LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight review: Embrace your inner bat

I am vengeance. I am the night. I am Batman!

I feel like the LEGO game formula is mostly self-explanatory. They take a well-known franchise, give it the LEGO treatment, work in plenty of gags and humor, and then let you loose in a world that is both homage and satire of the original property. It’s a solid recipe, and it has proven successful for many years now. What really makes it interesting is that the pattern is so well-established, and we have seen so many of these games released, that LEGO titles can now be measured against each other and have become a genre unto themselves. 

The good news is that LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is a peak LEGO game, as it contains all the elements that the series has done so well. The moody grimness of Batman is transplanted into a sillier world, more reminiscent of the 60s TV show than of Christopher Nolan’s modern treatise on stoicism, without disrespecting the source material. Part of that is because Batman is, fundamentally, a silly superhero in the best possible way, but it’s also a testament to the readily apparent love the developers have for the Caped Crusader.

A happy jaunt down crime alley

LEGO Batman opens by letting you know that nothing will be sacred, bringing us the origin story of Batman as his father decides to take a shortcut down the aptly named Crime Alley. Things turn sour, Bruce’s parents are killed, and we are off on the journey from the start of Batman Begins as the soon-to-be superhero travels the world in search of answers and skills. 

Hilariously, a version of Liam Neeson’s Ra’s al Ghul shows up, promises to teach him a very specific set of skills, and it quickly becomes apparent that the writers were willing to mine just about anything for a joke. Comic, movie, and casting references can all be upended into something humorous, and it’s an impressive feat that the flood of jokes never becomes tiresome. Instead, they feel like the kind of hilariously bad puns and desperate reaches you’d make with friends when watching the movies.

The game continues in this way, pulling in a solid rogues' gallery of villains but always putting a comedic shine on them, with standouts being the Joker, who perfectly channels the great Jack Nicholson’s performance from the 1989 “Batman,” and the most hilarious Two-Face origin story I have ever seen. There are also references to other movies and TV shows outside the Batman series itself, but the developers manage to walk a fine line here and avoid making them so prominent that they infringe on the fun. 

One of the best aspects of the story is that it will time-jump between chapters, picking only the highlights and big moments from Batman’s time as a hero to focus on, rather than getting bogged down in details as it tries to explain the entirety of Bruce Wayne and Batman’s interconnected lives. There is an assumption that the audience will be aware of much of Batman's story, which is used to grease the narrative wheels quite a bit.

You either die a hero…

In many ways, LEGO Batman is an Arkham game, and will be instantly familiar to anyone who has played Rocksteady’s excellent Batman titles. Combat has a similar flow, with basic attacks, counters, acrobatic leaps, and gadgets all playing important roles in fights. You will face a variety of enemies that need to be dealt with in different ways, and it is this quick decision-making and reacting that gives combat its fun and frantic flow.

Environmental exploration relies on using various gadgets to chain together a variety of actions or reactions to get past locked doors, fallen debris, or unusual puzzles, and while the puzzles are scaled to a younger audience, some might give even adult players pause.

The game is packed with things to do, from the closed-loop nature of many story missions set in famous Gotham landmarks like the Hippodrome, ACE Chemicals, or the Botanical Gardens, to the sprawling streets of Gotham City itself. There are some remarkably fun moments of platforming to take in, and the developers take full advantage of the fact that they are working in the medium of LEGO to have some fun with Batman’s mythos, building the kind of fiendish encounters that perfectly blend their inspirations and take advantage of the mechanics of LEGO.

As you play through the story, you will also recruit a number of sidekicks to help, each with their own gadgets and abilities, which you can easily trade out while you are in a mission. Each one has their own little story to run through as part of the bigger narrative, and their skills will open up new ways to interact with various puzzles or locations around the city.

Welcome to Gotham City

One of the elements I was most eager to explore was the open world of Gotham City, and it doesn’t disappoint. The city is broken up into multiple small islands that unlock as you progress through the story. They contain a multitude of activities, secrets, puzzles, and collectibles for you to hunt down, and even after the main story is over, there will be a lot for you to do in Gotham City itself.

The atmosphere of the city is true to the source material, although everything has that softer edge of the LEGO franchise. The game lacks a minimap when in a vehicle or a way to set a route to your target location, but I found this to be a good thing. The city itself is not so big that traversing it is a problem, especially when you get some fast travel points set up, but it is consistently fun to travel around. 

When playing standard Batman games, I always attempt to be as skilled a driver as the Dark Knight himself, but in LEGO Batman, that goes right out the window as soon as you realize that crashing through barriers, street lights, and hotdog carts does little more than reward you with studs, the currency you will use to unlock new vehicles and upgrades to your Batcave.

Random interactions will also populate through the city while you travel around it, as everyday crimes occur that Batman can help with, and there is always a reason to check an alley, or on top of a roof, for a secret that you may have missed among the many collectibles and puzzles.

For people who are fans of unlocking things, there are also dozens of suits for all the characters, an assortment of Batmobiles, and the Batcave itself, ready to be furnished and expanded however you wish. It’s a substantial offering, on top of the solid campaign, which brings its own replayability thanks to hidden collectibles in all the levels.

Why so serious?

Playing on PC, I was a little disappointed to encounter consistent stuttering at the start of cutscenes and occasional slowdowns and frame issues. I’m running a Ryzen 7 5800X, a 4070Ti, and 32GB of RAM, which should be enough to deal with most titles, but there were odd problems in the game, and never where you might expect.

Gotham City, where you would think there might be major issues, ran as smoothly as silk except for a few brief seconds after fast travel, while a small mission that played out in an office ran terribly. There were also very occasional movement glitches, including one that launched me out of the map when I went to interact with a mission-critical item. I also had one crash-to-desktop moment, but that never happened again, so it’s hard to hold it against the game too much.

When it comes to how the game looks, however, it is stunning, and the combination of the simple geometry of LEGO blocks with modern shaders, lighting effects, and shadows really does make this game look gorgeous. 

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is a great experience overall, and will likely find a passionate audience among those who love this series, but it also won’t do much to convert people who simply don’t enjoy the silly simplicity of the genre. It is both a worthy exploration of Batman and a fantastically fun LEGO title that takes full advantage of how loaded that premise has become over the years. 

This review is based on a Steam PC code provided by the publisher. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight launches on May 22, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC.

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Review for
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight
9
Pros

• A fun and frantic exploration of the Batman mythos
• Takes full advantage of the fact that it's a LEGO game
• Gotham City is wonderfully realized and engaging
• Laugh-out-loud funny in places
• Fun story missions and exciting set pieces

Cons

• Some stuttering and framerate issues
• The highest difficulty level could be tuned to be a bit more challenging
• It won't convert the LEGO doubters into block lovers