Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is now one of my most anticipated games. It’s just so much fun, so well done, and so incredibly moreish that I cannot wait to get my hands on it in 2026. And I’m not even someone that usually plays Lego video games.
Developer TT Games has a pedigree, of course, and in conjunction with Warner Bros. Games, this fourth entry into the Lego Batman series is already shaping up to be one of the studio’s best.
The mix of action and puzzle solving, Gotham City’s vibes perfectly presented in bricky form, and the voice acting and writing are all superb and combine wonderfully – and were only a few of the highlights I got to experience in my Gamescom 2025 preview.
From driving the Batmobile to chasing down rapscallions as Batman and Jim Gordon, and from enjoyably bashing baddies with simple controls to swooping around the rooftops, there’s so much to get excited about.
I am vengeance – in brick form
First and foremost, this is an excellent execution of Batman in Lego form. Not a new concept, of course, but this one felt like a seamless merging of two distinctly different worlds.
It channels a bunch of more ‘realistic’ superhero games’ combat, such as the Batman: Arkham titles and Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man series. It feels fluid and fun, but not too tightly controlled or restrictive, and bouncing between goons to bash them in the face or finish them off with a combo with the other character (in the instance of my preview, Jim Gordon) is a hoot, every single time.
More broadly, the action is simple, slick, and downright fun whichever form it takes on screen. Straightforward inputs and prompts make every finisher both satisfying and not too difficult to achieve. Meanwhile, utilizing a few of Batman’s or Gordon’s tools to overcome puzzles or distract guards is never buried in layers of inputs.
As someone with fewer fingers than most, the ease of control is something that’s incredibly welcome for me and feels like the perfect way to help players manoeuvre the Caped Crusader without being overwhelmed. Why can’t it be simple, satisfying, and fun to mash a couple of buttons to bop, biff, and wallop baddies in the face?
Even though I didn’t get to hear Matt Berry’s Bane in the preview, I found the game wonderfully voice-acted and splendidly written: there are jokes and banter, as well as an accessible plot and story (at least in the missions and parts I played) that’s easy to get into.
Brick by brick, bit by bit
The role of Lego bricks and the game’s Gotham City is a joyous one, too. It’s put together wonderfully with Lego’s distinctly rectilinear forms looking right at home in the grim metropolis.
Exploring some of Gotham City and its open world is a blast in Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, too. You can zip from point to point with a grappling hook, jump and traverse to your heart’s content, plummet off of buildings, glide with your wings, and use the Batmobile for high-octane travel. Each method is fun and seamless to jump in and out of, too – sometimes literally.
In the self-contained mission I played, everything is scaled down to a fabulous microcosm. There’s a gripping little plot involving investigation, scuffles with guards outside a plant, and then bigger boss-type fights, puzzles, and chases within.
Puzzles in my preview felt a little too simple, so hopefully that’s an area that the full game will offer more of – but the satisfaction of solving them or even just watching them be solved with magical Lego building happening in front of your eyes is still smile-inducing.
Everything in Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is implemented so accessibly, but it’s never too childish in any way whatsoever, either. The combat is pretty beefy and full of impact and satisfaction despite its (enjoyable) simplicity, travel is easy to do but has a great sense of momentum to it, and simply hoovering up Lego bits and finding collectibles already has a great sense of pleasure to it.
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is set to release sometime next year for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Nintendo Switch 2.
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rob.dwiar@futurenet.com (Rob Dwiar)
