The superhero-themed Lego games are unusual in that they're rarely homages to specific movies—unlike Lego Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or Indiana Jones, the Lego Batman games tell original stories, with a few nods to the comics and movies that inspired them, rather than recreating whole scenes in slapstick-brick form.
That's changing with Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. The reveal trailer included nods to the Christopher Nolan movies, with Bruce Wayne going through the Batman Begins training sequence, a Lego Joker quoting Heath Ledger, and a Lego Bane recreating a scene from The Dark Knight Rises (though voiced by Matt Berry, which is an inspired choice).
It's not all parodies of the gritty Nolanverse, though. As the cinematic above shows, Tim Burton's 1989 Batman is on the menu too, with the scene where Jack Nicholson and gang vandalize the Gotham Museum of Art redone in Lego form, complete with the original soundtrack of Partyman by Prince. It's more kid-friendly than the original though, which began with the Joker gas-murdering a bunch of Gothamites and ended with him menacing Vicki Vale.
As well as the Joker and Bane, the full game will include Poison Ivy, the Penguin, Two-Face, Ra's Al Ghul, the Riddler, Firefly, and a real Arnie-sounding Mr. Freeze. It's enough villains for an Arkham game, and given how blatantly the combat in Legacy of the Dark Knight draws from Rocksteady's blocky-bashy, I'm crossing my fingers this will fill the gap the Arkham games left.
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight will be out on May 29, and is coming to Steam and the Epic Games Store.
