This game main story is plain and simple not about Batman, but about Joker and how he might or might not allow Batman to be Batman. I'm sure Joker has more recorded lines than Batman and probably a tie in screen time on the unskippable cutscenes which are trademark in AAA console games (in PC videogames you are the one playing, but in most console AAA games you aren't really playing a videogame, instead a videogame is being played and you might or might not be allowed to control it, at developers will).

If they want so badly to make a game about Joker, why not just do it? Why the need to hijack a Batman game in which Joker is not the enemy but the main protagonist? When he showed up for the first time alive again, after the opening scene in which you can burn his dead body, I thought "pfffffff I hate cheap writers trying to piss you off by refusing to give you what you want, instead of offering interesting stories". I thought he would be an annoying side effect expression of the Scarecrow poisoning like in Asylum but no, no, he starts to become the main character. Now Batman, your main character is not Batman nor the main character anymore. And no, he is not turning into another clown killer because of the ingame Joker blood corruption, he is just being relegated by Joker which absolutely makes no sense in the game environment. It's just a cheap excuse to make yet another Joker game/movie, which they shouldn't have disguised as a Batman game because it is not, at least regarding the main story.

And the game was clearly made first with a Teen rate in mind because most of the game is cheesy Teen rated except for certain story cutscenes, which they on the total opposite roundup every cliché from psychopath paraphernalia you could ever think of in annoyingly long and reiterative unskipabble cutscenes, used by the developers to try to make you feel bad and disgusted. That contrast feels like putting a SAW (the movies about torture) scene in the middle of a Disney movie for kids... they should have either designed the game to be a psychopath wetdream, or keep the Teen rated tone from previous Asylum and City games. The Scarecrow scenes in Asylum are the proof they don't need to make SAW: Batman to get a violent and scary environment.

This shocking mix is probably a late decision to get into the "comics are now reality" Christopher Nolan bandwagon and maybe to cater to the Arkham players aging demographic group (they probably think teenagers started playing Arkham Asylum in 2009 and in 2015 they were young adults already, not so interested in a strictly Teen rated game).

I want to make clear that I'm not opposed to violence in videogames (I have suffered for decades every social and media attempt of videogame censorship), what I don't like is that this game was not designed nor marketed as such and that this annoying contrast kills all immersion.

The plot itself is from a scrapped concept for a movie called Batman Unchained. It was a sequel to Batman and Robin and would feature the scarecrow. Part of the movie would be of Batman having hallucinations of the Joker (Nicholson himself was supposed to play the role). The Joker bit in AK is also needed IMO. It creates a plot where Batman can't just punch his problems away.