LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight’s Open-World Gotham Is GOTY Worthy
Topics: Batman, Reviews, Lego, Warner Bros
Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros. Games
Topics: Batman, Reviews, Lego, Warner Bros
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight wastes no time in proving it's a GOTY contender, hitting the ground running with its fast-paced, high-octane campaign. It pulls off a near-impossible balance of tonality, effortlessly imbuing the gritty world of DC’s famed caped crusader with LEGO’s trademark humour. In refining its formula, TT Games has crafted what is quite easily the best LEGO game to date and one of the Dark Knight’s strongest outings; it’s a true love letter to all things Batman.
While LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was an enormous success for TT Games, it now merely feels like a warm-up compared to LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, which improves upon its predecessor in almost every way. As much as I adored that former game, it felt incredibly fragmented with its episodic formula forcing you to experience each chapter of The Skywalker Saga in isolation. That’s no longer an issue, with LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight opting for a much stronger open-world approach.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight’s open-world is as huge as hoped, with much more to see than meets the eye. What initially struck me is how rapidly the open-world, well, opens up. You don’t get free rein immediately, but within the first chapter, I’d already progressed from starting location Tricorner Island to South Island. Just between those two islands, there is so much side content to keep players busy, but more on that later.
What I truly want to touch on is how much LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight has to offer that’s out of sight. Even when you’ve unlocked access to all of the game’s four islands, you’re nowhere near exhausting all locations. You see, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight’s main story missions typically take you to locations not actually featured on the map.
Advert
The starting point of your next story mission is indicated on the game’s map but arriving at that location will offer a button prompt that loads up an off-map setting like a building interior. You’ll then play through the mission in an exclusive location not actually accessible during general play. I’m loath to spoil the nuances of the story, but the first chapter features a perfect example that epitomises the level of charm and surprise that LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight manages to pull off. What began as a simple pursuit through the Iceberg Lounge took me down to a rather unexpected underbelly of the building.
A large slide dropped me off in a sprawling soft-play centre where Penguin and Falcone’s crooks would hang out. I got to slide through rollers, take down enemies in a ball pit, and walk across balance beams. It was pure whimsy - and just one example of the kind of surprises you should expect throughout this adventure. Of course, not every mission is whimsical in tone. Visiting ACE Chemicals or Arkham Asylum is much more grisly, but there’s something immensely thrilling about the element of surprise that almost all story missions possess. It means that exploring Gotham and the game’s map outside of these missions never feels tiresome, as the game isn’t too dependent on any one location.
It isn’t simply the wide array of locations that keeps LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight feeling fresh. TT Games has done an excellent job in refining the game’s formula via its character offering. There is, of course, plenty of combat with Batman and friends having to take down plenty of bad guys throughout the game’s runtime. Each playable character has a unique set of weapons for variety’s sake. Batman, for example, has his batarangs plus a grappler, which can be used to draw enemies in. Catwoman, on the other hand, can send a kitty to a hard-to-reach location or utilise her whip.
There are seven playable characters in total and, yes, that’s a much, much smaller offering than we’re used to in TT Games’ releases, but LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is all the richer for this streamlined approach. In the aforementioned LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, multiple characters could perform the same skill and while that allowed players to pick their favourites aesthetically, it didn’t exactly ground any one particular character in the story.
Here, the streamlined offering adds a sense of immersion. Each of the playable characters has a reason to appear in the story. They’re very much grounded in the narrative and while LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is still packed to the rafters with humour, it adds a sense of believability to what unfolds, proving that this is as valid of a tale as any other Batman offering. You can freely switch between characters in the open-world once they’ve been unlocked, so you never feel starved of options. This streamlined but perfectly varied roster ensures that missions and exploration remain interesting without ever becoming bloated.
