LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight – What to Do First

Gotham opens up in front of you and the map is already buried in icons, so the instinct is to start hoovering up collectibles. Resist it. The fastest path through the first few hours of LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is to push the story until the systems that make Gotham navigable unlock, grab traversal tools, and leave the collectible sweep for later. Early icons are gated behind characters and gadgets you do not have yet, and the Red Bricks everyone remembers as cheat codes are now purely cosmetic, so chasing them in hour one is wasted effort.

The short version

• Play the Prologue straight through to Infiltration before you worry about collectibles.
• Finish Chapter 1 to unlock the Batcave’s real tools: the garage, build zones, the suit vault, and the challenge board.
• Unlock Subwayne fast-travel points the moment you reach one. There are nine across Gotham, and the first opens on Tri-Corner Island after the Carmine Falcone mission.
• Complete the WayneTech R&D mission in Chapter 1 to unlock gliding for every character. It changes how you move more than any collectible.
• In the accessibility menu, turn off “lose studs on defeat” right away.
• Leave the 23 Red Bricks until last. They recolor suits and vehicles; they are not power-ups.

The correct early priority order

• Clear the Prologue (it ends with Infiltration) before treating Gotham as an open world.
• Push to the end of Chapter 1 so the Batcave’s garage, build zones, suit vault, and challenge board come online.
• Open Subwayne fast travel and pick up your first vehicle (roughly three hours in) before roaming for side content.
• Grab the gliders from WayneTech R&D, then use grapple-into-glide to reach rooftops the way the Arkham games taught you.
• Spend studs on function first, cosmetics never. Use Gordon’s Rebound Launcher to farm studs fast.
• Start Red Brick and Minikit cleanup only once you can cross districts and swap to the right character on demand.

Why early collectible hunting is inefficient

Gotham is built for backtracking, not for a first-pass sweep. The map fills with markers before you have the character roster or gadgets to clear them, and many require a specific hero. Batgirl, for example, is not playable until the start of Chapter 4, so any puzzle that needs her hacking device is simply locked until then. The game even tells you this: if there is a small lock symbol next to a map marker, you cannot complete it yet.

The structure rewards patience. There are six chapters plus a Prologue, and the campaign runs roughly 13-15 hours, with full completion closer to 50. The first real collectible hunt does not arrive until Infiltration, the last mission of the Prologue. Treat the opening hours as an access phase. You are unlocking the tools that make the later cleanup quick, not racing a completion percentage.

Your first two to three hours in Gotham

1. Push the campaign instead of orbiting the hub

The first session should be story-forward. Work through the Prologue’s training missions and reach Infiltration, then keep going until Gotham starts handing you the systems that make it readable. If an early district shows side markers you cannot interpret, leave them. Click in the right stick to use Detect, which highlights interactive objects and hidden items, and check the map for that lock icon before you waste time on a puzzle you cannot solve yet.

A useful rule: if an icon asks for a tool, suit, or character you do not have, mark it mentally and stay on the main path. Early detours are only worth it when they hand you a traversal upgrade, a hub-system unlock, or a clean run of studs.

2. Finish Chapter 1 to unlock the Batcave’s real tools

The Batcave is more than a story set piece, but its useful machines only switch on after you complete Chapter 1. Finishing it unlocks the garage where you buy cars, the customizable build zones where you place collected items, a suit vault you can purchase for 1,000 studs to display your outfits, and the challenge board that pays out stud rewards. Until Chapter 1 is done, free-roam planning is guesswork.

The single best Batcave habit is using the Batcomputer to replay missions. If you miss a collectible, you do not need to wander Gotham hoping it reappears. Open the Batcomputer, find the mission in the case log, jump to the relevant chapter, grab the missing item, and return to the Batcave. The collectible saves the moment you pick it up, so you never have to finish the replay. A yellow check box on a mission means you already have everything in it.

3. Open Subwayne fast travel as soon as you reach a point

Fast travel runs through the Subwayne system, and there are nine points scattered across Gotham’s districts. The first one opens on Tri-Corner Island right after the Carmine Falcone mission. Each one requires a small puzzle to activate, and from any unlocked point you can jump straight back to the Batcave. Unlock them whenever you see them. Once the network is live, cleanup stops being a slow district-by-district jog and becomes a routing exercise.

Your first vehicle arrives roughly three hours in, depending on how directly you follow the story. So do not judge Gotham’s travel burden too early. The city becomes far easier to manage once the transport layer is online, which is exactly why the access phase comes before the collectible phase.

