Ubisoft has revealed The Division 2: Into The Dark, the latest free seasonal update to the looter shooter, adding a fully PvE Dark Zone, a refreshed PvPvE Dark Zone, and a tease for a new Incursion coming later this year.

Launching today, Into The Dark shifts the focus of the game back to the Dark Zone and the Hyenas faction. They’ve developed a new “Potent Spice” formula, which I’m sure is still a cheap knockoff compared to the stuff that Paul Atreides huffs on Arrakis, but which is enough to make them a much more taxing challenge to overcome as it makes them more resistant to pain.

You’ll fight these Hyenas within the Toxis Dark Zone, a new PvE version of the Dark Zone that is exclusive to this season of the game. This is still a shared space for up to 12 Agents, but Rogue Protocol and friendly fire are deactivated. To ensure you still need to scramble to get out, Toxicity applies hazardous effects over time and build up the longer you stay inside. You can dispell some of this with Surged Active Modifiers, or leaving the Dark Zone. Extraction can only be called in when you have a Stabilization Agent, from Landmark Chests and Landmark Bosses, while taking out Hunters in the TDZ guarantee 1 Exotic Component and a 2% change to drop Eagle Bearer or Ravenous.

Alongside this you still have the standard Dark Zone, but there’s also a new Balanced Dark Zone, which applies PvP-style level matching to the session, emphasising player skill over gear strength. The PvP experience as a whole is being revamped with changes across Conflict in addition to the Dark Zone varients to rebalance weapons and gear talents. Future PvP updates will look at Skills, Attributes, Status Effects.

Through this season, two new Classified Assignments will be available – Conspiracy Zone Hideout on June 16 and McMillan Reservoir Assault on July 21 – which will offer a focus on exploration and storytelling within these locations. Later this season, a new Incursion will take place on Steel Creek Dam and Hydroelectric Plant as the Rikers take control of the location amidst worsening weather conditions.

Source: Ubisoft

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Excuse me, coming through. I’m Kazuma Kiryu, and I’m on my way to speak to some gruff yakuza lads about what their local gang war means for my orphanage. You can tell I’m serious because I’m riding a prototype segway dressed in nothing but a swimming cap, goggles and shorts. Now move, I’ve goons to beat up at two, photos to take at three, a biker gang war to resolve at four, and I also need to somehow fit in time to run around town waving my flip phone at strangers.

Once that’s done, I’m all good to head home to the kids I’ve left unattended. There’s no time to kick back, though. Vegetables must be planted, fish caught, bags sewed, and homework helped with.

The early chapters of Yakuza Kiwami 3 feature a lot more busywork than the 2009 original. You are still playing ex-yakuza member Kazuma Kiryu coming out of retirement to protect his Okinawan orphanage. But you can barely move for introductions to minigames and sidequests. The main story beats are spaced out between hasty rundowns of the litany of extras developers RGG Studio have stuffed into the Yakuza 3 remake.

As with last year’s wonderfully-named spin-off Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii, a lot of these ancillary distractions are recycled from recent mainline entries Yakuza: Like A Dragon and Infinite Wealth. As with the piratical adventure, much of it doesn’t fit into Kiwami 3 seamlessly. While there are new activities that fit perfectly into Kiryu trying to establish and run an orphanage, sourcing the ingredients for the kids’ favourite foods or doing quizzes to help them with their homework, there’s also a generic biker gang war side quest that exists because every RGG game seemingly needs a gang battle mode and there was no excuse to get 16th century galleons involved this time.

The less-tailored additions aren’t all bad – the Aloha Links-style social network lifted from Pirate Yakuza and Infinite Wealth at least brings customisable flip phones you can cover in rhinestones and tacky stickers, which I very much loved. But the (infinite) wealth of additions makes for a more distracted game than the original Yakuza 3.

