The side missions in the Arkham games are called Gotham’s Most Wanted. There are no side missions in Arkham Asylum (except for The Riddler) so we will be jumping straight to Arkham City.
Acts of Violence (Political Prisoners)
Arkham City started as a place to put Gotham’s criminals as a convenient place for the League of Shadows to execute them all. This is part of the League of Shadows ongoing mission to cleanse Gotham City of sin. The secondary purpose of Arkham City was a place to throw political prisoners who somehow got in the way of the first purpose. The idea was that either the criminals would kill these people almost immediately or they would be in a convenient place to kill them later. Other than the backstory, there is not much story to this mission. Scattered across Arkham City you can find political prisoners being bullied and threatened by criminals. If you keep an ear out, you can find these interactions in alleyways. You can listen to a bit of the dialogue between the two characters which fills in some of the dynamics between the two groups. In all of these encounters, Batman easily takes out the criminal which allows the political prisoner to cower in safety.
AR Training
Early in the game, Alfred tasks you with completing training using augmented reality images. The training is a tutorial that teaches you how to better glide and maneuver while gliding. The first set of missions’ completion rewards you with a grapnel boost gadget. The grapnel boost allows Batman to catapult himself into the air in order to traverse the large map more easily Alfred drops the tech off using the Batwing (which he also uses to drop off the Batsuit in the main story). The second set of challenges just nets you some more XP but it also teaches you more advanced techniques of movement in the air.
Fragile Alliance (Bane)
One of the first major side missions that you can access. On the way to Joker’s hideout in the steel mill for the first time, Batman is momentarily distracted by a distress signal coming from nearby. There is a commotion outside of the half-flooded Krank Toys Factory. A group of inmates seems to be trying to break in. Curious, Batman heads over and takes out the goons in front of the factory. Inside the factory. Batman encounters Bane who he last saw when he fought him and then hit him with the Batmobile. (See Arkham Asylum’s main story). Bane claims to have come down from his exposure to Titan and now wants to destroy the stuff. He tells Batman that there are twelve canisters that were smuggled to various areas of Arkham City. They will split the list in half and he tasks Batman with destroying six canisters.
Batman slowly locates the canisters as he unlocks new areas of Arkham City. He destroys the canisters using his remote explosive gel. Once he is done, Batman returns to Krank Toys to meet up with Bane. Bane congratulates Batman on holding up his end of the bargain. Bane then reveals that instead of destroying his canisters, he hoarded them and Batman has ensured that Bane now has the only supply left. Before Batman can react, the place is invaded by gang members and he is forced to team with Bane to prevent them from getting the Titan. Afterward, Batman declares that Bane will not get the Titan either. He tricks Bane into charging and traps him in a broken elevator. Batman makes Bane watch as he blows up the remaining canisters one by one.
Cold Call Killer (Victor Zsasz)
If you poke around the industrial district enough, you will eventually discover a dead body leaning against a pay phone. A bit later, Batman starts hearing various pay phones ringing. If he picks up the phone, he hears the voice of serial killer Victor Zsasz who had a small cameo in Asylum. Victor has been murdering people who answer the phone. When Batman answers the phone, Zsasz will taunt him and challenge him to reach another ringing phone before time runs out. If Batman does not arrive in time, somebody else might answer the phone and get killed by Zsasz. When Batman reaches the phone in time, Zsasz starts rambling which allows Batman time to try to track his location.
After a few cycles of this, Batman is able to locate Zsasz’s lair. On arrival, it is clear that Victor has hostages and also that he has thought ahead and locked himself inside a panic room of sorts. In fact, he has been keeping his hostages in cages meant for medium-sized dogs. Batman must take a more circuitous route through the flooded warehouse in order to get to a weak point in the panic room. Batman frees the hostages and leaves Zsasz in one of his own dog cages.
Identity Theft (Hush)
Batman stumbles upon a dead body in an alleyway of Arkham City. In the chaos of the gang wars, murders are unfortunately not unknown but this one was different because the entire face of the victim had been removed. This looks like the modus operandi of the killer that the newspapers had dubbed The Identity Thief. Batman finds evidence at three similar crime scenes. He interrogates a political prisoner saying that the murderer looked like Bruce Wayne. He finds Bruce Wayne’s fingerprints on a scalpel. Finally, he discovers a thug hired to clean up one of the crime scenes who tells him that Bruce Wayne was the murderer. As the evidence against Wayne mounts, Batman and Oracle grow concerned. Batman thinks that he is innocent of the murders but can’t be certain since Joker’s infection has caused an altered state. Batman vows to get to the bottom of it.
When Batman tracks down the lair of the Identify Thief, he is trapped behind bars. He is confronted by Bruce Wayne. Well, somebody who looks exactly like Bruce Wayne after surgery. The man introduces himself as Thomas Elliott, an old friend of Bruce Wayne’s. Elliott explains that he wants revenge on Wayne for what his father Thomas Wayne did. Thomas Wayne saved Tommy’s parents after a car crash, preventing Tommy from inheriting their money. Tommy sat by and watched as his pal Bruce’s parents died and Bruce inherited so much money. Tommy believed that should have been hs life too. He wants revenge.
