When Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight was revealed at Gamescom earlier this year, the trailer looked like a blocky version of the Batman: Arkham games, which we haven’t gotten a proper sequel to in a decade. Yeah, the name Arkham has been slapped on VR spin-offs and mobile apps, but there hasn’t been an honest-to-god open-world Batman action game since Arkham Knight in 2015. Gotham Knights came close, but was weighed down by loot nonsense and a miserable grind. Rocksteady, the developer of the original trilogy, pivoted to the loot shooter Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which didn’t go over well. So there’s been a dearth of interesting Batman games in recent years, and while I figured it would come to an end at some point, I just expect the next to come from Lego developer TT Games.
Legacy of the Dark Knight’s trailer showed the mini-figure version of the Caped Crusader grappling around Gotham, descending upon unsuspecting baddies, and investigating crime scenes just like he did in games like Arkham City. I played about 30 minutes of the game, and even though I hadn’t played any of the Arkham games in a decade, my muscle memory kicked in when I was surrounded by a group of minifigure goons and the parry prompt appeared over one of their heads. People joke that Arkham’s beat-em-up combat is a rhythm game because every action, whether it be a punch, the swing of a bat, or the firing of a gun, has an equivalent QTE prompt response coded into Batman’s arsenal of moves. When you really get into the groove, Batman is practically dancing across a battlefield as he dodges, parries, and punches, and even with the more snappy Lego movement, it still feels fluid and rhythmic. It is quite literally an Arkham game, albeit with the slapstick Lego flair you’ve come to expect from its parodies. Batman’s finishing moves are less of the “you expect me to believe that man isn’t dead?” brutality we see Bruce Wayne dish out in Arkham, and more silly stuff like covering an enemy’s head with a trash can. Foes still break apart like any Lego character would, but I guess if you can just rebuild anything in these games, that’s not technically Batman breaking his no-kill rule.
The Arkham comparisons don’t stop at fights, as Legacy of the Dark Knight also has an open world to grapple and glide around. Though the pieced-together Gotham City might not be as atmospheric and dour as Rocksteady’s, getting around the crime-ridden Lego metropolis is just as satisfying. It’s easy to get distracted grappling to every high platform or gliding around with Batman’s wings spread over the city, but Legacy has enough of the random crime missions and collectibles that even a detour from your original objective is usually rewarded with something to do. You’re also able to ride around the city in the Batmobile, but I was so caught up in flying around the rooftops that I actually forgot to head to the ground level and drive around. My bad.
Though Legacy of the Dark Knight clearly has a lot of Arkham influence, it still has Lego foundations. The game can be played with couch co-op or by swapping between characters on the fly if you’re riding solo. The section I played, which had Batman and Commissioner Gordon infiltrating an Ace Chemicals plant, had puzzles that required both characters to solve. Batman’s gadgets can clear certain obstacles–his grappling hook, for instance, letting you pull locks off walls and crates–while Gordon has a gun that can stop up air vents or leaking pipes to clear the way for you to move forward. It’s easy enough to go back and forth between characters, but I imagine those segments will feel more rewarding when you have a second player next to you and it actually feels like a team effort. Gordon is one of several buddy characters Batman will team up with in Legacy of the Dark Knight.
People might have an image of Lego games in their minds as games with simple co-op action and a lot of referential humor, and Legacy of the Dark Knight has all of that. But it’s also the closest thing to an Arkham game we’ve gotten in years, and what I played so far makes it feel like a competent one. We’ll see how well it holds together or breaks apart when it comes to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2 in 2026.