It’s a shame that, in remaking Yakuza 3, RGG Studio have added gubbins, but done little to correct the original’s weaknesses. While the plot remains more focused than Yakuza 4 and Yakuza 5’s multi-protagonist romps, the story pales in comparison to the emotional weight of the original Yakuza and Yakuza 6. Kiryu’s story plays out over six games, so it’s difficult for mushy middle entries like part three to stand out, but that’s something which could have been addressed here.

While the plot remains fairly so-so, individual characters and relationships still strike a memorable chord, such as Kiryu’s bond with his ally Rikiya Shimabukuro. As you battle to save the orphanage, the latter’s youthful impetuousness gradually wears down Kiryu’s stoicism, exposing the veteran brawler’s heart of gold.

I can’t say the same of Kiwami 3’s villains, who struggle to stand out because of their sheer numbers. Arch-baddie Yoshitaka Mine fights for screentime with secondary baddies Goh Hamazaki, Tsuyoshi Kanda, and Andre Richardson. The struggle leaves all four men as one-dimensional and underdeveloped, even if the well-stocked rogues’ gallery they make up helps the world feel like a proper nest of vipers.

The new prequel episode that comes paired with Kiwami 3, Dark Ties, is RGG’s attempt to remedy that issue in Mine’s case. The former-CEO-turned-corporate head of the Hahuko Clan is ripe for this attention because of how stark a contrast his approach to life and crime is to that of Kiryu, despite the parallels in their upbringings. He’s a funhouse mirror reflection of the family-oriented big Kaz, warped by lonely and cynical bitterness. Dark Ties is only a short romp compared to the main game. Set entirely in the uber-familiar Yakuza series stomping ground of Kamurocho – based on the real world Tokyo district of Kabukichō – the episode opens with Mine losing his position as CEO at his company and the start of his career in crime. You’ll help him climb the ranks of the Tojo Clan to become one of its most ruthless lieutenants, responsible for bringing in much of the organisation’s cash.

In practice, climbing the corporate criminal ladder naturally means beating up a lot of people. Mine’s fighting style is a satisfying mix of takedowns and heavy punches that gain power as you charge up the Dark Ties meter – which, with its chained heart graphic, is possibly the most My Chemical Romance-ish HUD element ever devised. Oh, and you’ll also be chucking about Yakuza 0-worthy sums of cash. Mine’s talent for making money and complete disregard for sentimental yakuza traditions – like honouring alliances – allow him to climb the ranks swiftly. There is much more depth to his character than we ever saw in Yakuza 3, with his relationship with Tojo Clan chairman Daigo Dojima framing the story. Mine grapples with seeing the value in trusting Daigo over sticking to his own well-honed instinct to use people purely for self-interest and personal gain. However, even with this extra focus, RGG Studio make missteps. The story frequently jumps forward by weeks and months, leading Mine’s attitude and outlook to dramatically shift without the cooldown time they might be afforded in a slower burn narrative. Overall, though, the goal of giving players a better view of what makes him tick has been accomplished.

I’m less sure the conclusions to both Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties match this newly developed Mine – but I’ll leave that spoiler heavy discussion for a separate feature that will pop up on the site soon. I’ll confirm that Kiwami 3’s ending has been changed, but not in a way that I see as fatally detrimental to that specific game’s story.

My main issue with Dark Ties is that Mine’s storyline comes with an expansion of Tsuyoshi Kanda’s role. A secondary antagonist in Yakuza 3 and Kiwami 3, Kanda is a one-dimensional, violent sexual predator, but in Dark Ties RGG Studio generally brush over the horrific aspects of his nature. Early in the episode, you prevent Kanda raping a woman in an alleyway, but from that point on he’s presented as a more palatable mixture of comic relief dumbass and treacherous manipulator desperate for power. While Mine spends 90% of the narrative treating Kanda with open disdain, usually expressed by thoughts delivered as bracketed asides which cut in during conversations between the two, you spend much of your time rehabilitating his image.