As a professional surgeon, Tommy signed up for a medical mission to Arkham City. He had identified victims whose facial features he could fit together like a puzzle to recreate Wayne’s face. He also replicated Wayne’s fingerprints. In fact, early in the game, Batman encountered him without knowing it. In the church, there was a patient with heavy bandages on his head. When Elliott had cut off his own face, it had overwhelmed him and he needed assistance for some time. Eventually, he was able to finish the procedure and give himself Wayne’s face. He introduces himself as Hush. He walks away and by the time Batman gets free of the trap, Hush is long gone. Batman makes a note with Oracle to keep the file open.
Heart of Ice (Nora Fries)
After Batman defeats Mr. Freeze, he learns that the body of Nora Fries is in possession of The Joker as a way to force his cooperation. Victor Fries implores Batman to find his wife and gives Batman a vague area to look into based on his own deductions. Freeze couldn’t make a move to locate her for fear that Joker would pull the plug on Nora. Batman is able to sneak into the warehouse where Nora’s cryostasis pod is being kept and fights off the thugs keeping her hostage. He informs Freeze of the whereabouts of his wife. Freeze creates a path in the water to reunite with Nora. When Batman finds Freeze brooding near his wife’s tank later, Batman encourages the villain to turn away from crime and focus on his wife.
Hot and Cold (Furnace)
When Batman infiltrates the Steel Mill for the last time, he discovers Harley Quinn who has been taped to a pole and gagged. This had been done by Talia al Ghul in an effort to try and assist Batman. When Batman ungags her, she tells him that she definitely won’t talk and especially about Mr. Freeze’s stolen tech that she hid in the boiler room. (You can re-gag Harley at this point). Batman heads down to the boiler room where a bunch of Joker henchmen is hanging out. When they are defeated, it reveals an upgrade to Freeze’s ice grenade gadget which helps Batman with crowd control.
The Tea Party (Mad Hatter)
After Batman saves Vicki Vale after her helicopter crash in the main story, Batman does not notice Jervis Tetch aka the Mad Hatter watching him from close by. Alfred contacts Batman and tells him that they have been able to develop a cure. He directs Batman to a nearby roof where he will be airdropping the cure from the Batwing. Batman arrives at the coordinates and injects the cure into his bloodstream. He promptly passes out. When he wakes up, he has been captured and restrained by The Mad Hatter. Hatter explains that he implanted Batman with a remote hypnotic suggestion that would lead him to inject himself with a hypnotic drug. Thankfully, Hatter has no idea what Batman saw and heard that convinced him. Tetch gives Batman his very own special hat (a strange mask) that will put him further in Hatter’s control. Batman begins to fight against the mind control and brawls with Hatter’s henchmen and Hatter while he does. He eventually breaks free and crushes Hatter’s hat which stops any and all mind control. He leaves Hatter and his henchmen unconscious at their little tea party.
Remote Hideaway (Remote Mine Detonator)
Sometime after Batman clears the Museum of Penguin’s thugs, the undercover cops have made the Iceberg Lounge their base of operations. They seal off the club in order to protect themselves as they wait for more orders. When Batman visits them, they give him an upgrade for his disruptor gadget allowing him to remotely detonate mines. This removes them as an obstacle to certain areas.
Watcher in the Wings (Azrael)
Throughout the game, Batman can find a strange cloaked man watching him from a high vantage point. When Batman draws close, this man cryptically states that “we” have been watching Batman and also talks about whether Batman is ready or not. Four times Batman finds him and each time, the man leaves a strange symbol carved by a gauntlet-mounted energy blade. Batman is able to scan all four symbols, combine them, and then use them as a key to the map of Gotham to find a fifth location. In the church cemetery, Batman finds a fifth symbol that summons the watcher. The watcher introduces himself as Azrael, lone servant of the Order of Dumas. He brings a message of a prophecy that a fire will rise from Arkham and Gotham and Batman will burn. Batman dismisses this as a fairytale and Azrael says they will meet again.
Shot in the Dark (Deadshot)
After Batman exits the Steel Mill for the first time, he spots a distress flare on top of the partially flooded buildings and hears somebody shouting for help over the radio. He arrives to find a frantic political prisoner who tells Batman that he is being hunted. Before Batman can get him to elaborate, a sniper shot kills the prisoner. Batman uses his cowl to determine the trajectory of the bullet. He follows the bullet back to the logical firing position and concludes that due to the distance of the shot, the only one who could have made it is Deadshot. This is confirmed when Batman finds a custom shell casing with Deadshot’s name engraved on it. This makes sense as Bruce Wayne encountered Floyd Lawton in inmate clothing at the very beginning of the game.
Over the course of the game, Batman finds two more political prisoner victims of Deadshot. Forensic examination of the firing positions reveals Deadshot had come in contact with a specific lead paint and a specific brand of plastic. This information allows Batman and Oracle to narrow down where Deadshot might be going in between kills. Prying off the cover of a utility access point reveals a little cubby where Deadshot is stashing extra gear. Luckily, he left behind a PDA that Batman is able to hack. Batman finds that Deadshot has been hired to murder political prisoners. There are only three names left on the list: reporter Jack Ryder, billionaire Bruce Wayne, and Batman. Batman rushes to save Jack Ryder’s life and then fights Deadshot and imprisons him in a broken-down cable car.
Wolf of Words 