LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight – Towers and Ace Chemicals Guide

For 100% completion in LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, treat Towers and Ace Chemicals as two different systems. Towers are Gotham map-unlock points that you activate with Batgirl’s Hackarang and a short hacking minigame, while Ace Chemicals is a collectible-heavy area where the current documented total is 11 items across the Ace Chemicals and Factory Meltdown sections: five Ace Cards, five Waynetech Caches, and one Red Brick. If you mix those up, you lose time fast, especially because Batman search results often pull in Arkham Knight material that uses the same location names for completely different mechanics.

Do not use Arkham Knight logic for this guide

This is the first correction that matters. In Batman: Arkham Knight, towers can be story-critical objectives, and Ace Chemicals is part of a mission chain tied to scanning, worker rescues, and story progression. In LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, that is not how the systems are framed. Towers are an exploration tool in Gotham, and Ace Chemicals is an explorable collectible route with LEGO-style puzzle gating.

That distinction changes how you should play. You are not looking for mandatory story triangulation at Towers, and you are not treating Ace Chemicals as a pure mission checkpoint. For 100%, the efficient path is to unlock map information through Towers, then use Free Play tools to sweep Ace Chemicals properly instead of forcing everything during the first story pass.

Best order for a clean 100% run

The least wasteful order is to finish enough of the campaign to unlock your full toolset, then come back for cleanup. Current guide coverage around the game’s broader collectible structure also notes that not every mission is packed with collectibles, so replaying chapters blindly is slower than checking what actually remains.

• Finish the main campaign first, or at least until your roster comfortably covers traversal and puzzle skills.
• Use Batgirl to activate Gotham Towers and reveal local content before hunting icons by eye.
• Return to Ace Chemicals in Free Play so you can handle vents, glide paths, Batclaw interactions, switch targets, and obstacle-specific puzzles in one run.
• Use the replay/completion tracking tools from the Batcave interface when a chapter still shows missing items.
• Do not assume every chapter needs another sweep; some missions simply are not where your missing percentage is hiding.

This order works because Towers reduce map guesswork, and Ace Chemicals is built like a classic LEGO area: some items are visible immediately, while others are locked behind character-specific actions. If you rush that area in Story mode, you will almost certainly see collectibles you cannot reach yet and end up retracing the whole route later.

How Towers work in Gotham

In this game, Towers are the tall red-and-white radio masts scattered around Gotham. They are not standard pickups. Their value is information. When you find one, swap to Batgirl, target the flashing panel with her Hackarang, and trigger the tower interaction. That launches the hacking minigame. Once you complete it, the tower scan reveals nearby collectibles and mission markers in that part of the map.

The important part is the last step: a Tower is only doing its real job after the scan resolves and the local map fills in. Hitting the panel and walking away early defeats the purpose. If you are trying to clean a district without the Tower active, you are doing manual scavenger work that the game is already willing to do for you.

Use this sequence every time:

• Approach the unexplored district and look for the radio mast first.
• Swap to Batgirl before you start climbing around for random pickups.
• Throw the Hackarang at the active panel.
• Finish the hacking puzzle on the spot.
• Wait for the scan result and newly revealed icons.
• Clear that local cluster before moving to the next Tower.

If a map icon appears after a Tower scan but still seems unreachable, that usually means the collectible needs a specific ability rather than another hidden reveal. Mark it mentally and come back in Free Play instead of circling the same rooftop for ten minutes.

The fastest way to clear Tower districts

The mistake here is activating several Towers in a row and promising yourself you will come back later. That turns Gotham cleanup into a messy spreadsheet. A better route is district-by-district: activate one Tower, clear what it exposes, then move on.

• Start with the nearest unexplored Tower from your current fast-travel or spawn point.
• After the scan, prioritize anything on rooftops before dropping to street level.
• Handle side missions and collectible clusters in the same pocket of Gotham while the layout is fresh.
• Leave only icons that obviously require another character skill or later replay condition.
• Move to the next Tower only after the current area looks functionally exhausted.

This route matters because Tower scans are local. They are there to reduce search radius. If you keep bouncing across Gotham, you lose the whole benefit of that reveal system. Batgirl is effectively your map-completion character, so let her set the pace for the open-world cleanup phase.