Fresh out of prison for sexual assault, Kanda wants to rise through the ranks of his clan, and for that he needs a better reputation. Mine, who’s intent on climbing the ranks himself, agrees to help him. The pair’s relationship grows more cordial as you work your way through the “bro time” bonding sessions unlocked via Kanda Damage Control, a mini-game that revolves around Mine doing good deeds under Kanda’s name to improve the odious gangster’s public reputation. Most of these good deeds are the sort of generic helping hand lending that Kiryu and other Yakuza goodies wouldn’t look out of place doing: go fetch this hungry worker a bento, beat up this rude salesman harassing passersby, hunt down a car burglar, expose some police corruption.

One of the longer good deed missions stands out from the rest, though.

You’re told that one of Kamurocho’s brothels has asked for help with an aggressive customer. Despite being banned, the customer keeps forcing his way in. The joke is that Mine’s almost certain from the outset that the customer in question will turn out to be Kanda. You head to the brothel and the proprietor gives you a description of the culprit which mirrors Kanda’s appearance. So, filled with dread, Mine takes on a shift as the place’s bouncer, choosing whether to let in customers. Eventually, a random man who looks exactly like Kanda turns up and Mine beats him up, relieved that he’s not going to have to stop his workmate and friend with a history of sexually assaulting women from doing so again. The entire mission is played for laughs with the typical wacky Yakuza substory tone, but left a bad taste in my mouth. Even putting any Kanda-specific issues aside, RGG’s choice to cast actor Teruyuki Kagawa in the role of Kiwami 3 antagonist Hamazaki despite a 2022 newspaper report accusing him of sexual assault adds an inescapable extra level of discomfort to instances like this in Yakuza Kiwami 3 and Dark Ties.

Even if RGG Studio somehow developed Kanda with the nuance necessary to turn him into a flawed ally you could comfortably spend “bro time” with in a Soapland brothel, there’s another barrier. Kanda’s role in Kiwami 3 doesn’t change. He’s still a power-hungry and sex-crazed punching bag for Kiryu. As Dark Ties takes place prior to those events, reforming Kanda wouldn’t mesh with his presentation in the mainline entry. Outside of totally rebooting the character – which the developers certainly could and I think should have taken this opportunity to do – you’re left with this spin-off arc which feels like it wants Mine to hang out with Kanda just so RGG can make jokes about the sex pest getting angry when women find his asexual business partner more attractive.

That Kanda/Kagawa cloud hangs over Dark Ties and Kiwami 3, and expanding Yakuza 3 with minigames taken from later Like A Dragon games does nothing to dispel it. One moment, you can be merrily mashing away at baddies in the biker battles as the co-boss of a girl gang – which would feel refreshingly progressive in any other Like A Dragon game – but in the next you might need to consider adding Kanda and Hamazaki to your squad in order to win the next scrum. Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties is a serviceable remake in a vacuum, but it doesn’t exist in isolation. Quirky charm and moreish busywork can’t distract from RGG’s questionable attitude to sexual assault.

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A cosplayer and foam sculptor has shown off their cosplay of Batman from The Dark Knight Returns, and it looks like a classic comic drawing brought to life.

Batman cosplayers are not an unusual sight. The character’s popularity translates to every other medium, after all, be it TV shows, movies, or action figures. 

But there are some genuinely impressive lengths cosplayers will go to to nail the perfect Batman look. 

One such cosplayer shared their photos to Reddit and is wowing users with a terrifying Batman ripped straight out of the Dark Knight’s most iconic story. 

Cosplayer shows off Batman costume straight out of The Dark Knight Returns

Reddit user karrver_fx shared the images to the r/cosplay subreddit, showing off a terrifyingly accurate Batman from The Dark Knight Returns. 

The look includes the Frank Miller-designed Batman’s signature stocky build and a menacing sneer. 

