Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight Review – Brick By Brick

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is a successful reinvention of the tired and bloated Lego series. A slimmer adventure, with a focused roster of characters and a new take on the old movie-recreation formula, makes for a fresh and exciting outing that is one of the best Lego games in years and a pretty great Batman experience.

After the contractually required death of Bruce Wayne’s parents, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight begins reworking years of Batman movies and pop culture to fit its needs. Bruce’s journey begins with Batman Begins, sending him to train with the League of Assassins. Here, the arc is condensed into a single level and doesn’t lead into the rest of Nolan’s film’s plot. Instead, returning to Gotham sends Batman after Carmine Falcone with the help of Detective Gordon, immediately jumping into iconic imagery of The Batman, including the car chase scene, with more rubber ducks this time around.

The new formula here, using movie plots as individual pieces of a single, continuous Batman story, makes for a snappier and more comic-feeling version of Batman. You battle villains multiple times, with different takes on characters like the Joker, all worked into a single, evolving character, creating a cohesive Gotham and story instead of individual movies strung together loosely.

The biggest benefit of this new style of game is the characters who are big in Batman but haven’t exactly gotten the red-carpet treatment in the live-action films. Not only are characters like Nightwing and Batgirl prominent in the main story, but they get to be treated like real characters thanks to the new character system in Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. Batgirl still appears alongside Mr. Freeze, as she did in Batman & Robin, but it’s Barbara Gordon, and she’s given her a more tech- and gadget-focused toolkit, making a better representation of the character than the movie did.

This comes from the limited roster of playable characters. Outside a couple of one-off characters, the main roster barely cracks a half-dozen, a stark contrast to the hundreds of characters in recent Lego games, like Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Each character, including Batman, Catwoman, and Jim Gordon, has their own individual abilities. This isn’t new, but each character has multiple abilities required for completing different puzzles. Now you don’t have to remember which 17 characters can crawl through small vents; it’s just Catwoman, trimming down unnecessary fat to focus on the main experience.

This also comes with a “new” combat system, though it’s really Arkham Asylum combat, slimmed down for a friendlier experience. There are multiple difficulty options, although the complexity of the combat is too shallow for that to make a meaningful difference. In addition to classic punching and shooting weapons, you can now counter, dodge, and perform finishers against enemies. You can also use stealth takedowns in a fairly competent and mildly challenging stealth system. These new additions bring more flavor and variety to the stale Lego combat. Sure, it isn’t anything special, but using Robin’s grapple gun to send Lego minifigs flying into each other is much more exciting than spamming the attack button until all of the enemies are gone.

The main story flows between traditional levels and small sequences, some of which occur in the open world and others in small, specific spaces designed for that part. Levels are part of chapters, which break up sections of Batman’s life, usually with a few years of crimefighting occurring in between. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight feels like one massive comic run, weaving together different villains, heroes, and story beats into a massive Batman story. You’ll get silly Lego gags, like Batman and Gordon dancing their way into Falcone’s office, mixed with fun recreations of iconic scenes, like the Joker scene from Batman (1989), where the Clown Prince of Crime defaces a museum while Prince’s Partyman plays, which is recreated shot-for-shot, including the song.

This mixture means you get as many silly gags as you do pieces of Batman iconography, striking a perfect balance for a Lego game. The story itself doesn’t have the juice as a legitimate Batman story or a compelling overall narrative, but it makes up for that in the small choices. For example, Batman and Catwoman maintain a stable relationship throughout, something that happens in the comics but is rarely seen in live-action adaptations.

The open-world activities that make up the rest of the experience fall victim to the same bland checklist nature as the open-world Lego games, but a smaller quantity — at least compared to those games — makes for a more manageable list. Some of these activities also add to the comic book feel, with Batman and crew spending time tracking down escaped zoo animals and solving Riddler puzzles, and not just beating down an endless army of enemy goons. Unfortunately, none of these activities quite have the depth or the satisfaction to make clearing out the map compelling, but they offer enough to stop and do a few on my way to the next story beat.

Some smaller additions add very little to the experience and, in some cases, feel like a step back. In addition to costumes and vehicles, your Studs and money can be used to buy miscellaneous items to decorate set areas around the Bat Cave. Unless you have a compulsion to decorate in video games, I can’t imagine finding any pleasure in this system, especially since it serves no real function. Red Bricks, which unlocked the equivalent of cheat codes in previous games, have been reduced to color palettes for costumes and vehicles. The added touch of customization is nice, especially with the limited character roster, but it does take away the excitement of finding one if I know it’s going to give me a new colorway and not a big head mode or a 4X Stud multiplier.