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TT Games has returned to the world of Lego Batman, and once again, there’s a whole crate of cool Easter eggs, references, and fun details to find hidden all across this bricky version of Gotham City.
Legacy of the Dark Knight is, unsurprisingly, stuffed full of nods to Batman movies old and new. The entire game is essentially eight movie tie-in Lego kits smashed together, and if we were to detail every single movie reference, this video would simply be a let’s play. There are some deeper cuts, though, such as quoting immortal lines from great sitcoms, referencing viral moments from kids’ TV, and even manifesting Michael Caine’s tweets. Expect many spoilers as we dive into 48 brilliant little details in Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, and be sure to swipe through the image galleries to see them in action!
1. We’ll start with a guy in one of the story’s early cutscene, running across the shot with a sparking bomb held high above his head. Fans of a certain vintage (or people who love a good gif) will know this is a nod to a scene from 1966’s Batman: The Movie, in which Adam West’s camp Caped Crusader attempts to dispose of an explosive without killing nuns, babies, a brass band, or family of ducks. Sometimes, you really just can’t get rid of a bomb.
2. That bomb would have come in handy when Batman has to deal with a giant shark in the story’s second chapter. Thankfully, he’s armed with Shark Repellent Batspray, a tool that was also added to the Dark Knight’s belt in the 1966 movie.
3. Fast-forward a couple of decades and Adam West made way for Michael Keaton in Tim Burton’s much darker big-screen adaptation of Batman. During your tours of Gotham you may spot the words Furst City Planners painted onto some brickwork – a reference to Anton Furst, Burton’s production designer on Batman, who won the Oscar for Best Art Direction in 1989.
4. While you’re waiting to get to the right floor in Shreck’s Department Store, you’ll hear the familiar melody of Danny Elfman’s Batman theme soundtrack to your descent.
5. There are a few display dummies around the store, and if you attack them using Catwoman’s whip, she’ll decapitate them – just as Michelle Pfeiffer did in Batman Returns.
6. Also in Shreck’s are a couple of miniature Batmobiles. Rather than simple toys, these are replicas of the mini Batmobile that the Penguin uses in Batman Returns to hijack Batman’s car.
7. If you come across one of the many arcade cabinets, take a closer look and you’ll see a high score screen featuring five names. Topping the leader board is Batman himself, but the names below are all people who have played Batman. There’s CHR – likely pointing to Christian Bale, with 9000 points, closely followed by PAT, or Robert Pattinson. Trailing behind is VAL, Val Kilmer, with 6k points. Amusingly, AFL – Ben Affleck – has just 500 points, perhaps a sly jab at him being arguably the least popular Batman. At least he’s got a better score than George Clooney, who didn’t even make the leader board.
8. Out in the city streets, you’ll find numerous references to the best Bat flick of them all. Posters with Heath Ledger’s famous Joker line “why so serious?” can be found pasted to walls…
9. … and you’ll also stumble over a parody of the poster for The Dark Knight, featuring The Gray Ghost. In the lore of DC’s animated universe, this fictional crime fighter was the original inspiration for a young Bruce Wayne.
10. Talking of different DC universes, during a late-game mission, the clown prince of crime delivers messages to you via people dressed up as different Jokers, including Cesar Romero’s moustache-covered-in-makeup Joker from the 1960s. Perhaps the most recognisable of them, though, is Arthur Fleck, the down-on-his-luck sign-twirler who would become the Joker in Todd Phillips’ incredibly grim 2019 movie.
11. Opinion on Joker is split, but everyone agrees that 2004’s Halle Berry vehicle Catwoman is an absolute disaster. However, that dud is the basis for the delightful Halle Purry missing cat posters dotted around the city – a great joke referencing that Berry’s Catwoman is completely missing from the game.
12. It’s not just Batman movies that you’ll find referenced all over Legacy of the Dark Knight – there are plenty of cinema gags to be found across Gotham, including several that any kids playing will be completely oblivious to. Perhaps the most amusingly age-inappropriate reference is to the brutally deranged serial killer story, American Psycho – employees at Wayne Tower can be seen fawning over Bruce Wayne’s business card, quoting lines from the film’s famous scene.
13. During the story’s Batman Begins-derived section, Ra’s al Ghul quotes the famous “very particular set of skills” speech from Taken. That film’s protagonist was played by Liam Neeson, who, of course, was also Ra’s al Ghul in the first of Nolan’s trilogy.
