I didn't expect this game to claw my PS5 Pro back into contention – I'm loving every minute
Lego Batman has no right to be this good
When you've got a PS5 Pro to call on at any time, but also a Nintendo Switch 2 and a gaming PC that just so happens to have a 5070 Ti inside it, knowing what platform to choose for a game isn't always that straightforward. A lot of the time, I'll base my decision on what hardware I think will be most interesting to evaluate, and in the case of Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, I found myself drawn to the PS5 Pro for reasons I can't fully explain.
I've been playing the Lego games since the very earliest incarnations – the mid-2000s were a great time to be a kid with an Xbox 360, and I played some of the Lego Star Wars games to death. I've given them a bit more space recently, being a full-on adult and all, but the buzz around Legacy of the Dark Knight made me think I should check it out.
I wasn't wrong – this screams out that it's a great place to get back into the franchise if you haven't played one in a few years, not least because it's basically a hybrid between a Lego game and a sequel to the superb Arkham series that has been so badly missed in recent years.
I've played half a dozen hours of Legacy of the Dark Knight and enjoyed every minute, crunching through the prequel scenes that establish Bruce Wayne as Batman, and fairly quickly acquiring the core gadgets to make moving around this brick-built version of Gotham City super fun.
What's been most interesting in that time has been how the game approaches the PS5 Pro's beefier hardware. Principally, unless it has something going on behind the scenes, there's actually no Pro setting here in the menus, meaning you get the same choice between "performance" and "fidelity" modes as those on the normal PS5.
The performance mode targets 60fps, while fidelity aims for 30fps, and the visual difference is actually quite obvious. Fidelity is a good chunk sharper, but also has more accurate and vivid reflections and lighting, while the performance setting obviously strips things back a bit.
Normally, I gravitate straight to performance options for smoothness, but I've actually been playing the game on fidelity mode to get the most of it visually, because this is a surprisingly lush-looking game at times. Its nighttime cityscapes can be really pretty, and the detail in its Lego constructions is really fun, especially when they're at a sharper resolution.
That said, there's no getting around the fact that I'm surprised there's no "Pro" mode here, or at least that the in-menu information could be clearer about whether the PS5 Pro has any boosts to offer. The game looks great, but it's still quite surprising to find a Lego game limited to 30fps if you want the best visual performance, especially when you think about the modes on offer in something like Assassin's Creed Shadows, for instance.
I'm hopeful that we'll get a patch down the line to improve things, even if it is just a matter of clearer communication, but I'll still be having fun with Legacy of the Dark Knight regardless. I didn't expect it to pull me away from 007 First Light on my PC, but it's done a good job of offering a low-stakes palate cleanser, and there's a reason it's been met with the reviews and word-of-mouth that it has.
