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“Ladies, gentlemen. You have eaten well.”
Although this iconic Year One line precedes a very direct, pointed threat from Batman to the corrupted elite who’ve feasted for too long on Gotham’s spirit, after the misfire that was Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the famous line can once again apply to fans of the caped crusader’s video games.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is effectively baby’s first Arkham. Its combat, world activities, and even its open world feel as though they’ve been plucked from the Rocksteady playbook and boiled down for a younger audience. The fact that Legacy of the Dark Knight isn’t the worst Arkham game of the bunch is staggering, and that’s from someone who didn’t mind Arkham Knight—that’s just how much fun this game is. In typical LEGO fashion, it’s referential, full of ‘if you know you know’ gags, and it pokes fun where it needs to. The ball knowledge on display in Legacy of the Dark Knight is quite staggering, and I was continually taken aback by gags pulled from the films, the comics, and even past games.
Despite being an original story, there’s a wealth of reference material for TT Games to pull from and, unsurprisingly, Legacy of the Dark Knight manages to deftly weave iconic moments, even whole scenes at times, into its campaign, albeit with a new context. The story feels a little wayward through its middle chapters, as it tends to hop from one rogue to the next in an effort to cram them all in, relying on the thinnest of sinew to serve as connective tissue. Fortunately, the story pulls it together for the climax, delivering resolutions for most characters, whilst serving as a launching pad of sorts for this little Bat Family to continue serving Gotham.
As a big Batman fan, I was giddy at the sight of the fiery car chase from The Batman being recreated brick-by-brick, but I also adored how differently they were able to mash together Joker’s interrogation scene from The Dark Knight and Ben Affleck’s much-reticulated ‘Martha’ scene. The entire game is a love letter to everything Batman—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Although I perhaps should have expected it to crop up somewhere, Legacy of the Dark Knight ends on the most perfect needle drop song choice. It’s clearly not the game Joker is speaking to when he asks: “Why so serious?”
If you’ve played an Arkham game before, whether it’s Asylum, City, Origins, or Knight, you’ll know to expect the combo-laden, free-flow combat system that almost every action game turned to in the wake of Rocksteady revolutionising the genre. Although Bats’ gadgets don’t play as big a role as they do in Arkham, the rest of the experience is, more or less, 1:1. Punching, dodging, and countering your way through small, densely populated, arenas is the aim for the most part; however, the game, which breaks its back to emulate the Arkham games as well as it can, also includes a stealth option to avoid certain encounters. Being aimed at kids, it’s super forgiving as the enemy’s peripheral vision is non-existent, and you’re incentivised to use stealth as it’s a veritable stud farm compared to regular combat.
I love how unashamedly Arkham this game is, pretty much all of the time, right down to the gadgets and abilities Batman collects throughout the campaign. Fans of the series will immediately recognise tools such as the grapnel hook, the Batclaw, and, of course, explosive gel, which is used to reduce certain walls to rubble, clearing a path. Although I didn’t mind it in Arkham Knight, I do think this game has shades of that Batmobile implementation, although it’s far from the car’s fault.
On the contrary, it handles beautifully. Instead, it’s due to this LEGO Gotham’s layout, which is rather simple: a series of bridge-connected islands, designed with a city grid in mind. As the world is so explorable, I’d find myself constantly caught on the harbour-adjacent low roads, struggling to find the route back around towards the bridge, and the game, outside of having to pause, doesn’t exactly have a mini-map to refer to in transit.
It’s through exploration and its attempts at puzzle craft that the game’s LEGO side rears its head. As with past games, there’s nothing, aside from a little bit of decor placement within the Bat Cave, that’d constitute creative building. Any “building” that’s done is pre-determined, cobbled together by other items Bats has smashed apart. I do think just holding down a button, watching bricks snap into place, is the right level of interactivity for a kid; it could perhaps benefit from a brief mini-game where you’re required to line pieces up. These items always serve Batman’s momentary need, and it does so in the funniest, most over-the-top way possible. Outside of that, it’s mainly about destroying the environment to collect studs, which serve as the game’s main form of currency, and there’s a truckload of things you can spend them on.
