Lego Batman team swears adults will be challenged by Dark Knight mode

There’s a moment in TT Games’ upcoming Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight where the scope of the thing finally clicks. I went in expecting a tidy Lego playground and linear puzzle-laden levels. There are a few of those, but as soon as you make it to Gotham City, you find yourself in a city sprawling with villain missions, rooftop puzzles, vehicle challenges, and enough Bat-history to make a continuity obsessive start pointing at the screen like Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It big.

TT Games isn’t subtle about its ambitions for the May 22 release. According to head of development Jonathan Smith, the studio approached Legacy of the Dark Knight with one very specific goal in mind: “We set out to make the definitive Batman game,” Smith tells Polygon. “And definitive means complete.”

After two hours of previewing the game, that intention translates to loads of Easter eggs and costumes, with nods from the Adam West Batman to Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and Batman: The Animated Series. But it also speks to some unexpectedly sophisticated gameplay. Legacy of the Dark Knight feels like TT Games trying to evolve the Lego formula, particularly for players who grew up on these games and now want something with a little more muscle under the cowl. Like Rocksteady’s Arkham games before it, the brawls are a centerpiece of the game, even more than the building.

“When we look at Batman, the world’s greatest detective, the world’s greatest hand-to-hand combat fighter, combat was going to be an aspect of this new game that we really needed to work on,” Smith says.

That meant rebuilding combat systems around larger enemy groups, more dynamic gadgets, and — for the first time in a Lego Batman game — actual difficulty levels. Legacy of the Dark Knight introduces a harder “Dark Knight” mode designed to push more experienced players.

“We still want something that’s appealing to all ages for everyone to be able to be Batman in combat,” Smith says, noting there are ultimately three tiers of challenge a player can select from. “But we’re able to create depth with some new systems that we’ve implemented and new AI behaviors.”

That same philosophy extends to the vehicles, which may be the game’s biggest overhaul. Legacy of the Dark Knight pulls Batmobiles and bikes from across Batman history — including the Tumbler from The Dark Knight trilogy — but TT Games quickly realized nostalgia alone wouldn’t carry the driving. “You have to have a great Batmobile to be a great Batman game,” Smith says.

To get there, the studio rebuilt vehicle handling and physics systems from scratch. “We dedicated a lot of time to creating completely new vehicle simulation physics and handling systems,” he says, “that would mean you could cruise around the city and powerslide and smash through Lego objects, leap and land and do donuts and really play with the cars in the same way that you can play with the character.”

Even with the darker tone of Gotham City and Batman’s sprawling history looming over the game, TT Games seems committed to preserving the sense of discovery and tactile chaos that made these adaptations work in the first place. Bigger systems don’t necessarily mean harsher systems.

For Smith, that distinction matters.

“It’s not just about making it more difficult,” he said. “It’s about making it more rewarding.”