16 Essential Tips for Diving into Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight

Look, it’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, wait, that’s the wrong superhero. Let’s hit the reset button. Ahem. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is now available for everyone, not just those who opted for early access. This open-world Batman adventure is crafted entirely from Lego bricks, and while it may not be the most challenging game out there, we’ve got 16 handy tips and tricks for players diving into Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight.

As mentioned, Legacy of the Dark Knight isn’t particularly tough. If you’ve tackled other open-world action games, you probably won’t find yourself struggling in battles or against bosses. You might be tempted to crank the difficulty up to the highest setting, Dark Knight. Go ahead, but be prepared for a flood of enemies that can turn fights into a bit of a grind. Personally, I found the middle difficulty, Caped Crusader, to be a blast, offering just the right amount of challenge without feeling overwhelmed.

When you first get the chance to explore Gotham City in Legacy of the Dark Knight, it’s tempting to dive right in. However, it’s best to focus on the story missions initially. Completing these missions unlocks new characters, tools (like gliding), and gold bricks, which are essential for upgrading and unlocking character skills.

Once you finish the story, the entire city opens up for free exploration, allowing you to gather collectibles and tackle any remaining side quests.

Pressing the right stick on consoles activates Detective Mode, which highlights useful items and objectives. This feature is invaluable—whenever you hit a puzzle or challenge roadblock, just tap that stick, and you’ll quickly see what needs to be broken or investigated.

Among the characters you can play in Dark Knight, Jim Gordon might seem a bit dull at first. He’s just a guy with two odd guns. However, his bouncy projectile blaster is surprisingly effective against groups of enemies. Once you upgrade it with WayneTech chips to make the projectiles bounce between foes, Gordon becomes a top choice for tackling the surprisingly tricky Augmented Reality combat challenges.

Shield enemies can be a real pain, so make sure to unlock Batman’s grapple slam attack as soon as possible. This move lets you leap over an enemy and then use the right trigger to grapple them and slam them down. It’s effective against many foes, especially those pesky shield-wielders.

Until you unlock all playable characters near the end of the game, you won’t be able to complete every puzzle or challenge in Gotham. Some can be partially completed, but this can be frustrating. To save time, check the map for a lock icon on activities—if it’s there, you can’t finish it yet. Move on and come back later.

In Chapter 4, you’ll gain access to Batgirl. Once she’s available, you can activate radio towers scattered throughout Gotham, revealing all collectibles and side activities in that area of the map. This is super helpful if you’re aiming to complete everything the game has to offer.

Here’s a quick way to rack up studs: smash things with the Batmobile. Gotham is filled with breakable objects when you’re behind the wheel of Batman’s iconic vehicle. You can even fire missiles at some destructible items, which will explode into collectible studs. I managed to gather thousands of studs in just a few minutes by being the most reckless (and wealthiest) driver Gotham has ever seen.

Want even more studs? Make sure to swing by the Batcave regularly to check on the in-game challenges you’ve completed and collect the studs for each one.

And if you spot a rare purple stud, hold off on collecting it right away. These are worth 10,000 studs, but you can boost that number by gathering a bunch of studs to raise your multiplier to three. Then, grab the purple stud to score 30,000 studs. You can even max out your multiplier to four, letting you snag 40,000 from a single purple stud.

If you finish a mission but miss some secrets, don’t sweat it. You can replay any mission in the game as often as you like by logging into the Batcomputer in the Batcave.

While battling bosses or solving puzzles in Dark Knight, you’ll need to switch between different character gadgets to grapple, whip, hack, and more. Here’s a neat trick: if the character you’re using has the required gadget, just aim at the point you need to interact with, and the game will automatically switch to that gadget. This handy feature saves you from fumbling around with gadget-swapping mid-action.

To quickly switch characters, hold down on the d-pad to bring up the full list of available characters and their gadgets.

The game doesn’t do a great job of explaining this, but you’ll encounter open-world puzzles that require the Batmobile. If you see a tire icon or are unsure what to do next, try spawning the Batmobile and see if you can interact with anything using its grapple cannon or weight.

To upgrade each character’s gadgets, you’ll need to visit a workbench and spend WayneTech chips. However, workbenches aren’t scattered around like chests and studs. If you need one and don’t want to head back to the Batcave, look for the nearest Batmite shop, marked as shopping carts on the map. Once inside, just turn left, and you’ll find the workbench waiting for you.

Lastly, if you’re playing with younger gamers who tend to die often, consider diving into the accessibility settings and disabling the option that makes characters drop studs upon death. It’s a simple tweak that could save some frustration later on.