10 Things You Didn't Know About Batman: Arkham City

2. Batman Carrying The Joker's Dead Body Was The Story Starting Point

With a lot of stories, writers actually begin with an ending and then work backwards to fill out how the characters got there, and that's pretty much how Rocksteady came up with the narrative for City.

As mentioned in the same AMA, Sefton Hill explained that the image of Batman carrying the Joker's lifeless corpse (just like he carried Jason Todd in the comics) came right at the beginning, acting as a bolt of inspiration to build the rest of the story around.

Considering it was one of the first plot points thought up, it's no surprise that the moment is perfectly executed in the final game. All these years on, it's still such a ballsy move, and Hill explained why he thought that image was so important to the story:

"We wanted to show that even though Batman hates Joker, there's a part of him, which he wouldn't care to acknowledge, that is defined by Joker. Without Joker, Batman is not Batman. That image is Batman coming to terms with that loss."