The costume is the work of Shelly Karrver of Karrver Studio Creature FX & Design. They shared a behind-the-scenes look at the suit on their Instagram, showing the impressive amount of foam latex and detail work that went into building the costume.

Karrver is no stranger to terrifying and impressive monster builds, including Spider-Man’s latest ally Rek-Rap and Throg, the God of Thunder. Reddit was equally impressed, discussing the accuracy of the costume and the stunning work that went into it. 

“Absolute unit” one user commented, “It’s almost like a figure. Incredible job.”

“What?? It’s a costume??” another added, “I thought [it was] a sculpture.”

“In a way, it is a sculpture,” Karrver responded, “We sculpted the mask and chin, but, yes, there is a person Inside this suit!”

DC Comics

Frank Miller and Klaus Janson’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns redefined the character.

Released in 1986, The Dark Knight Returns is a seminal Batman story written by Sin City creator Frank Miller with illustrations by Miller and Klaus Janson. The four-issue series redefined Batman as a dark vigilante figure.

The Dark Knight Returns is largely credited with restoring the darker aspects of Batman after the 1960s series made camp such a prominent aspect of the character, and as such, has inspired many Batman projects. Its tone laid the groundwork for 1989’s Batman, while its costume and armored Batsuit were direct inspirations for Ben Affleck’s take in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. 

For more comic book news, be sure to stick with Dexerto’s continuing coverage. 

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Cthulhu games are a dime a dozen these days, with everything from JRPG parodies to well-meaning but flawed efforts that bear the official Call of Cthulhu license. But there aren’t many point and click adventures showcasing H.P. Lovecraft’s sanity-twisting mythos. Two very dated Infogrames efforts in the early 90s come to mind, but if you haven’t played 1993’s Shadow of the Comet and 1995’s Prisoner of Ice, you’re not missing much.

The Dark Rites of Arkham, by indie developer Postmodern Adventures, rectifies this with a well-rounded effort filled with odes to all of Lovecraft’s best stories. It has the quality of a Call of Cthulhu tabletop campaign assembled by a well-read fan.

As a successful perception check will tell you, this game takes place in the city of Arkham, which is described by the lead – detective Jack Foster – as a supreme hellhole. It’s 1933, Prohibition is about to end, FDR is president, and Jack starts out investigating mayoral corruption only to find himself witness to a murder with arcane symbology and a dismembered arm scattered across the ground.

To solve this murder, Jack must abide by ’90s adventure game mechanics, completing puzzles by collecting inventory items and using them on things until something happens. The puzzles are all decent, though a few border on filler territory. (At one point, Jack gets a serum and is about to use it. Like a bozo, he then drops said serum into a grate and has to use a turkey baster to suck it up. I suppose this does mimic the act of getting a critical fail in the Call of Cthulhu tabletop game.)

Thankfully, unlike most Lovecraftian protagonists (whose brains tend to liquify after witnessing sights beyond comprehension) Jack can never die, and his mind will also never be shattered by the infamous point and click “dead man walking” scenario, where you might progress hours into the story only to realise that you missed a critical item way back in the beginning. So this is a very forgiving game by design, and while such an ethos might be slightly at odds with the Cthulhu Mythos, The Dark Rites of Arkham is a very relaxing game that you can sit and play in bed on a Steam Deck for the entirely of its seven hour runtime, letting yourself be swept away by the narrative.

And that plot is a good one. Foster isn’t the most original protagonist, though he does have a whole “I haven’t drunk nearly enough coffee to deal with this shit” schtick that is endearing. He teams up with a straight-laced fellow detective named Harvey Whitman, and the duo have a fun buddy cop vibe as they gallivant around Arkham. Their meanderings lead to the trail of three witches who have somehow stuck around since the Salem Witch Trials of the 1600s, and they’ll eventually encounter monsters in the woods, cultists, a dash of Yog-Sothoth, and world-ending damnation.

Jack and Harvey venture from the streets and sights of Arkham to the surrounding woods…and some very far-flung alien locales indeed.

