I’ve only played one other Lego game so far, and that’s Lego Horizon. As you might predict, that title didn’t leave a good impression on me. It carried the energy of The Lego Movie, but what it couldn’t hold was an attention span. Having to crack a joke every few minutes, it became annoying to even try to keep track of any conversation.
Though one thing that came out of The Lego Movie that was also wildly popular would be Lego Batman, to the point that the character itself was able to release a movie of its own. The character could be ironic, smart, funny, and have a level of self-awareness that stole the spotlight every time he was on the scene.
Lego Batman is also able to do something that many IPs wish for. To attract not only your usual hobbyists and legacy fans, but also invite a new, younger generation of kids to join in on the fun. So, having a game about him seems like the natural next step to bond this new potential fandom over. Two very strong IPs combine into one that is appreciated across vast demographics, seems like a winning combination already! But that leaves the question of execution: what sort of game should a Lego Batman title be? Fortunately for them, the answer was already found over 15 years ago.
If you ever wondered what it was like to play games like Arkham Asylum or Arkham City, there is now a more modern, family-friendly, “have-my-kid-coop-play-with-me” alternative. So if you’re feeling like having a brick-by-brick breakdown of the Gotham experience, come stalk the shadows with me, and do watch out for loose pieces out there; they can really sting.
Production
Usually, when you imagine LEGO blocks moving around, you might imagine that they’re stiff mannequins with limited articulation. So I was a bit surprised to see that they were allowing some level of deformation and transformation this time around to let objects and characters be more expressive and act more like their real-life counterparts. Capes and drapes float, characters’ bodies twist and stretch, and splatters behave with a certain amount of stickiness to them when they hit walls and people.
Despite this, the general rules of the bricks being put and used together are never really genuinely broken. Hand tools always have a handle that’s suited for the mini-figures. The parts used in every creation are already pre-existing bricks, and they also fall apart using those very parts.
Effects, on the other hand, helped in building the atmosphere of Gotham. The lighting effects in particular helped in changing the tone of the scenes you play through as needed. Showing you a sort of dark Gotham, and at the same time helping make things to do stand out more easily from the cityscape. Sounds and other effects are used more for utility and letting the players know if something is happening. Most impact sounds are basically plastic pieces hitting each other. So you won’t get a lot of variation and immersion with that. Not that a set of plastic toys clashing against each other was really meant to give you a realistic feel.
Voice acting is another high point, remaining crisp and distinct throughout. Even when the script leans into absurdity or cheesy one-liners, the delivery sticks the landing as being between silly and serious, rather than a random joke that’s meant to distract from the scene that’s currently happening in front of you.
The music, on the other hand, didn’t really leave a strong impression on me. But I don’t think this is the kind of game that’s looking for that. All I can really say about it is that it fits the game, and that much of it sounds like they drew inspiration from popular Batman tunes.
Mechanics
This is the part that where I’d bring up how the combat system, the detection, and the stealth are nearly a one-for-one reproduction when you compare it to the Arkham series. And to be honest, I think that’s exactly what they had to do. Sometimes there’s simply no need to reinvent the wheel. I believe the Arkham games were popular for a reason, and Lego Batman choosing to simply build on that is a wise decision.
It’s easy to pick up, and getting to the fantasy of beating down a whole posse of bad guys with relative ease is quickly achieved. Stalking an entire room of enemies is fairly easy when you’re looking for places to perch from to do your overwatch and plan your takedown path through them. Though, to be honest, I find the ability to maintain stealth to be pretty subpar. It might have been nice to have better ways to conceal myself, distract enemies, or move around the stages without quickly becoming visible to them. But well, when you look at the game, it’s really not trying to be Assassin’s Creed or anything like that. The presence of a possible second player all the time really invites just causing mayhem as much as you can.
The key difference between this title and the one it borrows its ideas from is that there’s always a partner present for the entire game. Which can be either played by an AI or by a second player if you’re willing to sit together for some local coop play. And look, I don’t think anyone would be surprised if they were told that this game is targeting a Millennial father who wants to play a videogame with their kid. You know how long it took the child version of me to accept that Metal Gear Solid was a stealth game? Yeah, you’re just getting into a big fight at every stage. So the developers just went ahead and gave us a lot of enemies to fight. The combat isn’t really a challenge so long as you’re playing as you should be, and I generally just get into trouble when I try to mix up how I’m fighting them.
