Destiny 2 is dead. It will no longer produce content updates after this June, and will go into maintenance mode from here. The end of an era.

Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight owes a lot to the Arkham series. Many core gameplay elements and even occasional plot points are direct references to Rocksteady's best-in-class superhero action games. And that's no coincidence, as Rocksteady is listed as a co-developer on the production. All of this raises the question: Is this the true Arkham successor we've been waiting for? Does it succeed where Gotham Knights failed?

The answer is a resounding and generally positive "yeah kinda."

In my Legacy of the Dark Knight review, I refer to its gameplay broadly as "Arkham Lite." The timing-based combat is slower-paced than the Arkham games at the default difficulty level where I played, but there are higher difficulty settings if you want more of a challenge. And regardless of the difficulty setting you choose, it just feels like an Arkham game. There's a satisfying rhythm to combat encounters that made Arkham games such a hit, and Lego Batman does an excellent job capturing that feeling, even if it's slightly simplified.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnN9wybh6Yo&vl=en

And better still, this Lego version of Gotham feels very similar to the open world we saw in Arkham City and Arkham Knight. It's a sprawling expanse that is packed with things to do and crimes to stop, but it never feels bloated or overcomplicated. You can find lots of hidden doodads like trophies, take on racing or combat challenges, or solve environmental Riddler and Cluemaster puzzles. Driving around the city feels excellent in your choice of Batmobile, and just like the Arkham games, you can mostly glide across the city above the rooftops. Lego Batman even borrows some of Arkham's finer points of traversal by letting you, for example, bolt high out of the Batmobile cockpit, or segue a grapple-point into an air-launch.

All that said, depending on why you come to the Arkham games, there are certain sticking points that will be less satisfying. The stealth is a major shortcoming, lacking a lot of the depth of the Arkham's predator rooms. You do have the ability to sneak up on unsuspecting enemies, but you have far fewer tools at your disposal to trick them, make them turn on each other, or disappear from their notice. As a result, stealth is usually a precursor to combat, letting you thin out a crowd a little before taking them on with traditional fisticuffs.

And if you come to Arkham for its cohesive, original storytelling, you'll be left wanting here. Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is primarily a pastiche of different Batman stories, most of them pulled from various cinematic universes. It marries these influences in smart ways, and it's fun to see how it draws them all together, but you won't find anything as gripping as the Hugo Strange reveal in Arkham City. On the whole, the story is enjoyable mostly in seeing the clever ways it stitches together the most famous parts of the Dark Knight's stories, but it isn't itself a great original tale.

So on the whole, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight isn't quite an Arkham successor. Part of what made the Arkham games so special is how every individual aspect sung so well by itself, and this made them harmonize beautifully when combined. Legacy of the Dark Knight can't really match that. But it gets a lot closer than you'd ever expect from a Lego game.

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The post Take-Two Forecasts $8 Billion in Revenue In Its Next Fiscal Year Thanks to GTA 6 appeared first on Insider Gaming.