Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight Review | The Lego Game Fans Have Been Waiting For
Bricked up for Batman
REVIEWS
Caljb03
6/17/20268 min read
Lego Batman is back and as blocky as ever! Legacy of the Dark Knight released a week ago (As of writing this review), and I’ve had plenty of time to sink my teeth deep into what it has to offer, and I can safely say it’s a (mostly) fantastic experience. One I could easily recommend to Lego and Batman fans alike.
I grew up playing the LEGO games. Titles like Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Harry Potter, Lego Marvel. As a child, having games based around my favourite toys and my favourite franchises was a match made in heaven. Especially when they moved to an open-world design, I would spend countless hours running around, smashing things, and just enjoying myself.
Were they amazing? Definitely not. But they served their purpose of giving you some dumb fun for a good chunk of time; if you wanted a super engaging open world or phenomenal combat, you’re looking somewhere else.
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight aims to rectify this, being framed as a game more akin to the Arkham series but with a fresh Lego coat of paint. And I think it’s a move in the right direction for the brand.
A tale as old as time
Everyone knows the Batman story by now. Rich kid’s parents get disassembled in front of him; he then becomes a caped crusader and swears to stop crime in his city. We’ve seen this story, god knows how many times. So how do you reinvent a narrative that the vast majority of players will likely already be sick of? Simple, you don’t.
Lego Batman isn’t overly interested in showing you anything new. It had some unique storylines, but for the most part it’s relying on narrative beats and scenes from the decades of Batman history to tell its story. You’ll be exploring Wayne Manor just like you were Christian Bale, then going into chase sequences ripped straight out of “The Batman” and then going into iconic scenes from Tim Burton’s classic.
There is an original story undertone through all this, not one that’s overly incredible but one that works to push you to continue progressing. The constant nods and references to Batman past and present gives there good reason to keep soldiering through and seeing what else you can discover.
Levels themselves undergo a change. Going in the Skywalker Saga style of having levels that don’t really feel like levels, if that makes sense? The gameplay feels exactly the same as it does in the open world, puzzles are similar, combat is the same, and camera angles are hardly changed. If it wasn’t for the linearity or cinematics, you would think nothing had changed. Not like the original Lego games at all.
You have the collectables you expect: you can find a red brick in each level, collect Wayne tech caches hidden away and find a bunch of trophies that unlock a unique batcave customisation item. There are no more true heroes or civilians in peril, which is a little disappointing to me, but there’s still plenty to find.
Float like a butterfly, strike like a bat
The Arkham comparisons don’t come for no reason with Legacy of the Dark Knight. This game wears its influences right on its sleeves. Lego Batman follows the same free-flow combat system that the Arkham games popularised, and for good reason.
Gone are the days of spamming attacks on random enemies until they break; no more do you have to mindlessly fight boring goons in your LEGO games. Now you can actually stay engaged. Of course, this isn’t on the same level as Arkham; it’s dumbed down a lot to be more welcoming for a younger audience, being a LEGO game after all. But it’s a fantastic way to get new gamers into this style of gameplay, so one day they can see Arkham and think “That’s even more of the game I loved as a kid!” And I really like that.
Lego Batman also incorporates a similar stealth system, just maybe not to the same level of care. It’s functional for sure, and it is fun to strategically displace enemies. But it’s obvious this wasn’t where the focus lies; it’s not overly smooth to take out an enemy and move back into stealth; it’s got a relatively bare-bones level of interaction and engagement. It’s an improvement over the stealth in, say, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, but you likely won’t be asking for more stealth encounters as you go on.
Even more than this, we have multiple characters. Unlike previous LEGO games, you can only play as 7 characters (at launch, there are 2 more planned to release in September). This is a huge change from typical LEGO games, giving you upwards of 200 or 300 characters to unlock. Now, instead of a wide range of characters who play the exact same and don’t offer much reason to be there, you have 7 characters who play pretty similarly except for their unique gadgets. The new system is definitely interesting, but I never really thought that these characters were all that different, except for the fact that some were needed for different puzzles. I hardly felt the need to engage with the gadgets in combat, except for Batman’s batarangs, and they all have gliders, grapples, free flow combat moves.