Suits and gliders: prioritize function, not wardrobe

Many suits are earned through the campaign, so there is no need to buy your way into a full closet early. Others come from the Bat-Mite shop, AR challenges, or Riddler content. The acquisition channels are not equal in value: a suit that unlocks traversal, environmental interaction, or a recurring puzzle type earns its slot. A suit that only adds cosmetic variety can wait.

The standout early unlock is gliding. Complete the WayneTech R&D mission in Chapter 1 and every character gains a glider, which arrives around the four-hour mark. As in the Arkham games, you can transition from a grapple straight into a glide, and clicking the left stick boosts your speed. Gliding reaches rooftop objectives and shortens routes across Gotham more than almost any single collectible reward, so it belongs ahead of any open-world sweep.

For studs, Gordon’s Rebound Launcher is the early standout. Buy the splitter upgrade so the bolts bounce and split to hit multiple targets, then fire into any cluster of destructible objects to clear it instantly. Pair it with stud-magnet and combo upgrades and stud income climbs fast. Bank that currency for functional purchases, not appearances.

• High priority: gliders, traversal and puzzle-access suits, and the Subwayne network.
• Medium priority: cheaper utility upgrades like Gordon’s Rebound Launcher splitter that solve a recurring mechanic.
• Low priority: cosmetic suit variants and any purchase with no route impact.

How Red Bricks actually work here

This is where players coming from older LEGO games get caught out. Legacy of the Dark Knight drops the classic cheat-code system entirely, and its Red Bricks are no longer gameplay modifiers like stud multipliers or invincibility. They are purely cosmetic: they recolor your suits and vehicles. There are no traditional cheat codes to replace them, so if you are delaying progress to hunt Red Bricks expecting a power spike, the premise is wrong.

There are 23 Red Bricks in total. Fourteen are hidden inside story missions, usually in a side room behind a simple puzzle, and nine are bought from Bat-Mite’s shop for 15,000 to 50,000 studs each, where they appear randomly in place of a costume. Collecting all 23 earns the “Does it come in black?” achievement. To apply a recolor, open the suit or vehicle appearance menu and press Square on PS5 or X on Xbox to bring up the Red Brick modifier list.

That does not make them useless, but it does push them to the back of the queue. Collect them while you are already replaying missions and clearing districts, not as a first-session priority. For the mission-specific brick locations, our guide to getting all Red Bricks walks through each one.

A practical first-weekend route

• Finish the Prologue and reach Infiltration.
• Complete Chapter 1 to switch on the Batcave’s garage, build zones, suit vault, and challenge board.
• Unlock Subwayne fast-travel points whenever you reach one, starting on Tri-Corner Island.
• Run WayneTech R&D for the gliders the moment it is available.
• Buy Gordon’s Rebound Launcher splitter and farm studs for functional purchases.
• Leave Bat-Mite Red Bricks and broad collectible cleanup until travel and your character roster are stable.

Each step makes the next one cheaper. Story progress opens systems, systems make traversal faster, better traversal makes suit and collectible runs easier, and only then do Red Bricks become low-friction pickups instead of expensive distractions. If you want to get ahead, our early-unlock guide covers what you can grab ahead of the curve.

Common early mistakes that cost time

• Trying for 100% in a phase built for access. Gotham is deliberately dense and full of character-specific interactions. Read that density as a backlog, not a first-hour checklist.
• Overspending studs on appearance. Many suits are earned through the campaign anyway. If a suit does not improve movement or interaction, it can wait.
• Treating Red Bricks as power-ups. They are cosmetic recolors. Their value is real, their urgency is not.
• Manually re-running missions for missed items. Use the Batcomputer replay instead, grab the one collectible you missed, and return to the Batcave. It saves on pickup.
• Leaving “lose studs on defeat” on. Turn it off in the accessibility menu so a bad fight does not drain your bank.

Practical takeaway

Spend your first weekend unlocking, not collecting. Reach Infiltration, finish Chapter 1 to wake up the Batcave, open Subwayne fast travel, and grab the gliders from WayneTech R&D. Farm studs with Gordon’s Rebound Launcher and save them for tools that remove roadblocks. Once Gotham is wired for fast travel and you can swap to any character, the 23 Red Bricks and the rest of the collectibles fall into place as quick cleanup rather than a slog.