Batcave Deep Dive in LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight | Official Xbox Podcast

SPEAKER 1: Games in this podcast range from E to M.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Hey, everybody, welcome in to The Official Xbox Podcast. It's the only podcast that comes to you from inside Xbox. I'm Ethan, and I'm here with my colleague and good friend Josh Stein. Josh, how excited are you for today's show?

JOSH STEIN: Pretty hyped. It's not every day they get to ask you to come in and hang out with your buddy and talk about Batman, so I got to say I've had worse.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Not just Batman, dude, but like, you are a Lego addict, and now, today, we're talking about Lego Batman. It's like two of your favorite things.

JOSH STEIN: I'm hiding them behind me a little bit, but there's a myriad of boxes of Legos right here that I've yet to build. This is the queue, the Lego queue, and then on the other side of the wall, you can't see it, but it's my build. So what better way to mix Lego and Batman together, and then add in a friend, like, you got me, immediately. I'm in.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Heck yeah. I am curious how, I'm not going to put you in the spot, but I'm curious how you'd stag-crank the love you have for Batman, for Lego, and then your wife and kids.

JOSH STEIN: (laughter) Okay, so first of all, what-- what-- no, yeah, I'm not going to get in trouble there?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, don't do it. Don't do it. I'm playing.

JOSH STEIN: I thought about it. No, I mean, for me, I mean, like a lot of people out there, it's my childhood. I grew up, my dad bought me Legos, and my mom bought me comics or would, like, you know, take me to, like, watch cartoons or movies that were coming out. So it's a good marry of both of my childhoods growing up when watching Batman on cartoon and then reading the comics and then building the Legos, and so yeah, it's a -- I could (inaudible) about it, but I'll save us some banter there.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a very special guest today, so maybe we shouldn't keep him waiting.

JOSH STEIN: That's right. Yeah, today TT Games released a Dev Diary on the Batcave for their upcoming game, Lego Batman, Legacy of the Dark Knight, and today we have somebody joining us. We have Jonathan Smith. Jonathan is the Strategic Director and Head of the Development Team at TT Games. Jonathan, welcome to the podcast.

JONATHAN SMITH: Hello, it's so nice to be inside Xbox and to be here with you both. Josh, I genuinely want to know more about the sets that you've made and the sets you've yet to make. Like you, it's such an important part of growing up, my relationship with Lego, my relationship with Batman. I've been lucky, then, also to be able to share some of that experience with my own children as they grew up as well, and the games that we've made in the past live long in their memory. We're really, really excited now to move on from that into completely new territory with Lego Batman, Legacy of the Dark Knight.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Well, Jonathan, I mean, we love Lego around here, we love Lego games around here, and we also love Batman. So I know, you know, we're excited to hear more about this game. Please tell us about Lego Batman, Legacy of the Dark Knight.

JONATHAN SMITH: I've described it several times as the definitive Batman game, and that means it's all-encompassing. It's complete and it's superlative. Everything you wish for is here in one definitive Lego Batman experience. It weaves together stories and moments and character choices from across all media and all eras. It draws upon movies that you know and love, great comic book lines from across history, all with a unique Lego tone of voice and Lego twist that makes it all fit together.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I love to hear this. You wouldn't know this, Jonathan, but my senior quote in my yearbook was that the Dark Knight is the Godfather Part 2 of our generation, and the jury's still out on if that's accurate or not, but clearly excited to see Batman from all eras coming into this game. That's really awesome.

JOSH STEIN: This is really cool, too, because we also got to jump in. So this one focuses on the Batcave. Obviously, it's the home base for Batman. It's the center of everything. Throughout the trailer, we see different costumes, vehicles, trophies. There's a lot to talk about there, and we could probably do that for a while, but I'll try to focus in a little bit here. What can you tell us about the Batcave space? How does it evolve? Generally, how do players, how are they going to interact with this, and what should they expect with the Batcave?

JONATHAN SMITH: So the story of Lego Batman, Legacy of the Dark Knight, puts you in the shoes of Bruce Wayne from the very first moment, as a young child, when he falls into the well in the grounds of Wayne Manor, as so memorably brought to life by Christopher Nolan in Batman Begins, and from there, we train with Bruce. We see him get older, and as we grow in skills, we develop new gadgets, new technology. The character develops more capabilities. We as players discover more of the game and more of Gotham City, and the Batcave grows alongside that at every stage. As you progress through the story, you'll excavate new areas and build what ultimately becomes the ideal Batcave that any Batfan has always dreamt of.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That sounds incredible. So you can really make the Batcave kind of yours. You know, we saw in the video Batgym, which Catwoman seemed to really appreciate. We saw some props, some trophies. It sounds like you can really make it kind of however you want to. I'd love to understand what players can expect when it comes to customizing their Batcave.