Whichever you pick, you won’t have a drastically different experience. Some might like this, but I have to ask whether the removal of something that was seen as such a big part of LEGO games' identity got a worthwhile replacement.
TT Games also decided to grace us with upgrade systems! You can unlock Gold Bricks by completing missions and open-world activities, and for once they’re actually useful. You can unlock a range of skills for all your characters with these, from dive bombing while gliding, getting extra health or letting you do grapple attacks as you dodge. These are pretty much all super interesting, and I looked forward to getting that next gold brick to level up more.
There’s another upgrade system too, unfortunately one a bit less engaging. This is the Wayne Tech skill tree. You level this up by finding Wayne Tech Caches in levels and in the open world. These let you upgrade the gadgets of your characters; for the most part, it’s not worthwhile at all. Some characters, like Batman or Nightwing, have pretty cool upgrades, like Batman’s being able to throw three batarangs at once. But most of the other characters just weren’t interesting enough to hunt down chips for. Overall, it’s a system that I understand; its inclusion, I just think the execution of it left a good lot to be desired. Especially with how much I liked the Gold Brick upgrades.
A Gotham worth exploring
The open world has quickly become a core component of LEGO games. Lego Marvel isn’t the same without its New York hub; Skywalker Saga loses some of its charm without its plentiful planets to roam. Lego Batman follows in their footsteps with a large explorable Gotham City.
The last time we had one was back in Lego Batman 2, the first proper addition of a hub world in a Lego game. Since then, we’ve had countless improvements which are all present in this release. You have so many activities to do in this recreation of Gotham, from side quests to races to puzzles. You’ll be spending a good amount of your time cleaning up the map like you’re busy playing Powerwash Simulator.
The main issue I have is that there’s not a whole lot of diversity in this content. You’ve got hundreds of puzzles and caches that need opening, but they all tend to feel very similar, like you’re mindlessly doing the same activity over and over again. This isn’t a new thing for LEGO game fans, but I do wish they prioritised quality over quantity when filling up this map.
But god, it is just a blast to explore. Gliding over the rooftops, driving through the streets. This world is probably the most fun to move around in any LEGO game. I actively avoided fast travel for my entire 40 hours because I had so much fun moving from point A to B. It’s not on the level of Arkham Knight, sure, but it’s absolutely up there.
How about some Bat Nipples?
When you play a LEGO game, customisation is one of the things at the forefront of your mind. Whether it’s having a wide range of characters to play as or the ability to create your own. We already discussed the removal of the former, but the latter also got an unfortunate bin toss. Thankfully, though, there is still customisation in Lego Batman, just in a more typical nature for an open-world game.
In this game, there are about 100 different costumes you can unlock for Batman and his various sidekicks. Suits like the recent Absolute Batman or his Arkham Knight variant. There’s pretty much a costume based on nearly every interpretation of the character you can think of. It’s honestly impressive just how much care went into it.
As mentioned earlier, you can collect red bricks in levels throughout the game. These aren’t like the red bricks you’re used to at all. They give no benefit such as multiplied studs or invincibility; what they do give is a new colour swap for your suits and vehicles. Sick of the black and grey colour scheme? Swap it out for a new pink suit, or maybe a green one? Perhaps all red? These red brick skins aren’t overly interesting, I thought; they’re exciting when you unlock them to see how you’ll look, but I don’t think a single one really warranted being used. I’d much rather they took a version like Spider-Man 2 and had a few unique variations of suits than a broad colour swap that doesn’t really work.
Customisation is definitely present in Legacy of the Dark Knight, and it’s definitely something worth engaging with. With some creases to iron out in the next Lego release, I think it can be even better.
The LEGO game we need, but don’t deserve?
It’s pretty clear that I had a blast with Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. It can be a bumpy road at times, but overall, it gave me a truly enjoyable experience. I had so much fun with it throughout my 30+ hours of game time.
Whatever IP gets the Lego treatment next, I really hope they take the lessons learnt from this game and continue to improve where it’s weak. There’s the potential there for another truly unforgettable LEGO release.
