With the notable exception of the Telltale titles, Batman games of recent history have been split into two distinct strands. On the one hand, there is the Arkham series, which puts emphasis on the free-flowing combat, a wide range of gadgets and being able to freely move in an open-world Gotham. On the other hand, the LEGO Batman entries have typically expected players to, yes, disperse enemies, but also solve puzzles and put together impressive builds.
The latest game to feature the Caped Crusader, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, seeks to bridge the gap between these two styles while paying homage to the character’s 86-year-long history by way of an ambitious mashup of the stories found in comics, movies and more. As I mentioned in this gamescom 2025 round-up listicle, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight was head and shoulders my favourite surprise to come out of the show, and, after getting about an hour of hands-on time with it, I am certain that it will be the Batman game we didn’t know that we needed AND the one that we deserve.
Moreover, following my hands-on with LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, I got the opportunity to talk to assistant design director Jimmy Sedota about returning to LEGO Batman after 8 years, the main touchpoints of the original narrative, the many gadgets and vehicles and more:
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is the first LEGO Batman game since 2017’s LEGO Batman Movie Game. What made you return to the Caped Crusader?
Jimmy Sedota: Batman is such a great character in such a great universe. So, we were really excited to get back to that universe and try to do some different things that we haven’t maybe done in past projects. There’s so much history here – 86 years of history. There’s just so much for us to get into, and we’re ready to get to it.
“Batman is such a great character in such a great universe.”
Following your work on LEGO Star Wars: Skywalker Saga, it seems that TT Games is focused more so on titles that cover as much lore as possible. What are you most excited to touch on in Legacy of the Dark Knight?
Jimmy Sedota: That’s a hard question, since there’s so much good stuff here. For me, personally, it’s probably a combination…I love the Christopher Nolan trilogy, but also Batman: The Animated Series. I remember when The Animated Series first came out – I remember getting home from school and seeing that first ever episode and just being so mesmerized by not just the story, but the characters and the animation style. So, for me, these are two references, in particular, that really appealed to me.
What’s your favourite niche reference that made it into Legacy of the Dark Knight?
Jimmy Sedota: I like that we’re touching on a few characters, a few villains in particular, that aren’t as well known. Condiment King, in particular, is so silly. But, the way that we’re using him in the game, when you see it…you’re going to appreciate how we handle that character. In any case, there are so many deep lore cuts: we really jam-packed this game with so much from the comics, TV shows and films.
Would you say that Legacy of the Dark Knight is, as the name implies, most influenced by the Christopher Nolan movies or are you returning to the Frank Miller graphic novels?
Jimmy Sedota: All of it. It really is all of it. So, we’ve created a unique story that is our retelling of the legend of Batman. And so, not only do we reference those events, but we’re taking these iconic moments from film, TV shows, comics and other Batman games and weaving our own unique story. So, those are definitely very influential, but we took inspiration from a lot of different things.
Speaking of the story, would you say that it is a cohesive narrative? Or is it made up out of various highlighted moments from Batman’s history?
Jimmy Sedota: It’s absolutely a single, cohesive narrative. So it’s not, this movie, then this movie and so on. It’s kind of a mashup, like a remix of all these different Batman media put together into a cohesive story that has a single through line that you can follow. It’s really exciting – I can’t wait for players to see what we’ve done.
So, for example, would newcomers to Batman be able to clearly understand what’s happening?
Jimmy Sedota: Absolutely, yeah. New fans are going to learn a lot about Batman and it’ll all make a lot of sense. So, even if you’re not a deep lore fan or even if you’re a casual fan, this story will stand alone.
“Players start off as a young Bruce Wayne and, while Bruce is learning how to fight, how to use stealth and how to use gadgets, so is the player.”
It’s been mentioned that the story starts with a young Bruce Wayne in training, but where does it go from there? And also, considering the many different inspirations, is there a sort of end point to the original story featured in Legacy of the Dark Knight?
Jimmy Sedota: With it being our own retelling of the story, there is a clear beginning, middle and end. So, players start off as a young Bruce Wayne and, one of the things I like about the early part of the game is that, while Bruce is learning how to fight, how to use stealth and how to use gadgets, so is the player. So the player is going on that journey with him, which I think is really compelling. From there, you return to Gotham and since it’s the early days of Batman, you don’t have the Batcave just yet, but you befriend Jim Gordon and you go on some adventures as you saw in the Ace Chemicals mission and then you continue to progress from there.
There are seven playable characters so you’ll meet Dick Grayson, he’ll become Robin, eventually become Nightwing. You’ve got Talia al Ghul, Catwoman, Batgirl…you’ve got a lot to experience! So, as Batman goes through this journey, he really builds out the Batman family.
Considering that Legacy of the Dark Knight features an open-world Gotham, just how big is the area that players will be able to freely explore?
Jimmy Sedota: It’s really, really big. I don’t know the exact numbers, but there are four islands. Also, not only is the map horizontal, but you’ve got verticality: you’ve got the rooftops, some underground areas and certain buildings that you can go inside of as well. There’s a lot to explore and a lot of things to do in the open world. In the gameplay demo that we showed here [at gamescom], we really focused on what you can achieve with Batman and Gordon. But, later in the game, there’s Riddler puzzles that will require you to use Catwoman or Batgirl. So, there’s a lot more there for people to enjoy. A lot of time will also be spent collecting – it’s a LEGO game!
Playing Legacy of the Dark Knight, it became obvious to me that, from the traversal to the combat, this is more of an Arkham-style game than what we’ve been used to from the past LEGO Batman titles. And so, to what extent would you call Legacy of the Dark Knight a spiritual successor to the Arkham series?