The other reason the second player exists is to have more room for special gadgets that each of the new party members uses. Like a glue gun, a drone, a laser pointer, and more. Though, honestly speaking, a lot of these are simply gimmick functions to unlock doors or open paths. It does mix up the experience and presentation a bit, so I don’t think it’s really a bad thing, especially since they do come up with many ways of getting from point A to B, even with just building random contraptions. They just don’t want you to keep doing the same thing for hours on end, or at least make you think that you’re not.
Content
The biggest reason I like to collect toys and stack them in takeout boxes is that one: I really like the series they’re from; and two: I like to recreate the moments I remember the most with them. RG Char’s Zaku 2? Yeah, definitely put on that kick pose. I will always try to make a Kamehameha pose with Goku, put a VF-1J Valkyrie in Gerwalk form, and so on.
Lego Batman, in a sense, goes through the same idea. It visits and references many stories and moments from the Batman universe, where the most obvious references are about the older to the most recent movies in its legacy. It somehow runs on this balance beam of keeping consistent with the original story while keeping the game from getting too close to the edgier, darker themes and story events of the source material. Which makes it suitable for a family man to show it and play it along with their kids.
Why do I think it’s really for the older fans? Well, there are a lot of references here that you won’t really understand if you were born later than, what, 2014? A lot of the featured skins for characters are from its old comics, and it features movies from the early 2000s. It even features the silly villain concepts that came from the weekly comic release era of Batman: Condiment King, Cluemaster, Calendar Man, and other references that even I’m not fully aware of. To top it all off, it has a small section where it features the Street Fighter 2 bonus stage of beating a car down so badly it can’t move anymore. There are so many references here that are easy to miss if you weren’t around during the time of their popularity. My personal favorite would be their recreation of the 90s Batman Animated Series opening. Which sounds like an obvious choice as a 90s kid. But it truly was a pleasant treat for me to see a part of my childhood doing this sort of cameo.
I’d normally say boss encounters are highlights, but in this case it’s really more of the stage and getting to the boss that’s more fun. There are cases where the entire boss encounter is really more of a platforming puzzle, which I find more in tune with Lego’s design philosophy for games. Beating down a damage sponge just isn’t that interesting, considering you already came from beating down another hundred guys prior.
Apart from that, Lego Batman has a lot of open-world content that just goes about as you expect it. There are puzzles, challenges, and random encounters you’ll find pretty quickly if you wander around enough. A lot of it is basically collect-a-thon busywork that doesn’t really feel like they give you a sense of progression or any long-term goal to chase. Gaining upgrade currency is mainly done through clearing story missions, and upgrading tech doesn’t really feel all that rewarding. Maybe you clear fast-travel points that you feel like are necessary, and maybe a few Riddler challenges, but I’m really not going to be the type to seek them out to completion.
Features
The Batcave is pretty much where you’ll encounter the extras of the title. The more you proceed to expand it and its functions, the more Lego bricks you can afford. (Wow, that sounded a little too close to real life) This is also the place where you can customize your ride, your character skins, and some parts of the laboratory and training area. You get to fill these places with all the other pieces you can buy from the store that pretty much sells you random things every time.
Personally, I find this to be the least fun, as the actual enjoyment of building things with bricks is in doing it with the real thing, rather than its digital counterpart. Though it’s hard to stay mad at this since it’s really just an extra you can do if you choose. And I honestly did give it a swing for a good twenty minutes.
Finally, there’s the difficulty that you can change at any time. I swapped it to easy mode to see if I could reduce the number of goons I have to fight through the stages, which unfortunately wasn’t the case.
Conclusion
Lego Batman’s best moments are definitely found through the story missions, where the wildest ideas the development team can think of went on full display. Personally, I find the best way to play the game is to go through all the story missions as much as you can. Side-content was present the entire time and a bit predictable, but doing it on occasion was fine. I also found myself obsessing over looking for the hidden object in every story mission. Probably this was the type of side-content that I really didn’t mind doing, even if all I really got was some random LEGO trophy.
In the end, what I really wanted to know was what this game would’ve been like had I been playing this with a younger version of myself, experiencing the universe of Batman for the first time. It feels like a compact piece of the series’ history over time. Certainly, it lacked the edge that Batman became truly known for, but it’s a great window to introduce fresh new eyes to.
It decided not to be so focused on making something revolutionary; rather, it celebrated what the caped crusader has done for many people over the years, and through the imaginative building blocks we know as Lego. I recommend this not as a profound gaming experience, but as a way to remember Batman as an old fan, or as a door to bring a new generation in.
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is a well-stacked adventure for fans new and old, scoring a 4 / 5.
Available on PC, PS5, XBOX, and coming soon on the Switch 2.