It all feels like H.P. Lovecraft’s greatest hits, with add-ons from August Derleth and other Mythos writers tossed into the mix. As a fan, I was right at home, amused to find references to everything from the Great Race of Yith (from The Shadow out of Time) to a descended-from-Dagon fishman who runs an antiques shop and rants about how the feds busted his people (from The Shadow Over Innsmouth, a story some may have only experienced via the incredibly janky 2005 game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth). There’s even a great eleventh hour twist starring a well-known Lovecraftian character that I won’t spoil – I’ll just say that even when I thought the game had exhausted its repertoire of references, it pulled out a truly fun one.

Postmodern Adventures even stuff several of these Easter Eggs into an in-game exhibition (dubbed the Arkham Museum of the Unusual) that Jack and Harvey can peruse at their leisure. This is no surprise if you’ve played previous games by this one-man Spanish developer, whose real name is José María Meléndez. Beginning with 2020’s Urban Witch Story, a brilliant free itch.io game that looks like Sierra’s Police Quest but is a hundred times better, all Postmodern Adventures efforts have featured heavy amounts of well-researched supernatural geekery, from ghosts to haunted video cassettes to The Dark Rites of Arkham’s eldritch lore. And there’s usually some kind of museum with a curator who’ll just talk shop with you about what is clearly the developer’s special interest.

This leads me to my only major critique of The Dark Rites of Arkham – in visual style and tone it feels very similar to Postmodern Adventures’ other games, especially An English Haunting, which made my 2024 selection box. There’s nothing wrong with this in theory, and since this review marks the only instance that RPS has covered Postmodern Adventures’ work outside of a few Alice B posts on An English Haunting, many of you may be unaware that Meléndez has been making a treasure trove of indie adventures for the past several years.

But for those of us who have been enjoying his endeavours for a while, The Dark Rites of Arkham cannot exist in a vacuum. It must be compared to past works, because most of Meléndez’s games bear graphical and thematic similarities. And amongst its peers, it surpasses An English Haunting (which had a mildly flavourless main character and a draggy middle stretch) but doesn’t quite live up to Urban Witch Story or what I consider is the greatest Postmodern Adventures game – 2022’s Nightmare Frames, which is probably one of the best horror adventures I’ve ever played.

Jack Foster and Harvey Whitman’s narrative arcs just can’t compare to the evolution of Alan Goldberg, the asshole screenwriter lead of Nightmare Frames who learns to become a better person after he’s tasked with finding a haunted videotape. Despite being released four years ago, bits of Nightmare Frames also feel like they have more production value, such as detailed character portraits. The Dark Rites of Arkham does feature close-up character interrogation scenes, to be fair, but they’re somewhat inconsistent – a few NPCs have them, while many do not.

Finally, Cthulhu fans like myself are the ones who are going to get the most out of The Dark Rites of Arkham. Those who don’t know a Shoggoth from a hole in the ground are probably going to find this tale much less compelling. And to a certain extent, I wish that Postmodern Adventures had pushed the line harder when tackling the racism that permeates Lovecraft’s work. There are people of colour in the game, and mentions of the awful race relations that permeated 1930s (and let’s be real, modern day) life in the United States, but aside from a puzzle involving a Black woman on a bus, these aspects are background dressing. Considering that Urban Witch Story confronted similar issues head-on by starring a Black cop during the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, there’s untapped potential here to dig deeper.

Of course, if the only critique I have about an indie game is “it’s very good, but the developer’s other works might be better,” then we’re in a nice position. The Dark Rites of Arkham is Call of Cthulhu in swell point and click form, and it’s a solid weekend play for any fan of weird fiction. But perhaps for Postmodern Adventures’ next effort, we can push the envelope farther. A tweaked engine, a different graphical style, a non-Eurocentric setting, maybe even a female protagonist? C’mon, let’s make old Howard Phillips roll in his grave!