Ace Chemicals prep: what you need before the collectible sweep

The Ace Chemicals and Factory Meltdown pair currently has 11 documented collectibles total: five Ace Cards, five Waynetech Caches, and one Red Brick. The area is not just a hallway with visible pickups. Guide coverage describes a mix of open placements and small environmental puzzle rewards, including vents, traversal shortcuts, and tool-locked interactions. That is why a one-pass Free Play route is the right approach.

Before you start the sweep, make sure your active roster can cover the kinds of interactions the area asks for:

• Glide or high-mobility traversal for upper ledges and catwalks
• Batarang-style switch shots for distant buttons
• Batclaw-style pull interactions on marked handles
• Vent access for crawlspaces and side rooms
• Rappel or similar vertical movement when the route branches upward
• Obstacle-clearing tools for foam-blocked or gated side spaces

If one of those categories is missing, Ace Chemicals becomes a partial run instead of a completion run. The area is designed to look compact while actually hiding item paths on a second vertical layer or behind quick detours.

Ace Chemicals and Factory Meltdown one-pass route

The cleanest way to sweep Ace Chemicals is to stop treating the objective marker as the route. In LEGO levels like this, the main objective pushes you forward faster than the collectible design expects. Use a room discipline instead: check high ground first, then side interactions, then vents, then destructibles, and only then advance the story trigger.

1. Exterior approach and yard

At the start of the area, do not rush the entrance. Open-air sections often hide at least one easy collectible in plain sight and another behind a quick interaction you can miss because the camera is framing the door ahead. Sweep both sides of the yard, look up for elevated grab points, and hit any obvious target switches before going inside. If the area gives you multiple climbable or glidable surfaces, resolve those now while the layout is simple.

2. Upper walkways before ground-floor puzzles

Once you enter the factory spaces, prioritize catwalks and upper platforms before solving the obvious ground mechanism. This is where players create their own backtracking. In LEGO Batman levels, dropping to the lower floor can shift the camera, trigger new build points, or move enemies and visual clutter into the foreground. That makes it easy to forget an upper collectible you already passed beneath. If you can go up, go up first.

3. Every vent is a collectible check

Current Ace Chemicals coverage specifically points to environmental puzzle routing, and vent crawling is part of that logic. Whenever you see a vent access point, use it immediately. Vent detours in LEGO games often lead to a compact side chamber with a single collectible or the switch required to expose one. Because those rooms loop back into the main route, it is easy to tell yourself you will do them later. That is usually how later turns into a full replay.

4. Clear foam-blocked and tool-locked side spaces before the objective

Ace Chemicals uses environmental gating, not just hidden studs in corners. If you see foam, a Batclaw handle, a distant Batarang target, or a suspicious piece of scenery that looks built for a puzzle, resolve it before pushing the main path. These side interactions commonly gate the area’s Ace Cards and Waynetech Caches. The trap is assuming the reward appears at the end of the room; often it is behind the obstruction you ignored on entry.

5. Do not treat Factory Meltdown as an escape-only section

The Ace Chemicals collectible total covers the paired Ace Chemicals and Factory Meltdown sequence, so the later segment still matters for completion. When the pace speeds up, players often switch into pure mission mode and stop checking side paths. Slow down just enough to inspect upper ledges, side interactions, and any last vent or traversal split. The Red Brick is part of this overall collectible set, which is the main reason the end of the route should not be played like a straight sprint.

If you follow that order, you are not memorizing 11 isolated item spots. You are using a repeatable sweep pattern that matches the way the area hides them.

Mistakes that usually leave the file at 99%

• Using the wrong game’s guide. Arkham Knight towers and Ace Chemicals are different systems with different goals.
• Trying to finish Ace Chemicals in Story mode. If your roster cannot cover vents, glide paths, or tool locks, you are setting up a replay.
• Ignoring the Tower scan step. The panel interaction matters only because it reveals nearby content. Without the reveal, Gotham cleanup becomes guesswork.
• Dropping from catwalks too early. Upper collectibles are easier to miss than ground-level ones because the camera naturally pulls attention downward.
• Skipping vents because they look optional. In collectible routing, optional usually means necessary for 100%.
• Replaying every mission blindly. Use the game’s completion tracking from Batcave Computer → replay/completion check rather than assuming every chapter still hides something.

If your remaining percentage is tiny, the fix is usually not more random exploration. It is checking whether you fully used Batgirl’s Towers for Gotham reveals and whether your Ace Chemicals replay actually covered upper paths, vents, and the Factory Meltdown tail end instead of only the obvious story route.