Intro/Set tthe Scene
I’ll be honest: I’m not really a LEGO games guy. That’s not a knock against the LEGO franchise. I understand why these games have become so beloved over the years, and I can absolutely see the appeal. They’re charming, accessible, funny, packed with collectibles, and generally designed to be approachable for just about anyone. They’re especially good games for families and younger players, which is exactly why I’ve never naturally gravitated toward them as an adult.
Then LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight was announced. Now, Batman is a completely different story. I’ve been a Batman fan for as long as I can remember, and the Caped Crusader has been my favorite superhero for most of my life. More importantly, the Batman: Arkham games, particularly Arkham City, hold a special place in my gaming history. Those games took a character I already loved and gave him the kind of prestige, polish, and AAA treatment that I never expected a superhero game to have when I was younger.
So when I saw a LEGO Batman game promising an open-world Gotham, Batman’s history across movies, television, comics and games, and combat heavily inspired by the Arkham formula, I was interested. Maybe a little too interested. Because what I really wanted from LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight wasn’t necessarily another LEGO game. I wanted a new Batman game. And that distinction ended up defining my entire experience.
Set the Scene
From a presentation standpoint, Legacy of the Dark Knight is a fantastic-looking LEGO game.
TT Games has done an excellent job translating Gotham City and its inhabitants into LEGO form. Gotham’s streets, the Iceberg Lounge, the Batcave, vehicles, costumes and character models are all packed with little details. Everything has that unmistakable LEGO aesthetic, but there is clearly a lot of care put into making the world feel like a genuine celebration of Batman.
That celebration is arguably the game’s greatest strength. This is a Batman game made by people who clearly understand how much material exists to pull from. The game isn’t content with giving you one Batman costume or one interpretation of Gotham. Instead, it constantly reminds you that Batman has been around for generations.
You can dress Batman in his The Batman suit from 2022, his Dark Knight costume, his animated-series look and plenty of other versions of the character. The same philosophy applies to the Batmobile, with different designs inspired by various eras of Batman’s history. You can even customize the Batcave with furniture and other decorations.
For a Batman fan who loves collecting different versions of the character, this stuff is fantastic and there is a lot of it.The problem is that Legacy of the Dark Knight sometimes feels more interested in reminding me about all the Batman things I love than giving me a new Batman experience that I can fall in love with on its own.
Narrative
The story attempts something ambitious. Rather than simply adapting one Batman movie, comic or previous game, Legacy of the Dark Knight creates an original story that pulls from virtually every corner of Batman’s history.
Across its six chapters, you experience major parts of Bruce Wayne’s journey, beginning with his childhood tragedy and his transformation into Batman. From there, the game brings in characters and concepts from throughout the mythology, including the League of Shadows, Talia al Ghul, Joker, Jim Gordon, Batgirl, Robin and Nightwing.
Each chapter introduces another important character or relationship. You train alongside Talia al Ghul and her father, work with Jim Gordon against Carmine Falcone, battle Mr. Freeze with Batgirl and experience Dick Grayson’s journey from Robin to Nightwing.
On paper, that’s a pretty damn good Batman greatest-hits package. The problem is that the story sometimes feels less like a cohesive Batman story and more like a Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from decades of Batman material.
Take Joker as an example. The game pulls from Jack Napier’s version of the character from Batman (1989), Heath Ledger’s Joker, The Killing Joke, The LEGO Batman Movie and other interpretations. None of those individual references are necessarily bad. In fact, some of them are really fun to recognize. But eventually I started asking myself what this particular version of Joker actually was.That problem extends to the larger narrative. The game has plenty of Batman references, but a reference doesn’t automatically make a story meaningful.
There were several moments where I recognized what the game was doing and appreciated the homage, but I didn’t necessarily care about what was happening within the story itself. The original material simply wasn’t compelling enough to make me forget about the source material it was borrowing from. That became a recurring problem throughout the entire experience. I would see something that reminded me of a Batman movie, television show, comic or game and think, “Oh, that’s cool.” Then I’d go back to playing the actual story and think, “I’d rather just watch that movie.” That’s not exactly what you want from a game that is trying to celebrate Batman’s legacy.