This review is based on a review build of the game provided by the developer.

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With Capcom announcing that Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is coming to Nintendo Switch 2, they’ve also confirmed that the Dark Arisen Expansion is also coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, both as a new combined release and as separate DLC for the base game. Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is launching on 9th October 2026.

The Dark Arisen Expansion shares its name with the enhanced release of the original game, and aims to bring similar improvements and added content to the game.

It will feature a new Northern region of Norgan, where you will join forces with Eir to reveal the secrets of a Fallen Dragon. Along the way, you’ll also be able to find and appraise forgotten relics to gain new weapons and skills. There’s also twelve Lost Rites Dungeon Challenges to test your skills against, and the Character Creator is getting new hairstyles and tattoos.

Prior to the Dark Arisen Expansion, Capcom will release two major updates for existing platforms to improve the experience. Yesterday saw an update that made fast travel more accessible with the reusable Eternal Ferrystone and some other quality of life improvements. A second update will arrive in August and promises improved frame rates and additional save slots.

Those optimisations will be important, with the game notoriously being rather taxing on the original launch and needing every ounce of performance it can get to run on the Switch 2 in reasonable quality. But the quality of the game shone through for us, and in our Dragon’s Dogma 2 review, Jason said, “Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a triumph of a game that wants you to just take your time and see everything you possibly can. You’ll be constantly pulled from your path by a new cave, a random quest, a chest one of your Pawns has found, random fights, and it’s all part of the experience. I adore this game, and while it has some aspects I think some will find too clunky, it’s a masterpiece.”

Source: press release

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We have been permanently standing in a state of ‘Squidward window meme’ since LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight launched on every platform but Switch 2 last month, but Warner Bros. Games finally has some release date news for us.

As revealed in a new trailer (above), LEGO Batman will arrive on Switch 2 on 18th September, and pre-orders are now open!

The Switch 2 launch date will also see the arrival of the game’s ‘Mayhem Collection DLC’, which adds in a playable Joker and Harley Quinn, a new story mission, ‘Mayhem Mode’ and more. The expansion is included in the ‘Deluxe Edition’ release, which also bundles in the ‘Legacy Collection’ extras, three-day early access and the ‘Dark Knight Returns’ Batsuit — that last one is also included with Standard Edition pre-orders.

For those who have missed this one so far, Legacy of the Dark Knight is a new open-world LEGO game set in Gotham City. It’s absolutely full to the brim with Batman in-jokes and references and features the vocal talents of none other than Matt Berry as Bane. Come on, what’s not to like?

The September release window is a pretty stacked one (it joins Insomniac’s Wolverine as another superhero launch in that week), but we’ll be carving out some time, nonetheless. After all, it’s the game we all need.

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Even though he’s typically the most serious member of the Justice League, Batman is, as we’ve seen over the years, pretty silly. Adam West climbing up buildings and thwacking and thwocking his way through bad guys? Silly. Val Kilmer in a batsuit with nipples? Silly. Ben Affleck having a shouting match with Superman about the name Martha? Very silly.

We shouldn’t be surprised then that Batman has regularly made the transition to Lego so undeniably easy, from the early Traveller’s Tales games through to the exceptional big-screen LEGO Batman outing. Whatever era or iteration of Batman you ascribe to, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight unites all of them in one place, with adoration, reflection and reverence at the heart of what is often a hugely irreverent take on the caped crusader. It’s also one of the best Lego games of all time.

Legacy is the key to Lego Batman. Years of comic book heritage, cinematic releases and video game entries have been pored over, selected from, and then shoved, rammed and squeezed into every second of Legacy of the Dark Knight. The different movie franchises form the backbone of everything here, but for every moment that’s familiar, calling back to Tim Burton’s genre-defining original film, through to the most recent Robert Pattinson turn in The Batman, there’s also changes and alterations to the overarching storyline that ensure longtime fans of Batman are well served.

