Between purchasable skills and gadget upgrades, there is a surprising amount of character progression available in LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight.
Not all skills are created equal, as some are much more useful than others. That’s why we created this list of the best upgrades to prioritize as you adventure throughout Gotham City.
Skills
Before we start, let’s do a quick overview on how the progression system actually works.
After every main story mission, you’ll be rewarded with a Gold Brick which acts as your currency to unlock an ability. These upgrades are universal for all playable characters, not just Batman. They are also separated into Combat and Exploration categories.
At the start, you’ll only have access to the top tier of the skill page, with the other three tiers being gated off via story progression. While it may be tempting to clear out as much in the open world as you can early, there is actually a lot of value in progressing the storyline to the start of chapter 2 to have some of the best skills available to you.
Finally, it’s worth noting that skills are not gated by what you have unlocked previously — like some other skill trees — so feel free to jump back and forth between combat and exploration as much as you’d like.
Big Hearted (Tier 1)
The first skill we recommend — Big Hearted — only applies to players who are experiencing the hardest “Dark Knight” difficulty, which has limited lives per level.
After acquiring Big Hearted, every focus takedown will drop a big heart, giving you a full heal. It will also drop a big heart after defeating brute type enemies. This skill is especially helpful during bosses, and it saved us from restarting a fight more than once.
On other difficulty modes, you have unlimited lives, so feel free to skip this one.
Hyper Combo (Tier 1 and 4)
What is the universal truth for all LEGO games? You are going to be collecting Studs. A lot of Studs. Do you want more studs to buy more costumes, Red Bricks, and items to decorate the Bat Cave? Of course you do, and Hyper Combo is one of a few abilities on the Exploration skill list that will help you do so.
When you collect Studs, you’ll see a multiplier value on the top right of the screen. If you collect enough, the multiplier will rise. At the start of the game, your maximum multiplier will only go to X2, but, with the Hyper Combo skill, it’ll raise to X3. After chapter 4, you can acquire another instance of hyper combo to raise the maximum multiplier to X4.
These upgrades should help you truly feel like Bruce Wayne when you roll into Bat-Mite’s store.
Scan the Scene (Tier 1)
Legacy of the Dark Knight doesn’t really force you to use stealth, but if you enjoy that playstyle we’d highly recommend picking up the Scan the Scene skill.
This ability allows you to highlight enemies and mission critical objects from a further distance. This skill especially helps in large environments where there are plenty of enemies sprinkled throughout.
Glide Takedown (Tier 2)
Fans of the Arkham games may find Batman’s initial toolset to be a bit lacking compared to what you’re used to. If you make it to the start of chapter 2, however, you’ll be able to fill in some of those missing elements.
Take, for example, the iconic Glide Takedown, which isa skill you have to choose to unlock. This move — which allows you to KO an enemy from a glide — acts as a great way to initiate combat with a group of enemies, or to stealthily takedown a lone enemy from a distance.
Collectible Detective (Tier 3)
Like other LEGO games, Legacy of the Dark Knight has an abundance of collectibles. If you have that completionist bug in you, the Collectible Detective skill is an absolute must.
After you unlock this skill, you’ll see a green brick magnifying glass near Batman’s health bar that will flash every time he is near an undetected collectible.
Just note: this skill doesn’t seem to work with marked items in the open world like Waynetech caches. Regardless, Collectible Detective is extremely useful when replaying levels via the batcomputer to clean-up completion.
Extra Focus (Tier 3 and 4)
Extra Focus is in the third tier of skills, and does exactly what you’d think it would do: gives you another bar of focus for special attacks and abilities. This is especially useful when paired with the aforementioned Big Hearted skill, essentially allowing you to store a full heal whenever you need it.
You can get a third bar of focus after the start of chapter 4 with another instance of this skill.
Gadget Upgrades
After you start the second chapter, you’ll also be able to upgrade gadgets assigned to each playable character using the workbench in the Batcave or in Bat-Mite’s store. Your currency for these upgrades can be acquired through Waynetech caches.
As you’ll be playing as Batman for the majority of the game, we suggest you prioritize his gadget upgrades over the other characters. We’d also suggest you not save up your upgrade points for the more expensive ultimate-like abilities on the bottom, as they aren’t as effective as the cheaper upgrades, and they require a full focus meter to pull off.
Stick with the cheaper ones first, and experiment with the expensive upgrades later.
Scatterrang (Batarang)
Unlike the Arkham Trilogy, the Batarang in Legacy of the Dark Knight actually does a decent bit of damage, and you can upgrade it to really pack a punch against your enemies. This makes the Scatterang upgrade for the Batarang — which causes Batman to throw three ‘rangs at once — even more “deadly,” and great for crowd control.
However, the real reason you want to pick up the Scatterang is for the Stud collection. While characters like Gordon have the ricochet gun designed to destroy lots of the environment with each shot, Batman himself isn’t great at smashing up set pieces to spawn Studs. But once you get the Scatterang upgrade, a single click of the trigger can really bash up a room, making Stud collection way easier while you’re in control of the B-Man.
Perch Takedown (Batclaw)
Arkham Trilogy fans are definitely familiar with the Perch Takedown ability, which is a great tool that allows Batman to take out an enemy while remaining mostly out of sight, sitting on a perch. For Legacy of the Dark Knight, this ability is actually attached to the Batclaw gadget, rather than something Batman can unlock via his skill tree.
The early hours of the game feel a bit naked without this ability unlocked, so it’s an easy recommendation to pick up as soon as possible — especially if you default to stealth.
Vault Slam (Batclaw)
The further you get into the story, the more you’ll find enemies with shields. Normally, you would vault over these enemies to try to attack them from the back. But this can be a bit time consuming and harder to manage when you are swarmed by other enemies. The Vault Slam ability for the Batclaw allows you to do a big attack while vaulting over enemies, which is incredibly effective.
This knocks out most standard enemies after one go, or at the very least takes out most of their health. Even better, it doesn’t require any of your focus meter to pull off and you can even use it on most bosses.
Batclaw Fling (Batclaw)
The Batclaw Fling can be extremely useful, but it depends on your environment.
As the name suggests, this upgrade allows you to fling an enemy into a direction of your choice after firing the Batclaw. Now let’s say this direction is off a building or into a death zone of some sort? You get the picture. But remember folks, Batman doesn’t kill.