Gameplay
The biggest surprise for me was just how much Legacy of the Dark Knight borrows from Batman: Arkham. The combat is very clearly inspired by Rocksteady’s formula. You attack with one button, counter with another, evade with another, and string those abilities together while fighting groups of enemies. Once you get into the rhythm, there is a satisfying flow to it.
Batman can absolutely beat the LEGO out of some poor guy. There is something undeniably satisfying about moving through a crowd, countering one enemy, punching another, evading an incoming attack and continuing the combo. It isn’t as deep or demanding as the Arkham games, but the basic foundation works. Unfortunately, the combat never evolves enough to keep the experience fresh.
The game became repetitive surprisingly quickly. I’d reach a new area, fight another group of enemies, solve another puzzle, destroy some LEGO objects, build something, fight another group of enemies and move on to the next objective. Eventually, I started feeling like I had already done whatever the game was asking me to do, only now it was happening in a slightly different environment. The change of scenery wasn’t enough to hide that repetition.
The difficulty doesn’t help. Legacy of the Dark Knight introduces three difficulty levels, which is a first for the LEGO franchise, and I appreciate TT Games making an effort to accommodate players who want something more challenging. Unfortunately, even on the highest difficulty, I never felt particularly threatened.
I played through the entire game without upgrading my health and never lost all three of my lives. Some of that is undoubtedly because I’ve played the Arkham games so many times that the combat system felt immediately familiar. But even accounting for that, there simply isn’t much challenge here. And that’s where I had to remind myself what this game actually is. It’s a LEGO game.
It wasn’t designed to punish me with Arkham Knight levels of combat difficulty. It was designed to be approachable, accessible and fun for a much broader audience, including children. That’s perfectly fine. It just wasn’t what I personally wanted.
The puzzles were another sticking point for me. Legacy of the Dark Knight is absolutely loaded with puzzles. You’ll break apart the environment and construct new objects, figure out character-specific solutions, solve Riddler challenges and encounter smaller environmental puzzles throughout the game’s levels. The Riddler gets plenty of attention, and there are even Cluemaster puzzles to solve.
Most of these aren’t particularly difficult. They’re usually just complicated enough that solving them doesn’t feel like busywork, which is probably exactly the right balance for the game’s intended audience.
Unfortunately, I’m not particularly interested in puzzles unless they’re a relatively light part of a larger experience, like Uncharted. Eventually, I started seeing another puzzle and thinking, “Damn, another puzzle.” Then I’d remember that this is exactly what a LEGO game is. I can’t really blame the game for giving me the thing it was built around. I can, however, admit that it wasn’t particularly enjoyable for me.
Pros
This is probably the most important part of the review. If you don’t like LEGO games, Legacy of the Dark Knight isn’t going to magically convert you. The humor is exactly what you’d expect from LEGO. There are silly jokes, physical comedy, goofy character interactions and plenty of moments that deliberately undercut the seriousness of Batman. That tone works.
There is a lot of charm here, and I can absolutely understand why people love it. The game knows that Batman can be ridiculous sometimes, and it embraces that. But I wanted something different. I wanted a Batman game that could have some humor without constantly leaning into whimsy. I wanted something that felt serious most of the time and then knew when to let Batman be funny.
Instead, Legacy of the Dark Knight is a LEGO game first and a Batman game second. The developers do make an effort to bridge that gap for older players. The Arkham-inspired combat is one example. The higher difficulty settings are another. The enormous number of Batman costumes, vehicles and references is clearly designed to appeal to longtime fans, but none of those things completely overcome the LEGO foundation.
Collectibles, Customization and Progression: If you love collecting things in games, you are probably going to have an absolute blast with this.
