There is nothing more enjoyable for fans than seeing a popular IP adapted into a game, especially when it's done 'brilliantly.' However, this also sets a daunting benchmark for subsequent developers tasked with utilizing that same IP. Batman is a prime example.
Rocksteady's Arkham Trilogy—Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and Arkham Knight—was hailed as the greatest superhero game series of its time. Arkham Origins, which explored the series' roots, was also highly regarded for upholding the spirit of the Arkham series, despite being developed by WB Games Montréal rather than Rocksteady. At the same time, it became difficult for other games to surpass the achievements of the 'Arkhamverse.' Even Rocksteady's own new entry, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and WB Montréal's Gotham Knights (set outside the Arkhamverse) suffered from harsh criticism and commercial failure.
That is why it is impossible to avoid mentioning the Arkhamverse titles when evaluating 'LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight' (hereinafter 'LEGO Dark Knight'). However, while many previous games have tried to escape the shadow of the Arkhamverse, 'LEGO Dark Knight' fully embraces that legacy within its own style. It also demonstrates a clever use of IP that only LEGO could pull off outside the Arkhamverse. In this sense, the Arkhamverse is not being summoned merely as a yardstick to measure how much 'LEGO Dark Knight' falls short, but rather as a 'predecessor' that shows how its strengths have been absorbed and evolved.
Using LEGO-style humor and a relatively simple game system, TT Games has created the most 'Batman-esque' game of all.
A New Batman Written Outside the Arkhamverse
A Dark Knight Biography Woven Through Homage
If you think of the gameplay in LEGO Dark Knight as essentially the Arkhamverse games ported into LEGO, you'd be about 50% correct. This is especially true considering WB intended this game to be one where 'those who enjoyed the Arkham series can play while maintaining the same feel.'
The combat captures the simple yet flashy 'Freeflow' style of the Arkham series, and includes puzzle-solving that highlights Batman as a detective using various gadgets. It even creates a more polished open field than LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which focused on a planet-based open world with map size and density adjustments.
If that accounts for 50% of the Arkham series, the other 50% is filled with LEGO's own take on Batman. Simply put, there is the freedom that comes from dealing with a title outside the fixed Arkhamverse world. It also possesses the authenticity provided by the fundamental framework of a TT Games action-adventure.
What sets this apart from the Arkhamverse is the story. The Batman of the Arkhamverse is a character who has already been protecting Gotham for a long time. From the first game, he is someone who can skillfully utilize combat and gadgets. That is the only way a vigilante without superpowers can project the presence of a superhero capable of subduing various supervillains. Even in Arkham Origins, the prequel to the series, Batman is depicted as someone who has already been active for some time, albeit in an unfinished state.
The Arkham series all deal with events occurring within a span of one or two nights. However, LEGO Dark Knight does not cover such a short timeframe. Much like the LEGO Harry Potter or LEGO Star Wars series, it divides each story and captures the flow of a fairly long period. This allows it to depict various elements such as the growth of an incomplete character, the addition of new figures, and the team-ups of the Batman Family.
The game divides this into chapters. Each chapter contains stories covering a similar period. Chapter 1 starts with Bruce Wayne's childhood and covers Batman's origins; Chapter 2 covers his early days as he begins to act as Batman in earnest; and Chapter 3 depicts the expansion of the Batman Family.
Under this clear theme, each chapter draws its core narrative from different works. For example, the origin portion follows Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, including his training under Ra's al Ghul. While this might remind you of other LEGO games that simply follow movie plots, here it is handled in a way that goes beyond mere imitation.
Like in Batman Begins, Bruce wavers between justice and vengeance for Gotham before establishing his own brand of justice and returning. At the same time, it covers the beginning of his ill-fated relationship with the Joker by depicting the appearance of the Red Hood and his fall into a vat of chemicals. By covering the starting point of Batman, it also includes the start of his persistent nemesis in the same chapter. It even pays homage to and remixes various works, such as depicting the Joker's origin as the leader of the Red Hood Gang and referencing Under the Red Hood for the fall scene.
These chapter divisions and homages act as the core for establishing the game's identity. Oswald Cobblepot, better known as the Penguin, is depicted as a subordinate of Carmine Falcone and a despicable villain. This is a facet emphasized more in the film The Batman or the TV series Gotham. In particular, the scene where Batman drives the Batmobile to flip Cobblepot's car and walks out of the flames is taken directly from The Batman.