Combat is a step up here, too, compared to other LEGO games, thanks to the addition of several difficulty options, which should appease those who argue that LEGO games are too easy. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight boasts three options catering to those who want a challenge, those who don’t, and those that seek something in the middle. If you increase the difficulty, you’ll have less health and enemies are more likely to be those that pose a higher challenge like, for example, brutes or foes with guns. The highest difficulty level still isn’t too tricky, but this is what I tried and it truly made LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight feel like something that will satisfy Arkham Trilogy fans. Think action-adventure, more so than family adventure.
I was also pleased to see that story missions don’t just see you punch your way through waves of crooks. There is platforming involved, which won’t surprise anyone, but also some nice puzzle-solving. That takes a variety of forms. It can be as simple as the tried and tested formula of smashing nearby items to build something new. Elsewhere, you may need to locate missing items to proceed, analyse chemicals, or compete in something totally left-field like a dance-off. You can’t predict where LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is going, and considering LEGO games have felt a tad formulaic in the past, that’s a resounding success.
I promised I’d touch upon the various wonders of the open-world which is, for me, the year’s very best to date. Listen, Crimson Desert’s open-world is a technical marvel but it is also, admittedly, filled with the most random of encounters. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight offers something that is exceptionally crafted. Traversal around the open-world is seamless as players glide and grapple; in fact, at times, I had forgotten that I wasn’t actually playing the Arkham Trilogy. You can stop random crimes in motion, very similarly to how you do so in Marvel’s Spider-Man games.
That’s far from all. There are time trial races for players to complete in their Batmobile, which is surprisingly tricky to drive, plus there are Riddler puzzles dotted across the map. Those are, to begin with, pretty accessible but certainly ramp up the ante as you progress through the campaign. The map holds various chests to discover, revealing Wayne Tech chips for upgrades or studs, for example. I also had fun completing Wanted Posters for the GCPD, where you have to match a description and hunt down said individual. I’m really still scratching the surface, as TT Games’ trademark Easter eggs return too and I mean that in terms of both ‘nods to Batman’s history’ and in the literal sense. If you know, you know.
In Tricorner Island alone, there’s so much to see that by the time you’ve also opened up South Island, Central Island, and North Island, it’s clear that this game boasts a really rich offering. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight isn’t overwhelming though, in the way that so many open-world games can be. Its brilliant prologue takes the player to Nanda Parbat, where you’ll slowly learn what it takes to become a hero alongside Talia and Ra’s al Ghul. Even after completing that, you’ll still pick up new tricks throughout Chapter One with LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight unfolding in a really digestible way. The various side activities aren’t heaped upon you all in one go either.
In fact, you won’t properly unlock the Batcave until the beginning of Chapter Two which is a wonderful hub. The story will take you to this space on several occasions, but it’s somewhere players can fast travel to at any time. There are additional secrets and collectables to find dotted throughout the Batcave but it’s a place where players will mainly store, unlock, and view their various costumes and cars - plus there’s space to upgrade weapons and a nifty shop where you can spend your studs.
As much as I’ve always enjoyed switching skins in LEGO games, I’d argue that it’s never been better than this. Standing in a room surrounded by mannequins displaying well over 100 skins is pretty damn awesome. Having them placed in a location within the world rather than just on a menu screen is a great move from TT Games. It made me more determined to actually complete the collection and unlock them all.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is impossible to put down. It manages to imbue the intensity of Gotham with just the right level of whimsy and humour. The game’s perfectly crafted open-world and varied mission design don’t simply make it a blast to play; it also makes the game a very good value for money, and that goes a long way these days. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight deserves to stand proud as one of the best games of 2026 and within LEGO and Batman’s history.
Pros: Great story, packed with Easter eggs, varied combat with welcomed new difficulty tiers, well-crafted open world
Cons: Nothing
For fans of: LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, The Batman Arkham Trilogy, Marvel’s Spider-Man
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight launches on 22 May on PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox Series X/S, and PC with Deluxe Edition early access unlocking on 18 or 19 May according to your time zone. A review code was provided by the publisher. Read a guide to our review scores here.