Batman: Arkham City - 10 Coolest Easter Eggs, Secrets And References Explained

Scarecrow's boat was just the beginning...

by Ewan Paterson
Batman Arkham City Calendar Man
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Released two years after their first Batman game, Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady Studios returned to Gotham City in 2011 with Batman: Arkham City, a title many would consider to be one of the finest video game sequels of the 2010s, and one of the greatest comic book video games of all time full-stop.

Following on from the events of Asylum, Arkham City ripped up Gotham's dedicated supervillain penitentiary and took it to the city's mainland, with Hugo Strange pulling the strings from behind the scenes. The end result was a No Man's Land-esque story that pitted Batman against his rogues and his rogues against each other, all while trying to solve the mystery behind Arkham City's creation, as well as the looming implementation of Protocol 10.

Like all great sequels, Arkham City made a point of being bigger than its predecessor - but not without meaning. The open world was twice as big as Arkham Island's, and with a greater playground came more room to cram in all sorts of easter eggs, secrets and references.

Of all the Arkham games, City is arguably the one most jam-packed with references. They're etched into the fabric of the open world itself, in dialogue and the environment, and - in one instance - even a secret cutscene.

Here are the coolest ones of all.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.