JONATHAN SMITH: Sure. So look, everyone knows that part of what Batman has always done in the Batcave is stored these trophies from his adventures, and here you'll be able to collect the Lego builds to build, for example, the giant Joker card, and then you can place them wherever you want in the Batcave as it expands. But also, as you unlock different side missions, challenges, and all the secrets that there are to discover in Gotham City, you'll get other customization options, all sorts of furniture and equipment and some silly builds or spectacular builds or cool builds, analysis equipment, and you can place all that around the Batcave as well. So not only will it represent your progress through the story, but it will also represent choices you can make along the way.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, you're speaking our language. Josh and I are suckers for cosmetic choices, for outfits, for customization options. I mean, this is delicious news.

JONATHAN SMITH: So that's just sort of the props and the furniture and the equipment you can put around, and I showed in the video playing on the Lego, Lego Batman, The Video Game video game, which is something I really enjoyed saying (laughter).

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes.

JONATHAN SMITH: Our cave machine that's playing distinctively one of our older games. You can relax in a hot tub. But there's so much more you can place around there. But when you talk about cosmetics, you know, part of the pleasure of the game, and the pleasure of any Lego game as well, is discovering all the different ways you can change your appearance, and here you've got an enormous array of different suits along with all the vehicles and the Batmobiles, both for Batman and for his crime-fighting partners along the adventure.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Okay, we got to slow down because I want to talk about a few of these things here. Stein, he's talking Batsuits. He's talking outfits. Maybe we should start there.

JOSH STEIN: Yeah, yeah, he's talking my favorite. I got to ask Jonathan. Do we got a favorite Batsuit? We tried counting. I lost count. There are suits I didn't even recognize. I got a note. You got any favorites out there in the collection?

JONATHAN SMITH: I do. Look, the team has done such an incredible job. We've got such a rich law to draw upon. You know, we're unconstrained here, so we can go into the animated series. We can go into a comic book story from 1943. We can pull whatever we want and put that all into the game. So actually, the process of sort of winnowing down the best suits was incredibly fun. We were really well supported by DC. He's always been such great supporters and really fueled all these conversations. They have such deep knowledge of the law, and Lego company as well. You know, their designers are deeply steeped in the history of the Batman character. They've made some fantastic sets over the years. We want to represent some of the best known suits from the Batman Lego sets as well as from movies, TV shows, and comics. So there are some real surprises in there. We wanted to create variety. Of course, the classics and the like, the ones you'd expect, you know, your '66, your '89, and some newer ones and some more obscure ones. I've been asked before what my favorite was and I held back. I think I will say the recreation of the Batsuit from our original Lego Batman, The Video Game outfit, something that I and many, many other people working on the team still at TT have the fondest memories of.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, that makes total sense.

JOSH STEIN: That's a good one.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I think Absolute Batman is probably my newest favorite Batsuit that I've seen.

JONATHAN SMITH: We feel really lucky every day to be able to have these conversations. We've worked together as a team. We've worked with our partners and our license source in Lego company for a very long time, and I hope some of that sort of joy that we have, some of that delight comes out in the game as well. Hopefully we can share it a bit through the games we make.

SPEAKER 2: Oh, I took the liberty of making some adjustments.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: I mean, even just the Diary we just watched, like, it's so exciting. It's so full of love for the franchise. It just gets me excited. Like, some of the enemies and the bosses you hinted at are pretty deep cuts, which is great. I mean, if you're a fan of Batman, like, look no further.

JONATHAN SMITH: I say complete and definitive. So, you know, we wanted to be accessible because some people who are playing this game, this might be the very first time they've ever encountered the character. We want players of all ages to play a Lego game. We want fans to be able to introduce new people to the franchise through that. So because we are Lego and with the history that we have and the foundation that we have and the love that we have for the IPs, we are then able to go everywhere, to be unconstrained, so we can be both iconic and accessible, but also deep, as you say.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Totally.

JONATHAN SMITH: On that video, I'll just say one thing. Part of -- if there's any glee in that, some of it comes from appreciation of the work that the team has done. Some of it comes also because we're now right at the very, very end of development. This is where you suddenly sort of see what everything has become, but this is an example where the reality is better than anyone had ever hoped, and this is greater than the sum of all its parts when you put it all together. So again, hopefully, I hope some of that was coming through in my voice as I was talking about it, because that's how we are feeling about it right now. We're so excited. It's easy to say we're excited, but we genuinely are. We've been working on this. We can see what it is. We're really excited to share it with people.

JOSH STEIN: It's starting to take shape.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Like, it's absolutely clear in the way you describe it. Now the way you convey all this info in the Diary, like, couldn't agree more. I'm curious how we actually unlock these outfits, because that is going to be my priority, I think.

