Arkham City Alignment Chart

UPDATE 07/03/16: A chap called JayZeeTee16 did an Arkham Knight-based follow-up to this (some good choices but I'm probably biased!).

I started work on this before the game came out, and I've done bits and pieces on it over November and Christmas, mainly just figuring out where various characters belong. Having just finished New Game +, I figured it was probably time to get this off of my desktop.

Batman: Arkham City is a bloody good game and features practically all of Batman's Rogues Gallery (with one big exception, but given their vast role in Arkham Asylum they were toned back to a few Easter Eggs in this game). Every character has their own goals within the larger scope of Hugo Strange's "experiment" to wall off a section of Gotham and throw all the criminals inside it, so much so that you'd require a map or chart to explain all the story.

Here's an alignment chart then, because I'm fond of them and thought I'd have a go. Here's my reasoning behind the selections. Fairly spoiler free, too.

LAWFUL GOOD - Commissioner Gordon: his role is reduced to being a background character in this game (with only one physical appearance in its events), but given how Gordon is always the rock of the "right way" that Batman clings to, he's the only one who really fits here.

NEUTRAL GOOD - Batman: you'd think Batman would always be lawful good, but in this game you actually do sometimes see a sinister side to the Dark Knight. Be it a worrying smile of joy as he pounds a villains face, or a moment where he almost makes the wrong choice (i.e. one for his feelings rather than for the greater good), Batman is far from perfect. He walks the line between good and evil.

CHAOTIC GOOD - Catwoman: the feline cat burgular is pretty much tertiary to the main plot, being a free DLC add-on that I found interrupts the main plot at really annoying points. She's after the contents of Professor Strange's Confiscated Goods Vault, but her actions (presuming the player makes the right choice) are in favour of the Batman's fight.

LAWFUL NEUTRAL - Hugo Strange: one of the main antagonists of the game, Strange knows the Batman's identity and seems to have ties to all events that happen within his prison city. He doesn't quite make the lawful evil category, because let's face it, with all the criminals locked up in his prison the rest of Gotham is probably as safe as hell. He has good but extremist intentions.

TRUE NEUTRAL - Mr. Freeze: Freeze has only one interest - reviving his wife. He's brought into the plot via the Joker, who's shanghaied him into making a cure for his fatal ailment by kidnapping Nora Freeze. Penguin then kidnaps Freeze himself early on in the game just to get back at Joker in their turf war. In the grand scheme of things, Freeze is a valuable pawn.

CHAOTIC NEUTRAL - Two-Face: underplayed in the game, Two-Face is vying for a place within Arkham City's turf war. He pops up here and there to throw a spanner in the works, usually for Catwoman.

LAWFUL EVIL - The Penguin: I swapped Penguin and Strange at the last minute, as Penguin spends the entire game being concerned about taking over Arkham City while locked in a turf war with the Joker. He honestly believes that it should all belong to him, and operates out of his nightclub The Iceberg Lounge (Strange couldn't get Penguin to move out, so he just built the prison around it). However, I've assigned him the evil category because this version of Oswald Cobblepot is truly deranged and not to be messed with.

NEUTRAL EVIL - The Riddler: Riddler has concocted one of his biggest schemes yet for the Batman, setting puzzles all around Arkham City and kidnapping a team of police medics as incentive for the Bat. He's out to prove that he's better than Batman, and he doesn't care how many people die in the process.

CHAOTIC EVIL - The Joker: Obvious, really. Terminal illness doesn't slow the Joker one bit. His plan (if you can call it that) tricks damn near everyone, and nobody knows what he'll do next. Strange may be the authoritative villain of the piece, but Joker is as ever the real threat. To quote Coheed and Cambria's tribute song: "While you clean the streets of misfortune I pick the innocent from my dirty teeth".

If you disagree with some of my choices (or all of them!) comment below, but please keep it as spoiler free as possible. I've kept certain characters out of this intentionally as they weren't well advertised as being in the game, or because they were integral to plot-sensitive points.

Batman and associated characters copyright © DC Comics.
Arkham City was developed by Rocksteady.