There are collectibles everywhere, and the game gives you an enormous amount of Batman-related content to chase down. Costumes are one of the biggest highlights. You can play as a wide range of members of the Bat-Family and other characters, and then customize their appearances with different skins. Batman alone has a ridiculous number of different looks, and the same philosophy extends to the vehicles. Want the Batman Beyond Batmobile? You can have it. Want an Arkham Batmobile? That’s here too. Want the 2022 The Batman version? Yep.
There are even more unusual designs, including different versions of the Batmobile that fans of the character’s history will immediately recognize. The customization extends into the Batcave as well. You can place furniture and personalize the space, which is a fun little addition that gives the game’s hub some personality.
There is also a skill tree that provides a sense of progression and gradually unlocks new gadgets and abilities. None of this was enough to make me want to complete everything, but that’s more about me than the game. I’m not much of a completionist, and I didn’t come into Legacy of the Dark Knight wanting to hunt down every collectible or earn every trophy.
For the people who do enjoy that kind of thing, though, this game has an absurd amount of content.
Cons
This is where I expected the game to grab me. Unfortunately, it didn’t. The open-world Gotham City looks good, but I didn’t find myself particularly interested in exploring it.
There are plenty of things to discover, collect and interact with, but the world itself felt surprisingly listless to me. I never reached the point where I thought, “I need to see what’s around that corner.”
That’s a big problem when the game is built around an open-world version of one of the most iconic fictional cities in the world. Gotham should feel like a place worth getting lost in.
Instead, I often felt like I was moving through a collection of LEGO activities. Again, that’s probably going to work much better for somebody who loves LEGO’s collectible-driven design than it did for me.
Is This a Good Single Player Experience?
Yes. I just don’t think it’s a particularly good single-player experience for me. That distinction matters. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is polished, attractive, accessible and packed with content. The combat works, the customization is extensive, the puzzles are plentiful, the Batcave customization is a nice touch and the sheer amount of Batman fan service is impressive.
If you are already a fan of LEGO games and Batman, I can absolutely see this becoming one of your favorite LEGO experiences. If you’re looking for a family-friendly Batman game that gives you an open-world Gotham, recognizable characters, tons of costumes, collectibles and an approachable version of the Arkham combat system, this is a pretty easy recommendation.
But if you’re coming into this hoping for the next Arkham game, you’re going to be disappointed. That’s ultimately where I landed. I kept wishing this game was something that it simply wasn’t.
I wanted a more mature Batman adventure. I wanted the cinematic storytelling, atmosphere and seriousness of the Arkham games. I wanted something that could take Batman seriously while still giving us moments of levity. Instead, I got a LEGO game with Arkham-style combat and that’s not a bad thing. It’s just not the game I wanted.
Why This Passion Score?
My 64 Passion Score comes almost entirely from the fact that I love Batman. There are moments in Legacy of the Dark Knight where the fan in me absolutely came alive. Seeing different Batman suits, watching the Batmobile recreate iconic designs, recognizing moments from The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Batman and other versions of the character genuinely made me smile.
There were moments where I practically popped out of my chair because I recognized exactly what the game was referencing. But those moments also created the biggest problem with my experience. I kept thinking about the Batman movies, games and stories that inspired those moments rather than becoming invested in Legacy of the Dark Knight itself.
When the Batmobile recreated a big moment from The Batman, I thought about how much I loved that scene in the movie. When the game referenced The Dark Knight, I wanted to go watch The Dark Knight. When it pulled from the Arkham games, I wanted to play Arkham City again.
Eventually, I realized that I would rather experience Batman through those other mediums than continue playing this game. That’s why the Passion Score isn’t lower. There is still a lot here that I appreciate as a lifelong Batman fan. But being a massive Batman fan wasn’t enough to overcome the fact that I’m simply not a LEGO game person. Legacy of the Dark Knight did plenty to appeal to adults, but it never went far enough to become the Batman game I personally wanted.
