Ever since Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight’s reveal at gamescom 2025, one of the hottest topics surrounding it has been the surprisingly small number of playable characters on its roster. But developer TT Games promises that there’s a very good reason for this.
Over the past decade or so, Lego games ranging from DC and Marvel superheroes to Star Wars and Harry Potter droids and wizards have included unlockable playable character numbers stretching into the hundreds, but in the upcoming Legacy of the Dark Knight, that total at launch is just seven. Those that made the cut include the Bat family and a few friends: Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, Jim Gordon, Talia Al Ghul, and Catwoman.
IGN recently spoke to the head of the TT Games development team, Jonathan Smith, to find out why this number has been reduced so drastically by comparison. “We're taking these individual characters on a journey,” Smith explains. “So you are constantly upgrading and developing new skills and opening up new abilities for each of those characters. Within the Bat family, as well, we really wanted to focus on making those characters really unique, making their personalities come across and their abilities very distinct.”
For example, Batman can throw batarangs and use his grapple to assist in combat as well as solve puzzles, but Catwoman can utilise her rangy whip and call in the help of her kittens by triggering a laser pointer on a target. Those same cats can also be directly controlled by the player to grant access to small vents and distract unsuspecting guards with a delightful “meow”.
While the focus is seemingly on a deeper gameplay experience this time around, with a Rocksteady Arkham-influenced combo-based combat system leading that charge, fans of old-school Lego games shouldn’t fear too much, as Smith promises there will still be plenty to collect across its open world and movie-inspired levels.
“The story is more focused on a tighter roster of characters that are now more differentiated with much deeper gameplay,” confirms Smith. “So they work well in partnership with each other, and we then want to give you lots and lots of options to see the full range of what those characters can be by giving you more than a hundred different suits to collect. So you still get that moment in the Bat Cave where you've got all the different suits from all the different characters arrayed in front of you, colorful and glorious. You're still compelled to want to complete that collection.”
For more on Bat Suits, take a look at every one confirmed to be in Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight so far, and if you want to know a lot more about the game, check out more from our interview with the studio as part of IGN Fan Fest 2026.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.