Legacy of the Dark Knight might deliver a simplified version of the Arkham series, but it doesn’t skimp on pulling in content from every Batman run you can think of, delivering an open world that is flush with activities to complete and collectibles to find or buy. The Bat Cave feels like the culmination of all of the game’s fanfare, serving as a base of operations from which you can launch back into Gotham, replay earlier missions to mop up those remaining collectibles, and place on display decades worth of Batman history. All of the movie suits and cars are there, and, while I haven’t unlocked them all yet, I’m loving the niche nods to one-shots like Gotham by Gaslight, which places Batman in a nineteenth-century Jack the Ripper-occupied Gotham. It’s like a vault for all of the coolest shit Batman has ever done.
Whereas past LEGO games have included exhaustive rosters, where even the most obscure nobodies get a run, Legacy of the Dark Knight has opted for a smaller, more focused roster of heroes. In addition to Batman himself, there’s Jim Gordon, Catwoman, Batgirl, and Robin, who later emerges from Batman’s shadow as his Nightwing persona, and another one or two I won’t touch on to keep the surprise intact. As LEGO games have generally dealt with archetypal character builds and abilities, I’d say Legacy of the Dark Knight’s decision to narrow its vision, in terms of playable characters, is more of a benefit to the story than it is to the gameplay loop.
I think the campaign, particularly how it’s paced, allows each of these characters to shine and showcase their special traits. Whether it’s Catwoman, who can lure a stray cat into the action using a laser pointer, where it’s able to navigate smaller vents, or distract guards, or it’s Batgirl, who can hack into elaborate security systems using her homemade gadgets. Each hero’s use case is clearly defined; even when a player might be stuck, the game generously flashes an icon above the objective item showing which character and ability are needed to proceed.
Although Legacy of the Dark Knight supports couch co-op, which allowed me to guide my young son through an education in essential Batman content through an age-appropriate LEGO lens, I do think it’s an oversight that these games continue to omit online co-op. Pairing up through the more linear missions, before providing vigilant overwatch for a Gotham under siege, would be a riot with a friend. There’d even be an opportunity to ring out more content from the AR trials by including a separate metric for duos, so it really seemed like a no brainer to me.
While LEGO is all about imagination and playing pretend, it’s incredible to watch these figures come to life. What’s even more striking is that these pieces are pre-loved; there’s not a brick or cowl in sight that doesn’t have a bit of wear and tear on it. Countless imperfections, plastic seams, even the molded part numbers can be spotted mid-action, and it’s fun to imagine somebody retelling Batman’s storied battles using mini-figs—because that’s effectively what this is. Gotham, and all of its grimdark trappings, is similarly stunning as the game’s lighting and shadows work overtime to establish a tone that feels dangerous in an effort to live up to the city’s reputation for being like New York at night. Several of the city’s instantly recognisable landmarks can be seen when gliding overhead, from Ace Chemicals to Wayne Tower, and everything in between.
There’s a tremendous level of production value in Legacy of the Dark Knight that manages to elevate its story into something more than a whirlwind “memberberries” campaign. The way this game treats its characters’ relationships, whether it’s Bruce and Dick, or Barbara and Jim, gives it a level of heart I didn’t expect, and the performances really do take it to another level. Shai Matheson dons the cowl and delivers a funny performance without sacrificing the gravitas that the role demands, while Matt Berry is utterly absurd as Bane.
Theatricality and perfection prove to be powerful agents for his performance, which ratchets Tom Hardy’s florid Gypsy King take on the character to eleven, dragging out vowels and obliterating the norm for which syllable takes precedence in a word with a melodic whimsy like only he can. On top of that, I loved how many of Batman’s musical motifs made brief appearances in Legacy of the Dark Knight, including the animated series’ theme and Michael Giacchino’s four-note dirge for the broken-down anti-hero.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight achieves everything it sets out to do. It delivers a greatest hits of Batman’s best moments, injecting its trademark wit and an unexpected amount of in-jokes that Batman fans will surely eat up. It really will be baby’s first Arkham for kids of those who grew up playing Rocksteady’s trilogy, and I think that’s really special. We have, indeed, eaten well.