Harley Quinn shot Batman — the very same one from the Arkham games — square in the head in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. The world’s greatest detective’s crime-solving brain was leaking out on the Metropolis park bench he was slain on. Even though Rocksteady cowardly tried to retcon this away in an animated post-launch cutscene, it was not too far off from how Warner Bros. Games has treated the Dark Knight over the last decade. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, however, is seemingly looking to pick up at least some of those pieces WB has left scattered about, but it’s worth wondering if that will be enough or if that should be its job in the first place.
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TT Games’ head of development, Jonathan Smith, took to Gamescom’s stage to hype up players after the trailer’s debut and did not mention the Arkham games by name one time. But it was clear this LEGO game is at least taking some inspiration from those four core titles. The bricky bat was flowing from goon to goon as he punched them, countering incoming hits, stealthily pouncing on his prey, pulsing some detective vision-like gadget that highlighted enemies, and cruising around Gotham City by gliding around its skies or surfing its streets with the Batmobile.
These are all pretty core Batman traits seen in most Batman media, but the way in which they were presented evoked the Arkham games precisely because those titles nailed how Batman was perceived in video game form. They set the blueprint that will likely be followed — however loosely — in future games for some time.
WB Has Dropped the Ball With Batman: Arkham
But it hasn’t been followed for quite a while because WB has refused to properly support the series. The break wasn’t to nurture the franchise or give people a respite after four games and a few spin-offs in less than a decade. It was, for the most part, filled with dead air and two paltry attempts at continuing the Batman mythos in gaming form. Gotham Knights was a hollow, mindless brawler that lacked any ounce of the style the Arkham games had. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League looked incredible and had a surprisingly hilarious script, but also contained more than its fair share of extremely repetitive, loot-driven gameplay that betrayed the engaging mechanical complexity developer Rocksteady Studios was known for.
Arkham Knight was the last title to fully execute on this Batman fantasy, and that was over a decade ago. It brought together many disparate Batman traits — the same ones listed above that Legacy seems to have — with such immaculate style. While the brutal, combo-heavy fisticuffs and empowering predator segments that flip the power dynamic often seen in the stealth genre on its head both made it a fantastic video game on a mechanical level, Rocksteady brought it all together with an appropriately gritty tone, commitment to the narrative, and respect for the source material.
All three of Rocksteady’s games (and, to an extent, WB Games Montreal’s prequel) are similarly cohesive and are why they’re so beloved. They’re not just great video games. They’re not just great Batman stories. They’re all holistically Batman from the mood to the mechanics, and this is the X factor that has made the Arkham titles so beloved. Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man games are similar in this regard since the web-slinger’s DNA is in every bit of those titles. And while it’s spectacular to have that torch be carried on in some regard, Spider-Man, obviously, is not Batman.
There’s specifically a Batman-shaped hole, and it seems as though Legacy wants to fill it, brick by brick. But given the sillier vibe from the trailer, it is clearly not going to have that exact Arkham tone. And that tone isn’t the only tone Batman has had, either. The 1966 Batman series starring Adam West, The Lego Batman Movie, and even the 1992 Batman: The Animated Series all had their lighthearted moments (some more than others). The last two decades of live-action Batman movies have been dark and brooding, but that doesn’t paint the full picture of the tone Batman has had in the past. Batman is allowed to be a goofball in Legacy, and the LEGO games have done relatively well adapting mature films into more kid-friendly games. So while Legacy has a version of Batman’s tone, it’s not specifically the Arkham tone.
It shouldn’t be up to a LEGO game to have to carry on the Arkham spirit because WB was too incompetent to meaningfully support the series or create an environment where it could thrive. Ideally, those games could have continued on in some fashion and sat alongside LEGO titles aimed at younger players. It’s just that Legacy looks like it was inspired by the Arkham games, so it’s easy to pin those hopes onto it.
LEGO Games Deserve to Evolve
A LEGO Batman game like this should be able to have Arkham-like systems, especially since LEGO games deserve to evolve. Far too many of the LEGO games play similarly or have insultingly simplistic gameplay that seemed primarily designed for smooth-brained co-op-focused gaming. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, the team’s previous game, pushed forward by introducing more mechanically engaging gameplay systems, and it appears as though Legacy is intelligently taking the cues by having a deeper array of mechanics. This deeper loop just happens to bear a striking resemblance to the Arkham games because Rocksteady did such a killer job establishing what a Batman game could be.
And when there’s not a more traditional Batman game where it’s possible to pound away on Two-Face’s henchmen or stalk Penguin’s thugs, that, once again, puts more pressure on a title like LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight that has different goals in mind, even if there are some similarities. It points out a grander problem with WB Games. By neglecting the Arkham franchise for so long, the publisher has put Legacy in a position where it seems like it has to fill that Arkham void, and that’s not an admirable spot to be in.
Smith said on the Gamescom stage that Legacy was going to “incorporate iconic moments” from “movies, TV shows, comics, and games,” and the trailer did seem to showcase Arkham’s explosive gel gadget. Even with the general gameplay similarities, it seems like a given Arkham will directly show up in Legacy in a way that will likely get a bigger and more focused reveal later on. Regardless, there’s at least some overlap here, and while it’s hard not to want this to be a more true Arkham game in some form, that’s not what Legacy is. Only an Arkham game can fill the Arkham void and, if anything, that seems like it is sadly still years away.
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