In Chapter 2, this atmosphere changes completely. He reveals pale skin and sharp teeth, tears into raw fish, and threatens Batman by leading a penguin squad equipped with bombs. This is a perfect homage to Tim Burton's Batman Returns. The fact that it maintains the atmosphere of the original work, which is completely different from Chapter 1, is something that would be difficult to justify within a single work. However, the lighthearted atmosphere and humor unique to the LEGO series make such changes feel natural. A Batman who is otherwise serious might suddenly pretend to be a detective with a rubber duck, and childish toilet humor appears quite freely. The homages and changes from various works can be accepted as a form of humor.
The freedom unique to the LEGO series is what allows it to incorporate character interpretations from different works that would be difficult to connect in a single title. Broadly speaking, one can observe the process of gradual evolution from the origins of superheroes and villains to the deepening of good and evil, and the escalation of conflict. Batman is the most actively consumed solo superhero IP, competing for the top spot with Spider-Man on recent comic sales charts. The fact that fans can encounter character settings from numerous works and various interpretations in one game leads to a depth where the more you know, the more you see.
Homaging even the yuppie business card scene from American Psycho ©INVEN
While much of the game's controls and mechanics were inherited from the Arkham series, the world-building sought to break away from the Arkhamverse to create a completely new story. This became the possibility to mix countless iconic Batman scenes into one. And that was only possible because it was a LEGO series. If you consider yourself a fan of the Batman series, LEGO Dark Knight is the first game where you can play through scenes from such a variety of masterpieces, and it will be hard to find another like it in the future.
Arkham's Freeflow Reborn in LEGO
Simplicity and Diversity Combined
If the expansion of the story symbolizes LEGO's freedom, the combat and tool utilization are parts that inherited the DNA of the Arkham series. The 'Freeflow' action, which creates various actions with simple button inputs—fighting, countering, and dodging—perfectly inherits that of the Arkham series. This became the key to solving the lack of action, which was the biggest drawback of the LEGO action-adventure series. One of the main reasons why combat in LEGO games had remained a side element to story exploration was the lack of combat animations.
Furthermore, Freeflow, which has now fallen out of the mainstream, provides a unique kind of fun. This is because many recent action games have adopted combat systems derived from Soulslike games, focusing on stamina management and identifying enemy motions. As the name 'Freeflow' suggests, maintaining the flow of combo counters while elegantly subduing enemies provides a different kind of pleasure and reward compared to recent action games.
Of course, if Freeflow combat remained only at basic fighting, it would inevitably become boring as you get used to it. Something is needed to provide variation, and the game fills that diversity with gadget usage and skills. Each character's unique weapon is designed to be used freely during Freeflow combat to maintain the flow. As you learn skills, you can also learn finishing-move-level actions, such as inputting gadgets while dodging or using a focus meter to subdue multiple enemies at once.
This is how Freeflow combat fills the diversity of action in various ways, but LEGO Dark Knight also sought to preserve the simplicity unique to LEGO. First, each character can only use two types of gadgets. In Batman's case, compared to Arkham Knight, he can only use Batarangs and the Batclaw instead of various gadgets like explosive spray, smoke pellets, freeze grenades, and explosive gel. This seems to be a choice to reduce complexity, as unlike the Arkham series where you essentially only control Batman during the main story, you have to control various characters during the main story here. Also, as the game itself targets a wider age range of users, it would have been difficult to introduce complex controls on a large scale.
In a game where you only control one Batman, you have no choice but to naturally increase the diversity of combat with various gimmicks and gadgets. Even so, to progress quickly to the ending, you end up repeating only the gadgets you use often. Using various gadgets was only necessary for special missions, challenges, or increasing combo numbers. In LEGO, where you alternate between multiple characters, you can sufficiently implement the diversity of Freeflow combat even with only two types of gadgets.
In terms of easier controls, the weakening of stealth gimmicks can also be cited. Since there is no crouch button, you can aim for a takedown just by going behind an enemy. If this were a high-difficulty situation, it would be a disadvantage because you couldn't confirm your clear stealth status, but since the game itself is easy, it's not a big problem. Rather, it has the advantage of reducing frustration because you only need to get behind them well, even if you move with speed. The fact that bricks shatter and disappear after a takedown, as is typical for LEGO, so you don't have to worry about being discovered because of a fallen enemy, also makes the difficulty easier.
Tools also have the convenience of automatically switching when you aim at a target, even if they are not currently selected. Overall, the feature of not being very difficult has been connected to the improvement of convenience.
