I was driving the Batmobile through Gotham City while chatting with a few friends when I almost hit a LEGO minifigure sitting in a wheelchair. The minifigure proceeded to cartwheel, while still sitting in the wheelchair, out of the way of my car. That is a sentence I just wrote about a video game in 2026, and I feel it encapsulates everything about why LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is the best LEGO game TT Games has made in years. It knows exactly what it means to be a LEGO game, committing to both the lore accuracy of Batman and the goofiness of LEGO, and it is genuinely funny in ways that can catch you off guard.
This is the fourth LEGO Batman game from TT Games, coming out over a decade after LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham in 2014. It follows the same studio that made LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which currently sits as the best-selling LEGO game of all time, and you can just tell by what you experience in this entry. The ambition here is real and tells a definitive Batman story in LEGO form, succeeding in a way where, honestly, I could even call this a new entry to the Batman Arkham game series.
What The Game Actually Is
Legacy of the Dark Knight is an open-world action-adventure that starts with a young Bruce Wayne training with the League of Shadows and follows his journey all the way through becoming Batman and building his extended list of allies, including Jim Gordon, Catwoman, Robin, Nightwing, and Batgirl. The story blends iconic moments from across the Caped Crusader’s history (hey! Caped Crusader is a difficulty setting in this one!) in film, television, comic books, and games, but filters it through TT Games’ signature LEGO humor. The result ends up being something that feels like a greatest hits compilation that actually has a coherent storyline rather than being a series of references stitched together.
The combat system is a significant step forward for LEGO games. As I mentioned before, it really feels like a Batman Arkham game, just by TT Games instead of Rocksteady, as it features fluid attack chains, over-the-top takedowns, gadgets that work for both puzzle solving and combat, and more. Batarangs can stun enemies, the Batclaw can reel them in, and each playable character has their own signature gear. It still reads as a LEGO game, and it won’t ever punish you severely for losing or jumping into a death pit, but the mechanical ceiling is meaningfully higher than previous entries.
The Humor Lands
LEGO games live and die on their humor, and Legacy of the Dark Knight is consistently funnier than I expected. At first, I almost didn’t want to like any of the humor, having a stigma in my mind of “It’s a LEGO game, the humors not made for me.” But on my second session, I decided to just unwind and not overthink it at all. This made me realize the wheelchair cartwheel moment wasn’t a fluke, but the game is full of incidental gags, background details, and character interactions that reward players who actually look around. Sometimes you want to use the wrong character for an interaction to see what witty dialogue an NPC has. The city feels alive with stuff happening in the nearby area that has nothing to do with your current objective, and even constant crime alerts that make it feel like even when you’re focused on a Riddler puzzle, someone might be getting mugged. The tone never tips into trying too hard or being annoying about it, and that’s a great thing to see.
The Red Bricks and Cosmetic Modifiers
One of the more inventive additions to Legacy of the Dark Knight’s collection loop is the red brick system, which works differently here compared to previous LEGO games. Rather than unlocking gameplay modifiers like score multipliers or invincibility, red bricks found in levels unlock purely cosmetic effects and color palette swaps. One called “Filthy Rich” causes money to fly out of enemies when you defeat them, and leaves a money trail behind your car while painting everything green. It gives you a reason to explore and collect without feeling like you’re grinding for any gameplay advantages, instead just grinding for a pointless but delightful addition to your wardrobe.
The stud bar is missing from levels, though, which is a noticeable absence for LEGO veterans who are used to tracking their True Stud Hunter progress in real time. It doesn’t fundamentally change how the game plays, but it’s the kind of thing longtime fans might notice and miss.
Performance and Technical State
TT Games appears to have undersold themselves pre-launch with how they communicated PC specs. The game runs better than their stated requirements would suggest. Better, honestly, than even what seemed intended based on what they would have you believe. Despite performance running well, there are still bugs, some of which are more annoying than others. I had an objective softlock that required restarting a save, which never feels like a great thing to do, but thankfully, the game had a holy grail. The autosave system was frequent enough that the restart rarely cost me more than a few minutes of progress. A softlocked objective is frustrating; a softlocked objective that sends you back 45 minutes is catastrophic, so I can only say thank you so many times for TT Games not making me redo an hour of progress.
The Subscription And Set Locked Cosmetic Issue
This is the section where I have to be completely honest about something that frustrated me. Two outfits in the game are locked behind an active HBO Max Subscription (Dark Knight of Steel and Black Lantern), and several gold-themed cosmetics are locked behind purchasing physical LEGO sets that include in-game codes. None of these locked items count toward 100% completion or achievement requirements, and you can finish the entire game without them. But seeing outfits in the suit collection of your Batcave missing because you didn’t purchase an $80 real-life LEGO set can suck, even if that area is tucked away in a bonus area. It stings to see it in a single-player game that costs players $70, even if you get the biggest image flex (such as below) by owning all of it.
Is It Worth $70?
At first, the honest answer was that I wasn’t sure. $70 for a LEGO game is a number that takes some adjustment, and the stigma around the genre doesn’t help it at all. After taking the chance to actually play the title, the answer is yes, with the caveat that $70 for a LEGO game still feels like something the industry is normalizing rather than something inherently justified. Legacy of the Dark Knight is a substantial open-world action game with a real story, strong combat, great humor, and more content than its label implies. It’s not a $70 game because it’s a LEGO game, but instead it’s because TT Games made a $70 game that happens to use the LEGO format.
If you’ve written off LEGO games as something you’ve aged out of, get rid of that stigma. Play it, trying to have a good time, and I’m sure you will. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC for $69.99. The Deluxe Edition is $89.99 and includes the Legacy Collection DLC. Nintendo Switch 2 version coming later in 2026.
