics of how this came to be. Just accept it. The imagery of a sexy Joker getting giggly wit’ it will make you want to bleach your brain, and you’ll wake up screaming every night for weeks. Trust me

Nightmare imagery successfully blocked out? Good. Then let’s think about what all of this means. First up, the baby will probably be with us by the time Arkham 3 comes around. If you find the confirmation of Harley’s new baby-laden nature before you finish the main story, it’s possible to hear her singing a lullaby – a rather brutal one, admittedly – over the game’s end credits, implying that her offspring is already here, or a least will be when the next game arrives.

This is going to seriously spin out Batman’s already deeply spun-out head. The Joker? With a family? Given what Bruce has lost personally, it will be impossible for him not to treat his main enemy more sympathetically now. Arkham City has already begun sketching out the deeper, co-dependent relationship between the two of them, and the Joker gaining the family unit that Bruce still grieves will only further that. The current game also touches on Batman’s tiredness at the endless, repeating cycle that is his unwinnable battle with The Joker. Knowing that there’s a new generation of evil on the way will probably exacerbate that, while increasing Batman’s desire to bring the cycle to a peaceful end.