LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight Preview – Back in Bats
by Stefan L · tsaTime was that TT Games would manage to put out new LEGO games once, twice, sometimes even three times in a year. The family-friendly action, the slapstick humour and easy-going smash-a-thon gameplay made this series ideal partners for movie tie-ins, comic book adaptations and everything in between. Behind Star Wars, it was LEGO Batman that enjoyed the most entries, gradually building up to the broader DC Super-Villains, and as the pace of game releases has slowed, it’s fitting that LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is the first game from TT Games in years.
Similar to 2022’s Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight aims to be the one, all-encompassing, definitive Lego Batman experience. This is strictly speaking an original take on the Dark Knight, but it’s drawing upon 70 years of Batman stories, taking from comics through to films and even other video games as well. There’s countless origin and early Batman tales to draw upon, from Batman: Year One to Batman Begins and The Batman, but it’s safe to say TT Games has put their own distinctive spin on the tale.
While the game will show Batman’s origins, we picked up the gamepad with Batman and Jim Gordon leading a raid on Falcone’s criminal empire, a moment that takes a little inspiration from 2022’s The Batman, as you descend into his lair by first sneaking through the rafters high up above an absolutely jam-packed nightclub. Get to the backrooms, and there’s plenty of goon battling to be had in some rather surprising scenarios. Falcone managed to convince his gang that they’d rather have a giant play space with bouncy walls, ball pits and plenty of safety netting is a much better investment than health insurance. It’s a truly barmy setting, but it’s also a lot of fun battling in the middle of a ball pit.
Combat here is fast and fluid, embracing some of the snappy action and counterattacking from Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy, though still keeping it pretty light. There’s little glimmers of the stealthier action from the Arkham series, as you can hop across elevated positions and get the drop on enemies, but it won’t be long before you need to hammer the attack button and deal with crowds of enemies. You can happily wail away on most of them, just keeping an eye out for the indicator that indicates an incoming attacks for you to counter, and dodging to get behind enemies with shield. Also helping out in the fight are a couple of tools, using batarangs and a grapple hook when playing as Batman, while Gordon has a handy gloop gun, whixfch can gunk up enemies to make them more easily bashable, and there’s some great finishing moves that the team has clearly poured their love into.
There’s countless moments of comedy sprinkles throughout too. Being a Lego game there’s plenty of straight up slapstick and tomfoolery, such as when Falcone goons try to repeatedly claim that his nightclub and base is actually just a fishmongers, but there’s also the knowing nods and winks to older stories, like Pamela Isley telling Bruce Wayne that “our mother is dying!” and him responding in shock “Martha?” Perhaps my favourite joke from our couple hours of playtime, though, was tucked away in a montage showing Batman’s crime fighting escapades, with a fleeting moment at a crime scene where someone holds up a cat. Is this game suggesting that Catwoman’s calling card is to just leave a cat behind?
It makes sense when you get to play as Catwoman, though. Teaming up and convincing Batman to help her just pop round a friend’s place for a moment – “This is totally a heist, isn’t it?” he accuses – we get to sample the blend of open world and story levels. There’s plenty to do out and about, beyond just trekking across the fully-realised city of Gotham to the next mission, whether it’s answering the call on local crimes, extending the network of fast travel parking garages, tackling the dastardly puzzles and riddles all around the city, and more. It’s an honestly quite impressive rendition of the city, and it’s easy to get around, grappling and gliding through the skies, or calling in vehicles for each character.
Whether it’s out in Gotham or within missions, there’s still a ton of brick-smashing and quick building to be done, but you’ll need the full line up of characters to overcome some of these things, from Batman’s batarang and grapple, to the Commissioner’s gloop gun for the many, many burst pipes and open vents in Gotham – they could really use better plumbers – and Catwoman’s ability to summon and control cats.
Once in the lavish penthouse that Catwoman needs to “help” in, there’s a couple of light puzzles to complete, finding hidden books and returning them to their bookcases. This needed me to use Catwoman to summon a cat, control it through a little vent and then boop a button on the other side. Good kitty.
It feeds nicely into the next section of the game saw Bruce and Selina heading to the circus to watch the Flying Graysons and their high-flying trapeze acts. Bruce is drawn into the act, having to construct and interact with things to help Robin continue on with the act, but it’s all disrupted when Two-Face shows up with an army of goons and a gigantic dynamite-filled bomb. Hey, where did Bruce Wayne go? And how did Batman get here so quickly?
Batman and Robin have to team up for the first time, making their way through reams of traps and contraptions that fill the skies of the big top (which is honestly underselling how big this circus is) and would make for a fantastic circus even without the peril and time pressure.
One of the joys of all of this is seeing the Batman world putting itself together, and the way that character introductions and transformations are interleaved throughout. Red Hood had a chaotic cameo in the nightclub raid, with Selina Kyle also having a mercurial role. Then there’s Pamela Isley’s appearance before the circus stage, planting the seeds (pun intended) for her own emergence and transformation into Poison Ivy.
And that’s where our bombastic hands-on time came to its conclusion, as Batman and Robin have to battle against plant people and a giant towering, carnivorous plant that Poison Ivy is riding on. It’s a fun fight, and was a great way to wrap up our time with the game.
I loved every moment of my hands-on time with Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. Even if Batman’s origin has been told and reimagined countless times in the past, a fresh Lego-tastic take is very welcome, and all of the humour, the delightful animation, and the callbacks and references really worked for me. With the game just a couple of weeks from release on 22nd May, it’s definitely one I’m excited for.