LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight Will Finally Let Us Experience a Cancelled Batman Game

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is going to fulfill some big dreams for Batman fans. Believe it or not, there hasn’t been a new Batman game in a decade. Batman: Arkham Knight was the last game where you played as the Caped Crusader. Since then, it has been spin-offs like Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, two games where you don’t play as Batman himself. While there are rumblings of a new Batman Arkham game in the early stages of development at Rocksteady, it’s likely years away from releasing. In the meantime, fans can occupy themselves with LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight.

The new LEGO Batman game will be an open-world Batman game that chronicles the story of the beloved DC hero through adaptations of his greatest cinematic adventures. The gameplay also takes heavy inspiration from the Batman Arkham games with rhythmic combat, takedowns, detective vision, and even some of his gadgets. It looks like a very interesting game, but there’s one thing that makes this LEGO game even more exciting than anything before it.

The Dark Knight Is Finally Getting a Video Game Adaptation

The Dark Knight is one of the biggest movies of all-time and it released during the age of movie tie-in games, but it never actually got one. This was a bit puzzling because Batman Begins got a video game on PS2 and Xbox. However, there was a video game in development. EA was set to publish a video game adaptation of The Dark Knight in conjunction with the movie’s July 2008 release. It would’ve been open-world and featured actors like Gary Oldman reprising their roles for the project.

Unfortunately, there were a bunch of issues with developing the game. Developer Pandemic had pushed the game back to December 2008 to tie-in with The Dark Knight‘s DVD release, but this would be their last chance to release the game. The project was cancelled by EA after this deadline was missed, and a year later, Pandemic Studios shut down entirely. It’s believed that the loss of revenue from this project never seeing the light of day played a role in the studio’s eventual demise.

With that said, The Dark Knight and its sequel, The Dark Knight Rises, are finally getting a video game adaptation. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight‘s first trailer features iterations of Heath Ledger’s Joker and Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. We even see Batman tossing Joker up against the wall, just like he does in the interrogation scene from The Dark Knight. It doesn’t look like these will necessarily be one-to-one adaptations of the Batman films like the LEGO Star Wars games, but it will pull bits and pieces from films like Christopher Nolan’s trilogy.

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Given this is mixing Nolan’s trilogy with Matt Reeves’ The Batman, it’s possible that they’ll use the latter as part of Batman’s origin since it’s part of a younger Batman story. From there, maybe it will tell adapted versions of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. Given this is a kids game, it seems unlikely we’ll see the horrific accident that births Two-Face or any scenes of the Joker explaining how he got his gnarly scars. Nevertheless, it’s fun to finally be able to play parts of these iconic films, even if they are probably going to be parodying them to a degree.

The Tumbler Batmobile can also be seen in the footage, indicating that there may be chapters of Batman’s legacy adapted for this game. It’s unclear if any of the Batman movie suits will appear in this game, but it seems likely. There is a special pre-order bonus suit for Batman, so players will be able to change the way Batman looks in the game.

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight will release in 2026.