It’s been a while since we have had a game to review here on the Rambling Brick. Thanks to the LEGO Group for organising a digital copy of TT Games’ LEGO® Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight to review. I passed it onto our in-house games reviewer, Harry. Read on for more…

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is the latest in TT Games’ long line of adaptations of Licenced LEGO Themes to the videogame format. The last of these that I reviewed here was 2022’s LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga which, I recall, I mostly just tore to shreds for having a bunch of poorly written quips and skimping on the gameplay. In the intervening time, however, I took it upon myself to play through one of the older LEGO Star Wars games, LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, as research for a retro-review article that I never got around to publishing, but the ultimate conclusion of which was that I had perhaps been a bit harsh on Skywalker Saga. Not to say that my criticisms about the gameplay and writing weren’t valid, but playing through Clone Wars made me realise that there had been a number of quality-of-life changes in Skywalker Saga which have somewhat elevated my view of it in retrospect.

All of this is to say, I was pleasantly surprised by Legacy of the Dark Knight, which has managed significant improvement in the two problem areas mentioned above that I had with Skywalker Saga. The levels are now of decent length, and while the gameplay does still put more emphasis on the combat over the puzzles (perhaps understandably so, since it’s borrowing the notoriously very good combat system from Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy), there’s clearly been an effort to not have that be the whole thing. 

All of this is to say, I was pleasantly surprised by Legacy of the Dark Knight, which has managed significant improvement in the two problem areas mentioned above that I had with Skywalker Saga. The levels are now of decent length, and while the gameplay does still put more emphasis on the combat over the puzzles (perhaps understandably so, since it’s borrowing the notoriously very good combat system from Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy), there’s clearly been an effort to not have that be the whole thing.

There are a few recurring puzzles on the critical path that they got off the back of a cereal box, like the compound analysis where you match little LEGO-built elements in a molecule to one from several options, and recreating a wanted poster based on a few partial images. There’s also a few environmental puzzle mechanics based around combining characters abilities, like using batarangs to activate switches from a distance or the goo gun to gum up moving mechanisms.

They’re a nice little way to break up the usual combat and stealth routine and pace out the peaks and troughs. Those in search of a slightly meatier intellectual challenge, however, will be glad to hear that the Riddler’s contractors have been hard at work plastering the open world with optional Riddler trophies. Between those and the combat, there are times where you can squint and feel like you’re playing a slightly less grimdark version of one of the Arkham games, which would be no bad thing to my mind.

The main criticism I will give them on the gameplay front is that they seem to have made the stealth quite a bit easier. For one thing, guards take a few seconds to notice anything wrong, and there’s not much of a clear indicator of how far patrolling enemies can see, so quite often you can knock a guy out in what seems to be full view of three of his mates and be gone before they notice anything’s wrong. It also copies the Arkham trilogy predator missions while missing one of the crucial ingredients, escalation. As you picked off the enemies, the remaining goons would start to get twitchy, shooting randomly into the rafters and destroying your perches, making you rethink your movement on the fly. Here, you just keep picking them off like Skittles until you get spotted, and even if you do get spotted you can usually fight your way out easily enough. Having said all that, I will grant that it is possible this is a deliberate choice to scale it around the target audience of children and their parents, or indeed the result of it being built around couch co-op, where one player messing it up for the other would be significant cause for frustration.

Aside from the gameplay, the writing has seen some improvement too; there seems to be more of an emphasis on sight gags and slapstick than last time, but even the quips have seen some improvement. There’s a bit at the start with Ra’s Al Ghul (which they pronounce wrong, but I nitpick), depicted here as the version portrayed by Liam Neeson in Batman Begins, referring to having a ‘certain set of skills’ that dad even guffawed at. You heard that right, folks, a literal ‘LOL’. I appreciate that they’ve tried to implement the slapstick element into the gameplay through the takedown animations, as well; you’ll sneak up on a guard and rather than the traditional surprise glomp or choke-out from behind, Batman will stick a balloon to their back like the Fulton recovery system in Metal Gear Solid V, or whack them over the head with a frying pan.

In terms of narrative, they’ve made what I’ll describe as a bold attempt to pick and mix some of the choicer cuts from across the various adaptations of Batmanmixed with some filler that borrows from all over the place to glue it all together. We start with Bruce training with the League of Shadows under Ra’s Al Ghul (which is meant to be pronounced ‘RAY-sh’) from the opening of Batman Begins for the tutorial section, adding in Talia Al Ghul for co-op purposes which I think works well here. We then go through a Cliff’s Notes version of 2022’s The Batman that cuts out all the Riddler stuff and focuses on hunting down Penguin and then Carmine Falcone, then after some filler that ends with Jack Napier as Red Hood One (not to be confused with the other Red Hood, Jason Todd) fallinginto Joker-ifying sludge, we get some material loosely adapted from the Tim Burton films, and so on. 

Speaking of which, they’ve gone with the Tim Burton version of Batman’s origin story with Jack Napier (later the Joker) being the one who guns down Martha and Thomas Wayne, which as a subjective thing, that I personally am not a big fan of. I get why they did it from a narrative perspective, because they’re adapting parts of that story and it’s load bearing for that, but thematically I think it kind of defeats the whole ‘one bad day’ parallel that Joker and Batman have between each other if they turn out to always have been connected to each other. The idea that ‘one bad day’ can turn anyone into a monster or hero rings a little hollow when the narrative treats the conflict between them as something pre-ordained by their origin stories, turning it into one man seeking revenge rather than an ideological conflict between their two opposing philosophies for the soul of Gotham. I’ve always felt that the most compelling versions of Batman’s origin story are if Joe Chill is a complete nobody with no mafia ties, and the killing of the Waynes is the kind of random act of violence that probably happens to dozens of people in Gotham every day; but here I start to veer from my assignment, so I’ll leave that essay for another day.

In summary, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is a good game on its own merits, and even in considering it as a pseudo-Arkham Trilogy title or with nostalgia for the old TT Games titles I believe it holds its own. An enjoyable core gameplay loop with some fun side-activities, a much-improved comedic sensibility, and a narrative that plays like a highlight reel of the various eras of Batman adaptations. Now, if we’re finished here, I’m gonna go and play some more of it.

Thanks for looking at this Harry! Thanks to the LEGO Group for sending over our review copy over [Reviewed on Steam, the game is also available on PS5 and XBox. The Nintendo Switch version will arrive later in the year.

Is this a game you are looking forward to playing? Leave your comments below.

If you have enjoyed this post, please feel free to share it with your friends, families and communities. You can also keep up to date with us by following The Rambling Brick on our socials: Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, Tumblr (or just sign up for our mailing list) and find some extra content on Instagram and TikTok.

We really value your feedback: please let us know what you think about the sets we review, and the articles we post. And if you wish to support the Rambling Brick, consider clicking on our affiliate links before going shopping at LEGO.com. The Rambling Brick receives a small commission, and it costs you nothing extra.

Until Next Time,

Play Well!