14. Alfred answers a phone call at Wayne Manor by sliding into the room wearing nothing but a baggy shirt. Tom Cruise fans will recognise this as the most famous shot from 1983’s Risky Business.
15. When exploring the depths of Penguin’s Iceberg Lounge, you can find “Ska-kham Asylum” – a club dedicated to calypso-tinged rhythms and Batman puns. That’s not the joke, though. Knock on the door and someone inside will say “We don’t want any more visitors, well-wishers or distant relations”, quoting an exasperated Bilbo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings. (Incidentally, Ska was the precursor genre to Rocksteady in ‘60s Jamaica. Rocksteady developed three beloved Batman Arkham games. Are we stretching here? Maybe. But it’s fun anyway.)
16. During the boss battle with the Penguin, you’ll hear him shout, “Merry Christmas, you filthy animal!” It’s a double-reference; this section of the game is based on Batman Returns, which is set at Christmas, and so it’s only right that Oswald Cobblepot would quote one of the greatest Christmas movies of them all, Home Alone.
17. During this same fight, he also screams, “So anyways, I started blasting!” He’s quoting Frank Reynolds from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, played by Danny DeVito, who also played Penguin in Batman Returns.
18. Throughout the game you pick up a hell of a lot of studs, and will at some point want to spend them at Bat-Mite’s store. Among his wares you can find this telephone booth, which can “make calls” and may possibly be a “time machine.” That’s a reference to Bill & Ted, who use a phone booth to travel through time in their 1989 excellent adventure. The booth is priced at an unusual 2002 studs, which could be a reference to the movie Phone Booth, released in 2002 and starring Colin Farrell, who would two decades later go on to don a mountain of prosthetics to play the Penguin in The Batman.
19. A few more obvious references to the world of cinema can be found on the walls of Gotham’s various theatres, including posters for Batman riffs on The Shining, Goodfellas, Indiana Jones, and The Matrix.
20. Posters are one of the most common sight-gags in this Lego Gotham, and you’ll see them on every street corner and often towering above you as massive billboards. There are too many to name all of them here, but among our favourites is one for Cavalier Mobile Phones, a niche DC villain. His rapier is electrified, hence the “shocking prices” of his phones.
21. There are multiple adverts for Chocos, Gotham’s legally-distinct Oreo-style cookie.
22. The city seems to have a thriving theatre scene, with advertisements for a huge variety of Broadway parodies. There’s Les Minifigures, a riff on Les Miserables…
23. … Detroit, the Lego world’s take on Chicago…
24. … and Bats, a send-up of Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Cats. Thankfully there’s no CGI felines here, but ticket holders do get to see Man-Bat himself, Kirk Langstrom, presumably belting out “Memory” live on stage.
25. Talking of cats, during a sequence in the Flugelheim Museum, you can control Catwoman’s purring pal and have them walk over a security guard’s keyboard. That’s a cute reference to cats being little dicks, but the punchline is that the guard’s screen will then display a riff on the internet’s favourite keyboard cat.
26. There are several good memes referenced across the campaign, and it’d be a shame to spoil all of them, but one of the best arrives during the Case of Waylon Jones side quests. During the chain’s sixth mission, Batman overhears from a sewer grate a voice saying “We’re just normal men, innocent men.” It’s a riff on Hacker T. Dog’s hilarious improvised skit from BBC children’s television, beloved by pretty much everyone in the UK.
27. More widely known is Michael Caine’s eternally amusing Twitter blunder, when he made a typo of the first Batman film he was in. When exploring the Batcave, Alfred may quote the tweet in full: “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up. Batman Begin.”
28. In-game Alfred is just as clumsy as the man who once played him, though – during an early cutscene he spills sauce all down his chest, which settles in the shape of the Batman logo.
29. Nothing is safe from Lego parody in Legacy of the Dark Knight – not even the sacred and holy medium that is video games. Visit Bat-Mite’s store and you’ll occasionally hear him attempt to say “What are ya buyin’?”, the very same business slogan employed by Resident Evil 4’s merchant.
30. Over in Haley’s Circus, Robin navigates a very Nintendo-like obstacle course, complete with the classic Donkey Kong ramp where he must dodge rolling barrels.
