TT Games on celebrating 80 years of the caped crusader with Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight

As part of this year's Gamescom proceedings, we sat down with TT Games studio head, Jonathan Smith, to find out how the studio is crafting the ultimate love letter to DC's crimefighter.

If there’s one franchise that quickly came to define the heyday of Lego titles – aside from Star Wars, that is – it’s Batman. Taking the wholesome and undeniably fun co-op gameplay of previous titles, there was plenty to love about that original 2008 game for the way it brought Gotham City and its inhabitants to life in brick form.

The more time went on, however, the more ambitious the series became, with each subsequent Batman game growing bigger and more ambitious in scope, gifting players a fully explorable Gotham to explore in Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, before literally transplanting them into space for Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. It leads one to question: where do you go from here? The answer, at least for TT Games, is back to the beginning.

For the most part this means strictly focussing on the world of Batman again, as opposed to feeding in elements of the wider DC Comics universe such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Brainiac. After all, with over 86 years of comic book history to his name, there’s plenty to explore about the caped crusader’s character without the need to pay tribute to any other heroes and villains.

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is purely about Batman and Batman alone, paying tribute to all of his different aspects by pulling from depictions in the movies, comics, and TV shows. This was a mandate for TT Games right from the very start of development.

“This really is a focus on Batman and that whole story of his journey to establish that legacy,” explains Jonathan Smith, TT Games studio head. “We want to bring Gotham City to life because there's so much to explore there. We want all the iconic landmarks, buildings, and locations to come to life for you to discover over the story”.

Sure, in order to explore the full story of Batman there’s still some cause to explore elsewhere, but Gotham is very much the star setting (as it should be). “Early on Bruce will train in Nanda Parbat with the League of Shadows and the monastery there, as we saw in Batman Begins. But when he comes back to Gotham, that's where the story is set”.

One of the ways Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight aims to separate itself from previous Lego titles based in the universe is through combat. Because whereas previous taking down thugs and henchmen simply came down to button-mashing, here TT Games has taken a page out of Rocksteady’s notebook, with counter-based, melee combat that feels like a direct tribute to the Batman Arkham games.

It’s not quite as in-depth as that, granted, since Legacy of the Dark Knight is appealing to the family crowd. But in the moment, it feels wonderfully rhythmic and is easily some of the most involved combat to ever feature in a Lego game.

“We're inspired by the Arkham Asylum combat system. Of course we are,” Smith continues. “Our friends and colleagues at Rocksteady did a generational job in bringing that to life, so we're going to use that as the basis for any kind of modern experience of representing Batman's combat style”.

Also instilling some Arkham vibes is the inclusion of Gotham city as an open-world map, yet there’s also combat elements unique to Legacy. “We're having two playable characters to switch between. We're bringing in lots of new gadgets, and we're making it accessible for players of all ages. When people reacted to the trailer, we're not surprised that people connect it back to those fond memories they have, but we're also really pleased that they appreciate the differences”.

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He is the night

As if being inspired by the best Batman video game ever wasn’t enough, TT Games also set the challenge of including aspects seen in all mediums. Bruce Wayne’s training as seen in Batman Begins, Bane from The Dark Knight Rises (voiced brilliantly by Matt Berry)… There’s even multiple forms of the Joker set to appear, as evidenced by our short demo session where the not so mysterious leader of the Red Hood Gang falls into a vat of toxic acid while laughing wildly.

The beautiful thing about working with a character as enduring as Batman is that there are multiple types of media to pull on. But that can also present one heck of a challenge too.

“It's a really painstaking process of immersion in all the source material,” says Smith, on trying to incorporate as much as possible for this latest Lego Batman outing. “Decades of comic books, the TV shows, all the films, we absorb those. We chew them over, we digest them because we're trying to amalgamate them all into this one essential telling of the Batman legend that players will go on”.

Fortunately, rather than have you play as various versions of Gotham’s hero, Legacy of the Dark Knight instead distils it into one singular take – one set to go through various changes as the story progress. “We can have a Lego Batman who represents all versions of Batman. And as you see him develop, he'll take on different aspects and the suits that you'll recognize from different actors who played the character in different movies, but you'll be following and growing with that one Lego Batman character”.

It’s a similar situation for villains. “The Joker will go through a lot over the course of the story. And like some of the other characters, he will be transformed along the way. But it's always one character. We're not sort of jumping between different universes or different movies”.

At a time when players are crying out for a new Batman Arkham game more than ever, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight appears set to somewhat scratch that itch. Although very much a more family-friendly take and a continuation of the Lego Batman franchise’s own legacy, the inclusion of counter-based combat, a fully explorable open-world Gotham, and an eclectic take on Batman’s rogues’ gallery highlights TT Games’ ambition with making this the ultimate celebration of the iconic DC superhero.

“I think it's our destiny to make this game,” Smith summarises, explaining how he thinks that the best of Lego Batman is still to come. “I think once you've started working with the world's favourite characters and stories, and we had such a great time with Batman a long while ago now, it was inevitable that knowing everything we've learnt since then, we were going to come back and treat the character with the respect that he deserves”.