Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight Earns Strong Arkham Comparisons

Fans of Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham series have been waiting 11 years for a proper follow-up to 2015's Batman: Arkham Knight. Expectations were high for Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, with Batfans comparing it to the Arkham games from its very first trailer. After a preview event in April, Polygon noted that developer TT Games built a whole Arkham game out of Lego bricks.

Reviews for Legacy of the Dark Knight are now in. The game sits at an 84 on Metacritic and 85 on OpenCritic. Though not quite as high as the 92 Metascore of Batman: Arkham Asylum or the 87 of Batman: Arkham Knight, it still ranks in the top 25 of the highest-rated games of the year so far.

VGC's Jordan Middler gave the game a 4 out of 5, writing that "Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is a new Arkham game in all but name. It combines the combat of the Rocksteady series, the open world of Arkham Knight, and a shedload of TT Games humour to create a game that Batman fans will likely love."

Eurogamer's Christian Donlan awarded a 4 out of 5 and enjoyed the "Arkham-light combat." He noted that its combat lends itself to good stealth mechanics. While not as deep as the Arkham games' stealth sections, "it still has a surprising number of moments where you can work your way through a space, taking out security cameras, inserting yourself into patrol routes, bonking people on the head before they've seen you and zipping back into the shadows again."

Game Informer's Charles Harte scored the title 8.75 out of 10 and called its robust open world "one of the game's most successful features." Harte wrote that "There's plenty to discover just by driving the city's roads, but it's also built with Batman's verticality in mind, with puzzles and collectibles scattered across the skyline. There's no shortage of things to do here, with hundreds of puzzles and short sidequests appearing on the map as you progress through the campaign. It will take me hours and hours to scour the city in the quest to reach 100-percent completion, and I plan to enjoy every second of it."

The game is also positioned as a broader tribute. VGC's review described it as a "love letter to not just Batman, but the history of Batman media." IGN's Simon Cardy gave it an 8 out of 10, calling it "a fantastic plastic parody of the Caped Crusader's greatest hits." Cardy added that "Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is a lovingly made, often hilarious take on both Batman’s movie and video game history alike. It remixes classic moments from almost every film, with deeper cuts from the Caped Crusader’s comic book beginnings, too."

A perfect Lego version of Batman: The Animated Series' opening is just one Easter egg packed into the new game. All in all, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight joins Forza Horizon 6 and Mixtape among the best games of the month.