31. During this section, Two-Face calls out “How’d you like to see a barrel roll?” This is, of course, a riff on Star Fox 64’s most famous line of dialogue, when Peppy Hare advised Star Fox to “do a barrel roll.”
32. In one of the later story chapters, Batman seeks out villain Black Mask to learn information about an evil scheme. This involves beating up his car in a Lego reimagining of the classic Street Fighter minigame.
33. It’s undeniable that this Lego Batman owes a major debt to Rocksteady’s Arkham games. Its open world full of Riddler Trophies and counter-based combat system are both inspired by that fantastic series. But there are a couple of other ideas that have been lifted wholesale from Arkham, such as Batman’s explosive spray, which he once again applies to surfaces in a perfectly-formed bat shape.
34. More substantial is the opening of the “A Serious House” level, which is a very close replica of the opening of Arkham Asylum. It features a bricky riff on that game’s intro cutscene, and then has you follow a chained-up Joker as he’s slowly wheeled through the asylum’s halls.
35. No Batman game is worth its salt without a multitude of DC Comics Easter eggs, and Legacy of the Dark Knight is full of them. Early on, as you work your way through the Iceberg Lounge, you’ll find gateways to other clubs, including the occult Club Constantine, a reference to DC’s troubled warlock, John Constantine.
36. Across the hall from Club Constantine is Xanadu Inn. I won’t spend too much time wondering why there’s a hotel inside a nightclub, but this is a reference to DC’s Arthurian mystic, Madame Xanadu.
37. Yet another supernatural character can be seen referenced on one of Gotham’s billboards. Zatanna Zatara, DC’s sharply-dressed mage, is holding a magic show in the city.
38. The Flugelheim Museum may be best known for hosting the Joker’s Prince-scored vandalism, but in Lego Batman it’s also home to an array of DC Comics’ most important items. Among the collection is a shard of Kryptonite, one of Superman’s only weaknesses…
39. … a Green Lantern’s lantern…
40. … and Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth.
41. Among the museum’s artwork are a couple of significant comic covers, including Detective Comics Issue #27, the very first to have featured Batman. However, since this comic is in-universe, it depicts The Gray Ghost on the cover instead.
42. Alongside it is a painting of two men, a writer and an artist. These are Bill Finger and Bob Kane, the duo who created Batman for Detective Comics.
43. There’s also a framed copy of The Dark Knight Returns, written by Frank Miller, and its iconic lightning bolt cover.
44. Frank Miller gets his flowers elsewhere, too – among Gotham’s many local businesses is “Miller and Moore: Attorneys at Law”. The Moore in this pairing is Alan Moore, the author of Watchmen and, more importantly for a Batman game, The Killing Joke. Miller and Moore are responsible for some of Batman’s most gritty, edgy stories, so perhaps it should come of no surprise that their minifigure personas run a firm dealing with crime.
45. A billboard for Gotham Year One features the names Beatty, Pulido, and Martin. This refers to writer Scott Beatty and artists Javier Pulido and Marcos Martín. All three were part of the creative team for DC’s Year One comics in the early 2000s, including Robin: Year One, Nightwing: Year One, and Batgirl: Year One.
46. At Gotham’s library, there are banners for books by Alan Grant and Tom King. Both are prominent writers of Batman. Grant wrote the long-running Shadow of the Bat storyline through the 1990s, which introduced villain Victor Zsasz to DC’s rogues gallery. King, meanwhile, won the Eisner Award for his celebrated run on Batman through the late 2010s.
47. Updates on the Gotham Stock Exchange can be seen on digital billboards mounted to one of the city’s skyscrapers. Amusingly, the stocks going up in value are all Lego pieces – studs, bricks, and tiles.
48. Finally, we probably shouldn’t end this list without a cool little detail that’s actually helpful for playing the game. If you hold the left trigger and aim at interactable objects in the world, your character will automatically switch to the correct gadget for the job. There’s no need to manually switch between Batarangs and the grapple when Batman will do it for you.
So there we go, 48 brilliant little details we found in Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. But that’s far from all of them – the world is packed with amazing references, jokes, or cool touches on every street corner. Did we include your favourite detail that you’ve seen so far? If not, let us know the best things you’ve seen in the comments.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s Executive Editor of Features.
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https://www.ign.com/articles/48-brilliant-details-in-lego-batman-legacy-of-the-dark-knight
Matt Purslow
Almontather Rassoul
