The new Lego Batman game will have more of Gotham City in it than Arkham Knight did

LEGO® Batman™: Legacy of the Dark Knight - Official Reveal Trailer - YouTube

In the trailer tornado of Gamescom 2025, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight stood out to me, and not just because it had Matt Berry as the voice of Lego Bane. The combat looks like it's got the counter mechanics of the Arkham games, and the traversal has Arkham-style grappling and gliding. Since neither Suicide Squad nor Gotham Knights was the follow-up to Arkham Knight we wanted, I guess Traveller's Tales decided to step up.

As spotted by Insider Gaming, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight's open world will also include four of Gotham's islands, putting it one up on Arkham Knight's three (the islands of Bleake, Founders, and Miagani), and double the two zones of Arkham Origins (Old Gotham and New Gotham). Lego Batman 2 had an open Gotham as well, but just like Arkham Knight it only included three of the city's islands.

Here's hoping the city actually has civilians in it this time, because I've been waiting forever for a Batman game that lets you actually protect Gothamites from muggers and roving gangs of mimes, clowns, and the like.

It'll also have seven playable characters, which is unusual for the Lego games. Previously they've crammed in as many characters as possible, though many of them end up playing exactly like each other. With just seven to focus on, we might get some more bespoke personality in how they move and fight.

The seven characters, via WB's FAQ, are Batman, Batgirl, Catwoman, Commissioner Gordon, Nightwing, Robin, and Talia al Ghul. "Each character is equipped with unique skills, combos, and gadgets", the FAQ says, "like Batman's Batclaw, Jim Gordon's foam sprayer, Robin's line launcher, and Catwoman's whip." Ah, yes. Jim Gordon's iconic foam sprayer.

The other interesting thing about Legacy of the Dark Knight is that, while it looks like it includes a parody of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight films, it's also spreading a net over the wider Batman universe, pulling in villains like the Penguin, Poison Ivy, and the Red Hood, just like the Arkham games did. While we've heard that Rocksteady is looking to make a singleplayer Arkham game after the unfortunate failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, in the meantime I'd be happy with a light-hearted take on the format, even if it's made out of Lego bricks and seems weirdly obsessed with rubber ducks for some reason.

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Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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