From the earliest days of Detective Comics through to the most recent modern storylines, there’s something here for pretty much everyone, and I loved playing co-op with my son and explaining all of the enemies that he didn’t know and the little visual nods. If you’ve been into Batman at any point in your life, you practically owe it to yourself to play Legacy of the Dark Knight, with reference after reference adorning every corner of this Gotham City.

What’s particularly wonderful about Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, though, is how funny it is. Comedy in games is hard to pull off, but where many of the other Lego games might raise a smirk or a polite smile, Lego Batman had me chuckling away throughout its runtime.

Like some of the visual callbacks, I had to explain to my son what they were.  It did feel as though the welcoming combat and open world are aimed at a younger audience, while the deep cuts are for the over-30s. I don’t want to ruin too many – though if you’re chronically online, you will have probably caught a bunch of them – but an early favourite sees Ra’s Al Ghul training Bruce Wayne, taking inspiration from Batman Begins where Liam Neeson plays Ra’s. I absolutely loved Ra’s then quoting a phrase from Taken, one of Neeson’s most famous and most memed, roles. Heck, there’s even references to Sir Michael Caine’s twitter typos and a wild pun-based Limmy reference.

For all that I’ve called out Batman for its more comedic and sillier moments, Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight plays a seriously good game of Batman. There’s the core trappings of any Lego game, smashing apart the scenery to reward yourself with a cascade of studs, building useful items from the wreckage and solving an abundance of light puzzles, but Legacy of the Dark Knight takes ultimate inspiration from Rocksteady’s Arkham games.

Now, this is Arkham-lite for sure. My 9-year-old co-op partner had just as much success with the game’s combat as I did, but it once again steps the brawling up a notch from what we’ve come to expect from Lego games in the past twenty years. The key here is countering and dodging, with clear button markers appearing when you’re about to get clobbered or a badnik is lining you up in their sights. It’s very forgiving – those markers appear a good second or two before you’re going to get hit – but it’s consistently just a good time.

That extends to the Arkham-style stealth. Stealth is a wholly viable option here, and you can pull all of your favourite tricks of grappling to the highest point, methodically taking out each of the bad guys one by one, leaping down and elbow dropping them, tapping them on the shoulder and scaring them out cold, or dragging them up and out of the action. You won’t fail if you get this wrong, though being discovered does normally see a huge crowd of enemies appear for you to punch your way out of. It just feels great, and while younger players might still prefer to wallop everybody, it’s great to have the option and the variety to take your own approach.

There’s the city to explore and glide around too, and this once again feels like a brick-based retread of Arkham City and Arkham Knight. You can either take to the skies, using updrafts to glide and get about, or call in the Batmobile and other character-specific road vehicles. One of the greatest inclusions here is your garage, containing a full suite of Batmobiles from across the ages, starting with the Adam West era, all the way through to The Batman’s modified Plymouth Barracuda. The driving is simple but speedy, and there’s no real nuance to it, but… it’s the Batmobile(s)!

When you’re not making your way through Legacy of the Dark Knight’s retelling of Batman lore and string of main missions, there’s a very cool aside to be found in customising the Batcave. You can expand this area and add in your own level furniture, letting you build out the Batcave of your dreams, where you can make some cool flourishes like customising the appearance of the Batman logos on the walls. There’s very little of this that you’re forced to engage with, but it’s a nice change of pace from the open world, and gives the hardcore Lego players – that’s my 9-year-old again – something to do once everything else has been seen and done ten times over.

Some might bemoan the reliance on nostalgia here. They’ll tell you there’s nothing new, that it’s all rehashed content we’ve seen before, but that’s to miss the point of Legacy of the Dark Knight. There’s real warmth and a genuine affection for Batman, which, after multiple playthroughs of its predecessor, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, wasn’t as apparent last time out. It’s also the best Arkham game we’re likely to get in the near future, bringing a new level of challenge and interaction to Lego games in the process.

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