In a shake-up for TT Games’ LEGO series, the newly-announced LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight features just a handful of playable heroes, even if many more DC Comics characters will appear in the game as enemies or NPCs — something that is prompting plenty of fan debate.
Typically, TT Games’ LEGO adventures include hundreds of characters to unlock and play as, with character collection a fun part of fully completing a LEGO game. TT Games’ previous project LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga offered one of the biggest rosters yet — with around 400 characters depending on whether you owned the base game or all of its DLC.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is taking a different approach, however, with an official Q&A page for the game confirming just seven heroes will be playable — and no supervillains.
“LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight will feature seven playable characters, including Batman, Jim Gordon, Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, Catwoman, and Talia al Ghul,” reads the game’s official Q&A. “Each character is equipped with unique skills, combos, and gadgets — like Batman’s Batclaw, Jim Gordon’s foam sprayer, Robin’s line launcher, and Catwoman’s whip.”
This makes it sound like the game’s focus is on providing a smaller number of distinct characters, rather than hundreds of options with many gameplay similarities. Indeed, speaking to IGN at Gamescom, TT Games Head of Production Jonathan Smith said Legacy of the Dark Knight had been designed to focus more squarely on the story of the “Bat Family.”
“This is wholly a Batman game to focus on that character, to really bring that character,” Smith said. “That means you’ll still play as and with other playable characters, Jim Gordon, Catwoman, Robin, Batgirl, to round out the bat family. But we think we really need to focus on Bruce Wayne and his story for that player journey, that player experience in Gotham.”
Additionally, for collectathon fans, the game’s seven characters will have multiple costumes to unlock. For example, Batman’s suit options include his look from 2022’s The Batman movie, the animated Batman: The Brave and the Bold series, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Batman’s original Golden Age comics appearance, plus well as his colorful Rainbow Batman suit.
On stage at Gamescom this week, Smith confirmed the appearance of multiple characters from DC Comics within the game, including Bat-Mite and Condiment King — though to be clear, these will not be playable. Bat-Mite sounds likely to pop up as a friendly NPC, while Condiment King feels most likely to be another non-playable villain.
(As a side-note, Smith also said that Superman and Peacemaker would not appear in Legacy of the Dark Knight, and gave a “no comment” to Harley Quinn, Bob the Goon, Terry McGinnis, “Nice Coat Guy from Batman Begins,” and amusingly, Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav.)
“If it’s only seven in the whole game then I’m not buying lol,” one fan wrote in a lengthy reddit thread discussing the seven character limit. “Honestly shocked by this,” wrote another, adding that “part of the fun of LEGO games is the big rosters.”
“Controversial opinion: I prefer seven completely different characters to play than 200 that only change their appearance,” countered another fan.
Said another: “I understand what made the huge minifig rosters cool and neat but I don’t think it made for a better game over more refined play patterns that are super character specific instead of a handful of interchangeable abilities and tools.”
Some fans have said this approach better fits a more story-led game, though others remain of the opinion that more LEGO characters should be playable in the game’s open-world version of Gotham.
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is set to launch on Nintendo Switch 2, PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