JONATHAN SMITH: So some of it happens through the story. So he'll start in a Batsuit based off Matt Reeves' film, The Batman, the Rob Pattinson Batsuits, but then quite quickly he will start to draw upon the resources of Wayne Tech (inaudible), and we'll see more and more high tech suits as well. Additionally, there are lots and lots of side quest challenges set across the whole of Gotham City. Gotham City sort of opens up, more and more of the city will become available, and it's all filled with secrets and puzzles and tests, many of which will then give you access to the suits. You'll also find them in shops. So there will be shops in this game as well that you can discover on different islands and that's where you get some of the suits from as well.

JOSH STEIN: I wish shopping as a 40-year-old man was that cool (laughter), for Batsuits. It is not quite as fun. One thing that got me excited to think about, obviously you showed it off in the Dev Diary here, was the vehicles. We'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the garage. So I assume this is something like the Batsuits that you'll start basic and you'll unlock things. Maybe you can go car shopping. Maybe you can find some secrets to unlock them. Let's talk a little bit about the garage, because I think I did see one of my favorites which was the Tim Burton one. Again, it's home for me.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Right, very stylistic.

JOSH STEIN: But curious to, you to share a little bit more about these Batcycles. I saw Batcycles in there, too, and Batmobiles.

JONATHAN SMITH: Yeah, look, it's all here, the tumbler, and vehicles not just for Batman but also the iconic vehicles as well for some of the other characters as well, a Catwomancycle. But they're all here, and they all get stored in the Batmobile, an array of this fantastic display on two levels at the center of the Batcave, and I think here, you know, this isn't just referencing Batcaves from movies or the comics, but there's something here where we've all built Batmobiles out of Lego bricks as well. We've all put those on our shelves. We've seen them. So there's something again about making it a Lego Batman Batcave where it feels even more fitting to collect and build and display all these different vehicles and then hop into them and take them on a drive around Gotham City. So, you know, you can drive the tumbler. You mentioned (inaudible). We've also got '66, that classic Batmobile as well.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Put the top down, you know.

JONATHAN SMITH: Yeah, exactly (laughter).

JOSH STEIN: Let the wind blow through your cowl.

JONATHAN SMITH: That's right. You can have a passenger with you as well, bikes as well. So not only like Batman's Batpod from Dark Night, we've got the Batcycle from '66 TV show with a side car for Robin, so you have Robin going along with you.

JOSH STEIN: Game night, Ethan?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, I was going to say you and me. I got dibs on the sidecar, though (laughter).

JOSH STEIN: We'll take turns. We'll take turns.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JONATHAN SMITH: And I think my favorite one, I really didn't expect this going in, but it's actually from The Batman, and one of the things I mentioned, you know, we appreciate how lucky we are. We did get to visit one of the Warner Brothers movie archives in the making of this game where we saw -- they literally, a huge warehouse, everything covered in sheets, and in concert, a group of people just pulls the sheets off all the different -- the tumbler, and they had the Charger there. They had penguins, purple, car, there was fantastic sea, and yeah, they fired it up. We could hear it. We recorded that sound from the actual ones. So yeah, look, there's so much to appreciate and enjoy in the franchise. Again, we've been lucky to bring so much of that into this game.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: That sounds incredible, honestly. Like, that's so cool.

JOSH STEIN: How does it feel to live my dream, Jonathan?

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yeah.

JONATHAN SMITH: Well, we're not fooling around.

JOSH STEIN: No, you're not. Now, listen, I love the attention, the pedigree here, and it sounds like you even brought that to the game, in that, you know, Lego charm and Lego humor, which is always super fun. [ Music ]

SPEAKER 3: Who are you?

BATMAN: I'm Batman.

JOSH STEIN: This is super exciting, I haven't seen it in previous Lego games, is you have a bit of an upgrade system here with like your gear and your tech. Could you maybe elaborate on a bit of that? Because I think, in the past, it's been like, oh, find this, oh, collect enough studs and you get this, or just buy this from like a local vendor. This one looked a little bit more like level-based, almost like you upgrade through your play-through.