Jimmy Sedota: I don’t think of it that way. I really think of Legacy of the Dark Knight as our unique LEGO Batman game. Again, we’ve really looked at references from across the board: I love the Arkham games – I think Rocksteady did an amazing job with them – but we looked at lots of things. We looked at our own games…we really do try to take inspiration from everywhere.
There’s naturally going to be some similarities. It is Batman: he glides, he uses Batarangs, he fights groups of enemies, he swoops down from the shadows…so, naturally, there’s going to be some similarity there, and we do take some inspiration from that, but we tried to build a combat system from the ground-up and one that we think would work best for LEGO Batman. We think that we have created an experience that is uniquely LEGO, with Legacy of the Dark Knight, [by] taking inspiration from many things, including the Arkham games.
“We think that we have created an experience that is uniquely LEGO, with Legacy of the Dark Knight, taking inspiration from many things, including the Arkham games.”
Legacy of the Dark Knight will feature three different difficulty modes. Are there any rewards to playing the game, say, on the hardest difficult mode – besides bragging rights?
Jimmy Sedota: Generally, no. We don’t want players to feel that they have to play in a certain difficulty mode. Some players are more casual players and they don’t want that challenge. We really do want it to be more of a choice, and you can change between the difficulty modes freely over the course of the game.
Between them, in the demo I played, Batman and Gordon both had two select gadgets. Are those exclusive to them? Do they eventually get more?
Jimmy Sedota: Each character has their own primary and secondary gadget. So, for example, Batman has the Batarang and the Batclaw, and Gordon has the Foam Sprayer and the Ricochet Launcher. In addition to that, there’s other gadgets you use contextually. We showed the explosive spray gel in the reveal trailer, which you’ll be able to use on certain walls. So, there’s a lot more gadgets for Batman as well as the other playable characters, in addition to those two main gadgets.
So then, since Legacy of the Dark Knight has seven playable characters with two exclusive gadgets each, does this allow for some interesting pairings?
Jimmy Sedota: Yeah, lots of really good synergies between the playable characters both in the open world as well as in the main game. As you play through the story, it’s always going to be Batman plus another character. And so, we try to ensure that things stay fresh and, because you’re Batman the whole way through, we need to make sure that there’s new things for him to do over the course of the story.
So, not only are the gadgets different, but even some of their animation styles. When you play as, say, Catwoman, you’ll see her having very different attack animations in combat. I think you’ll start to feel that they do all play very differently. Depth was really important for us – the seven playable characters have way more depth than I think we’ve done in previous games with an individual character. We still have over 100 outfits to collect, so we still think that you can kind of customize and have that experience of feeling like you can play as all these different versions of the characters, but, gameplay-wise, we wanted more depth. There’s also progression here: you can upgrade all the gadgets with the components found in the Wayne Tech caches and then, when and if you find bricks scattered throughout missions, you can use them to upgrade all the unlocked characters at once.
“There’s tons of stuff you can do to customize the Batcave: all the suits and vehicles you unlock are on display there, for example.”
What more can you tell me about said outfits?
Jimmy Sedota: We’ve got 100 outfits total. There are definitely more for Batman than anybody else – I don’t have the exact number, but it’s definitely a majority. But, yeah, all the characters will have multiple outfits referencing films, animated series, TV shows, comics and games. So, there’s a lot of choice there and things for players to collect and purchase.
Is there an outfit in particular that you’re excited about?
Jimmy Sedota: I’m an Animated Series fan, so I really like what we’ve done with those outfits. I think Rainbow Batman, which we had in the demo, I really love and is actually one of the things I learnt about when working on this project: there’s an old Detective Comics series where Batman’d show up in different colours. And then, at the end, he shows up in this rainbow outfit, which I think is just really cool. It’s very different from black and gold, you know? It’s a little more playful.
Moving on to traversing the open world, something that I appreciated is that, for example, Gordon gets his own Gotham City Police Department glider. What’s some of the wackier stuff that you had to incorporate into Legacy of the Dark Knight so that every character functions in the same way?
Jimmy Sedota: So, everybody has the ability to grapple and glide. To allow Catwoman to glide, for example, we gave her a wingsuit, so that’s very different and fun. Mechanically, though, they will all feel the same and play the same, so that players can stay together when playing co-op. When it comes to grappling, it’s subtle, but if you look at Gordon, when he grapples, he’s not really in control so his legs are kicking a little bit. I think that this is a fun way to make the mechanic still work, but still feel unique and representative of the character.
In terms of vehicles, all playable characters have multiple vehicles to choose from. Batman has quite a few more: he has the Batmobile from The Batman (2022), we’ve got the Tumbler from The Dark Knight trilogy and we’ve got many, many more others. All playable characters, I think, have both cars and two-wheels vehicles.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Jimmy Sedota: We have not talked about the Batcave! So, of course, we do have it, and one of the cool things about it is the customization aspect. So, you may have noticed that there are collectibles hidden throughout the main story and the open world. Some of them are Batcave trophies and when you collect all five in a level or collect them in the open world, that then unlocks something that you can place back in the Batcave. They’re just cosmetics, but these trophies reference some of the comics and some of the lore. There’s tons of stuff you can do to customize the Batcave: all the suits and vehicles you unlock are on display there, for example. The Red Bricks, which are also a collectible in our game, are a way for you to put different colours on your suit and your vehicle, so that allows you to go even further with creating your custom version of Batman.
Final thoughts?
Jimmy Sedota: I’m just really excited for the world to play LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight! We’ll announce more soon.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is set to release on Xbox Series X / S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC in 2026.
