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Lego Batman: The Dark Knight Legacy sees everyone's favorite morally dubious hero return to the streets of Gotham once again in the latest brick-based adventure from TT Games. It's a real mishmash of genres, combining RPG and fighting elements with classic Lego action-adventure platforming fun, but it's a charming adventure that bat fans are sure to love.
Review information
Revised platform: PC (via Steam and on portable devices)
Available in: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC
Release date: May 22, 2026
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and, at least, it is something Lego Batman: The Dark Knight Legacy It has become an art form. Full of references, full of jokes and the quintessential ka-powery of comics, there is no denying that this is an ode to all things Batman.
But in particular, it is evident to what extent Batman: Arkham Series from Rocksteady Studios and WB Games with very inspired gameplay. If you're more of a Lego fan than a Batman fan, you may have missed the trilogy and its many accolades; Released in 2009, 2011, and 2015, all three games in the series received abundant praise for their slick, fluid combat, excellent stealth gameplay, and exploration mechanics.
It is noteworthy that the original Lego Batman trilogy was released almost in parallel (in 2008, 2012 and 2014). While creative and well-received, ultimately a Lego game is a Lego game; It's for all ages and somewhat limited by its own source material. Times have changed and Lego has since gutted its typical gaming formula enough to Lego Batman: The Dark Knight Legacy make a great effort to be more Arkham-like, combining the best of these two trilogies and Bat-media beyond. But does it succeed or fail?
Put them up…
Lego Batman: The Dark Knight Legacy it's still a Lego game at heart; Its slapstick humor, ridiculous parodies of iconic scenes, and low-stakes couch co-op fun form the beating heart of its success. Broadly speaking, dark knight legacy respects the Lego gameplay cycle: fight, smash things, build something highly equipped to advance the level, and repeat.
But don't worry before you denounce it as “just another Lego game”; Here are some tweaks to the formula, including some that fans may take issue with. That starts with a smaller roster of seven playable characters (compared to the more than 100 in the most recent Lego Batman game), each with unique abilities that you'll unlock as the game progresses. Generally speaking, these are inventive and different, although some fare better than others. I'm looking at you, Batgirl.
A more developed combat system that mimics the Batman: Arkham Free-flow combat system from the series. Now, your heroes can create combos while attacking, dodging, countering, and landing satisfying environmental takedowns, combining unique abilities with melee combat in a super-fun brawl-style showdown, punctuated by the occasional “THANK YOU!” or “KAPOW!”
Fights like these are common in both the overworld and the level, and while they can get a little repetitive towards the end of the game, it's still a notable improvement over older Lego titles. That said, it seems like a lot of things were added half-heartedly to simplify things; For example, I was a little disappointed with the weapon skill tree, which offered a rather boring variety of move sets and upgrades, especially for the Bat Family as a whole.
Many fights can be avoided entirely if you go for the stealthier approach; The game is full of beams, tunnels, and niches that you can traverse or use to surprise enemies with a sneak attack. I had a lot of fun with this, but again, it makes things too easy in some places, especially when combined with the Detective Mode-like area scanning that will help you locate items and intractable enemies.
Thanks to the new difficulty settings, you can choose to make these encounters a little more important in the game; I mainly played the medium difficulty Caped Crusader mode, which still has infinite health but with more enemies. That's even more so because, for some reason, enemies could see me through walls in some levels when I switched to the more difficult Dark Knight mode. I hope it's a bug we'll see fixed soon, because I enjoyed the higher stakes of having a finite number of lives… even if it was still pretty easy.
A feast for bat fans
So how Lego Batman: The Dark Knight Legacy distinguish itself from Arkham and the original Lego trilogy? Well, the game is packed with trivia, old and new, parodying everything from more obscure comic book references like Bat-Mite to Batman (2022)mixed with extensive pop culture references to tie in the humor of Will Arnett's performance in The Lego Batman Movie. As a lifelong Batman fan, it's a real joy and the hits just keep coming.