JONATHAN SMITH: So there are two kinds of upgrade systems. There are the Wayne Tech chips that you'll collect both through the story as rewards and scattered in puzzles and challenge rooms across the whole of the city. Those you can use at the workbench in the Batcave to upgrade your gadgets. So your Batarangs you can give yourself, show the video, a concussive Batarang, or you could summon a swarm of bats to take on a group of enemies. You can enhance your focus abilities, which is something you earn through the combat, to pull off some really spectacular moves with your Batclaw or with some of the other gadgets as well. Then separately, you can upgrade your skills in combat and traversal as well. So that means, you know, improving your focus ability, improving your combo meter, giving you more options for how you take down in chain takedowns, or in traversal, and these are some of my favorites. We had a couple of these going in the little snippet of the game that we showed at Gamescom last year, but there are so many more to discover, things like if you're in a vehicle, you can get the upgrades to eject as the vehicle, which launches you high into the air, and then once you're higher to the air, you can get an upgrade to do glide takedowns or glide bomb, which just swoops you right out of the ground and smashes into the ground and knocks enemies far. So there are loads and loads of new options that you get there, again, not just with Batman, but with the other characters as well, but we always want players to be discovering new things, trying new things, and feeling cool and powerful. So Batman upgrades over the course of story, so should you.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes, I love feeling like a superhero in a superhero game. That's awesome. I cannot wait to recreate that scene from Batman Begins with the bats. That sounds amazing. So good. Now, there's something about the Dev Diary. You know, we see a little tease of kind of the interesting collection of characters. You see a little tease for a handful of them, and obviously we can't go into them all, and you know, I think a big part of these kind of games is getting to see them, and it's like a surprise, that some of the best parts of this, but I would love to know if there's any names you could drop, some big names of folks that we're going to be working alongside or fighting against in this game.

JONATHAN SMITH: So you're going to build the Bat Family with those allies over the course of those years. That's obviously going to include Robin. We're going to see Dick Grayson grow into Nightwing, but we'll also have Barbara Gordon join, comes Batgirl. Jim Gordon is fantastic fun to play. We're going to have some really cool gadgets. He's got an excellent -- he's got some really great outfits. The Gotham by Gaslight outfit for Jim with his scarf and his bowler hat.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice.

JONATHAN SMITH: That's a favorite of mine. You've got plenty of allies along the way, but you're going to come up against all the villains you would expect. We've got a story that draws them all out of the city, from Ra's al Ghul, The Penguin, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, and others later on in the story. We're going to see the origin of The Joker, and then we're going to see how The Joker becomes increasingly sort of menacing over the course of the years. So many, many characters, and, of course, all those fan favorite references, the characters you'd never think would appear in a video game and wouldn't appear in any video game apart from a Lego game, you're going to see them here as well.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Nice, nice. Oh.

JOSH STEIN: It's going to be quite the cast of characters. That's awesome. When the game lands, coming out May 22nd, early access May 19th, what are you most excited for people to experience? They put on the cowl for the first time, they get ready, they boot up. What are you most excited about them to just marinate in, Jonathan?

JONATHAN SMITH: I think they're going to be blown away by the whole story all coming together. I don't think you've ever seen it before in sort of a single experience, so much from the start to go on that journey. I think it's really powerful. It's why Batman's stood the test of time as a character. When you see it, when you live it, it's really stirring. And then Gotham City, I think the Lego Gotham City, the team of creators is so full of detail, handcrafted, you know, over years by an incredibly talented team, every piece of graffiti as the eras change, every newspaper, every shopfront, there's so much to appreciate. And the billboards, every billboard's a new joke or a wink or a nod or, you know, a reference, and, yeah, this, I think people are not going to expect -- be expecting the richness and sort of creativity that's on show in mega Gotham City.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Oh, I cannot wait to dive in, and you guys sound like incredible stewards, I must say, like, just in this conversation alone and looking at what little glimpses we've had of the game, and really excited to dive into this one, and, Stein, we're going to get to play it together for better or for worse.

JOSH STEIN: Oh, yeah.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Yes, yes. Jonathan, really appreciate the time. Any last comments for the community or Team Xbox? Anything you want to share before we let you go?

JONATHAN SMITH: Well, I say how, you know, how grateful we are to be able to do this work and how proud we are of working on this game. We all say this is our best work, but we do it all to make a game that everyone can play. You know, we love playing it. We really hope you love playing it as well. Thank you for paying attention to what we're doing. We're really grateful.

ETHAN ROTHAMEL: Absolutely. This game comes out May 22nd, folks. Again, Lego Batman, Legacy of the Dark Knight. Stein, I know you're excited.

JOSH STEIN: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm ready. It's really fun. I've played, you know, kudos to you guys and the Skywalker saga. I played it with my 7-year-old daughter. I played it with my 16-year-old son, and I had just as much fun on both sides of that playing with my -- with two of my children, and so I can't wait to play these things. I love hundred-percenting them. Ethan and I are going to be jumping in and getting up to our usual shenanigans. So I have to say thank you again, Jonathan. You got my pre-order in. I'm locked in for the deluxe. I want to play a little early with my kids, so I'm excited to play. But thank you again so much, and thank you all for watching. So for Ethan, I'm Josh, and we'll see you again on the next episode of The Official Xbox Podcast. [ Music ]