Patrolling Batman + Bat-Family
LEGO-style Open World Completed by Arkham
For all characters to have an appropriate level of combat diversity, attention had to be paid to the utilization and depth of each character, which led to a limitation in the number of playable characters. The characters used during the story are limited to the Batman Family, Jim Gordon, and Catwoman. The characteristic of the LEGO series, which puts all characters, whether enemies or allies, into the playable roster, has faded. Instead, rather than meaningless appearance changes, the characteristics of each character have been properly strengthened.
The various characters in existing LEGO games were essentially just characters with different appearances sharing a few core abilities. However, this time, each character has different tools and performs clearly different actions. Catwoman makes holes in glass with her claws, and Nightwing shoots electric cables that change the direction of current. Young Robin has stronger characteristics as an acrobat, so he can install ropes to expand his range of movement.
Now, specific characters are required to solve certain gimmicks. This goes beyond a Batman who solves all problems alone, strengthening his identity as a leader who protects the city together with the Bat-Family and colleagues. This also connects to the appearance of a wide and diverse Gotham City.
The city depicted in the Arkham series is a world full of only villains. The situation had to be teeming with enemies to enjoy the action freely, and the actual atmosphere of the work was dark accordingly. And in Arkham Knight, where the Batmobile was emphasized, you couldn't hit passing pedestrians, so it was even more impossible to include citizens. This is especially true when you look at the part where they tried to keep the 'no-kill' rule by compromising with the setting of pushing enemies away with an electric shocker.
However, it is different in LEGO Dark Knight. Cars move around freely in the city, and there are many people. And there is no problem with driving the Batmobile and smashing everything. It is a playstyle that fits the LEGO series, where you get studs by breaking things, even better. So you can meet a new appearance of Gotham full of people in the game. Thanks to this, Batman also uses the expression 'patrol,' which is difficult to think of in the Arkham series, and his image as a guardian protecting the city, rather than a villain exterminator, is emphasized.
This also gave greater justification for clearing various side content. In the Arkham series, where the in-game time is short, it didn't fit to leisurely solve Riddler's puzzles while villains were released, the city was closed, and fear gas was spreading. But for the Batman of LEGO Dark Knight, who patrols Gotham City as a daily routine rather than as a one-time event, solving problems of villains like the Riddler and following clues also becomes an important task.
In fact, the game implements open-world content at a level different from these LEGO series. LEGO series before LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga essentially stopped at building an open field at the hub level. This work implemented an open world by depicting several planets, but the depth was lacking.
LEGO Dark Knight implements the main missions that continue the chapters in the form of moving to separate locations, and Gotham City itself was made into a large seamless open field. It takes the form of increasing play density by connecting side quests and collectibles of various villains throughout the large scale. In fact, it has taken the core model of the Arkham series as it is.
And the process of acquiring collectibles in this world is depicted in the form of utilizing the respective abilities of the main characters. Unlike existing LEGO series, characters with much more specialized abilities. It increased replayability by collecting costumes and vehicles for each character instead of collecting characters.
LEGO Dark Knight resembles Arkham more than WB and TT Games clearly stated they would inherit the Arkham series. And they developed it. Boss battles have clear gimmicks for each, but they are made to utilize general fighting action as much as possible. Also, despite having various vehicles, there is no section that forces the use of the Batmobile. Rather, they took a clever strategy of making the player think about using vehicles themselves by taking advantage of the fact that you can move faster using vehicles, even though there is a much simpler gliding system.
It can be seen that the drawbacks of the Arkham series were improved, and the strengths were developed one step further. It is a game that inevitably has many mentions of the Arkham series. At the same time, it means that the LEGO series of TT Games, which has dealt with various IPs, has shown meaningful growth. It is a game that anyone can easily enjoy with an appropriate difficulty level, presents impressive homages and remixes to hardcore Batman fans, and allows users who want a light atmosphere to approach it without burden with the comic tone unique to LEGO.
LEGO Dark Knight has the limitation of expanding within the gameplay framework of the Arkham series, but at the same time, it has raised the level of the LEGO series itself.
- A Batman biography rewoven away from Arkham
- The best fan service through countless homages
- Open world completed to the highest level of the series
- LEGO-style humor that naturally brings out tone shifts
- Gimmick utilization and action that bring out character individuality
- An expansion of the Arkham series that couldn't get far away
- Reduced number of characters while bringing out each feature
- System simplification from relatively low difficulty
Review Platform: PS5 (Release Version)
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