This combination of references could well have led to frequent tonal whiplashes between the bleaker skies of Gotham and the cheesier retellings of the Caped Crusader's escapades, but TT Games has wonderfully tied these disparate stories together through the power of parody. Still, over the course of its six chapters, the story, in places, loses its way, but I was too enamored of the imaginative level design, slapstick humor, and endless series of references to really care about whether or not a game built around children's toys offers a powerful narrative experience.
For me, Lego games have always quenched my collecting urge, and this new Batman adventure is no different; You'll collect everything from drivable vehicles, costumes and accessories inspired by the franchise, which you can proudly display in your customizable Batcave between bashing attacks on hordes of mindless henchmen.
Review information
Throughout the game you see the origin stories of many characters, good and bad, but my favorite was Harvey Dent, where through a series of chaotic events he is hit by the doors of an ambulance, caked and then dragged across the pavement. Pure and pure Lego nonsense.
Exploring Gotham City is also a lot of fun as you slip and slide between towering skyscrapers, obtaining Wayne Tech and loot hidden on rooftops and alleys. It's full of life and, despite the gloomy backdrop, the game has a real vibrancy to it, not to mention the somewhat excessive levels of detail. You can literally see the texture of the paint on the Lego characters as if they were real toys, and I'm not sure I liked it as much as I was impressed.
In that sense, I had never imagined, nor expected, that a Lego game could be one of the most demanding games in my library, and I had to remove some settings to get the best performance from the game, especially when playing on my Steam Deck. Also, I'm a little disappointed to see that the same wall bugs I found in my demo are still there in the pre-release software I've been reviewing, and I also found a few more bugs in the overworld. I was rewarded for completing encounters without even getting close to them, Sub-Wayne's entry points frequently reset mid-solution, henchmen didn't always appear, and when they did, as mentioned above, they were sometimes displayed in X-rays.
All that said, it's certainly up there with my favorite Lego games, and the magic is in the love and appreciation that the developers clearly have for both Lego and Batman. I doubt the new additions to Lego Batman: The Dark Knight Legacy talk too much about the future of Lego games in general; In fact, it tells me that TT Games might be eager to do more new and exciting things with each franchise, and that's never a bad thing. However, there is still a lot of fun to be had with the Lego formula, and dark knight legacy is a fantastic example.
Should you play Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight?
Play if…
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Accessibility features
Great attention is paid to accessibility options within Lego Batman: The Dark Knight Legacy; On first launch, players can select from vision, hearing, motor, and motion sickness accessibility presets, as well as three difficulty levels, two of which have no glitch status (Classic and Caped Crusader).
If these presets aren't quite right, there are plenty of settings to customize; For visual needs, you can toggle audio description, high contrast mode, color blindness, full screen effects, text size, HUD visibility, leaderboard display, camera shake, persistent center point and third-person camera reset, set customizable subtitles, and choose between adjustable and dynamic field of view. For auditory accessibility, there are volume controls, subtitles, voiceover icons, night mode, and audio output settings, and for any motor needs, you can remap controls including joysticks, reverse the camera and adjust sensitivity, adjust the controller's dead zone and held or repeated button inputs, toggle aim adjustment and lock assist, adjust game speed, aim mode, quick fire the device, and skip or simplify quick-time events.
You can also toggle losing Stud to make the game less demanding, it auto-saves for ease, and you can review text logs and tutorials at any time from the pause menu. Certain events can be skipped through the pause menu (indicated on the HUD) and you can pause at any time, even during cutscenes.
How I Reviewed Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight
I spent more than 20 hours on Lego Batman: The Dark Knight Legacy, Playing on my custom gaming PC with a Dell S3225QS monitor, 8BitDo Ultimate controller, and Razer Kraken Kitty headset, but also on my Steam Deck.
I covered most of the main story, explored Gotham to complete side quests and unlockable content, and played on all three difficulties to evaluate their impact on the game. I compared my experience to other recent Lego games such as Skywalker Saga as well as my fond memories of playing the original Lego Batman trilogy.
Mat 2026 reviewed for the first time.
