I briefly mistook the new Lego Batman for modded Arkham footage, genuinely bamboozling me while making me more excited for the game than ever

Stumbling upon some Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight footage on social media in the dead of night, I found myself reaching for my Bat-Glasses, unsure what I was looking at. In a doomscroll delirium, the little video – Magic: The Gathering card-sized on my gaming Bat-Monitor – made everything blend together. Oh, I realized – that's not actually the new Lego Batman. That's just a Batman: Arkham City mod to make it look like it's a Lego game. Then it hit me. No – that's definitely the new Lego Batman. PlayStation posted this. But it looks exactly like Batman Arkham. I'm still not sure this isn't an elaborate prank targeting me specifically.

As the clip auto-replayed over and over, I hit maximize to get a better look at the footage – the dark blue hues of Gotham City's sky by night and the green glow underlighting its old architecture reflecting off my glasses. My eyes narrowed as my brain did thousands of calculations a second, trying to make sense of how I could be confusing a Lego game with a decidedly un-Lego like series. Especially considering I've already looked at this game a lot and even edited our own previews about the dark knight's latest bricky outing. What in the name of Zur-En-Arrh is going on?

In the brief Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight clip – now one among hundreds of minutes of footage I've scoured like the good detective I am – we see Batman glide towards a platform, grapple to it in midair, then hold onto the side of the building. From there he shimmies along the edge briefly, targeting a higher overhang (which looks almost exactly like a specific one from Batman: Arkham City in the Industrial District), the on-screen grapple prompt appearing and then having Batman briefly jump away from the wall before firing up at it.

I am so familiar with that play sequence already. I know that exact animation – the way it feels to enact it, the timing with which it occurs. After hundreds of hours chasing full completion in the Batman Arkham games, this simply is a tiny slice of Batman Arkham gameplay, albeit in a completely different game. Just as I briefly thought I was looking at modded footage, so too could the opposite hold true – if you replaced the Lego Batman character I'm looking at with the grizzled, muscular, costume-ripped version from Rocksteady's legendary series I also wouldn't blink.

Even the wonderfully lit buildings of Gotham in Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight do, at a glance, look believably like the normal buildings you'd see in a non-Lego game until you get closer and clock that, yes, there are Lego pieces involved in construction. Even when Batman later glides to ground level and assembles a Batmobile around him out of bricks, blasting off down the street, its heft reminds me of the unique tanky way the vehicle is controlled in Batman: Arkham Knight.

The link between Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight and Batman Arkham isn't a complete revelation. I'd already seen plenty of combat footage that makes it clear the new block 'em and sock 'em fisticuffs riffs heavily on the rhythmic brawls of Rocksteady's games. But there, camera pulled in, and on-screen comic-styled Thakks and Krunches flying, it's clear it's still a Lego-styled game. What really shook me about watching Lego Batman navigate Gotham is how much it really did genuinely make me think for a second I was looking at an actual Batman Arkham game.

After all, a new Batman Arkham is what long-time fans of the caped crusader like me really crave – and we're happy to get it even if it comes in a differently designed package. Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League – the Rocksteady developed Batman Arkham successor – even outside of how disappointing it was a live service multiplayer (and you do not want to see my unjustifiable hour count on that one), was not that in the slightest.

It's not necessarily about trotting out the exact same thing again and again, but Rocksteady hit upon a Batman formula that really worked, and applying it to new situations is just as much fun to see explored. Just as I'd have happily taken a Nightwing game, or something with Damian Wayne – I'm happy to see the Batman Arkham style brought out of the Lazarus Pit for more more go around with Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight.

After more adventures with the dark knight? Check out our best Batman games ranking for what to play next!