Travellers Tales Head of Production Jonathan Smith talks classic movies, heroes, villains and the company’s exciting times ahead with the hugely successful LEGO license.
Being that LEGO Batman is now your third LEGO game after Star Wars and Indiana Jones, what lessons, if any, have you learned going into development?
We’ve always set out to raise the bar with each new LEGO game – to develop new features and new experiences as we play in new worlds, with new characters. We’ve learned a lot with each title, and came in to LEGO Batman with a really clear set of priorities. There are lots of elements which we’ve learned work well from previous games, and we wanted to build on them for a completely new LEGO Batman experience.
How has it been working with such huge licenses like Batman, Stars Wars and Indy?
It’s been a huge privilege to be trusted with such fantastic characters and worlds to play in. We’re grateful every day for the opportunity to work with the world’s favourite stories.
Has it been liberating to develop a game that doesn’t rely on a predetermined story told in the movies?
We’ve always had fun with our stories, and we’ve been fortunate to have been able to play with some of the greatest movies of all time. For LEGO Batman, we’ve drawn upon decades of story-telling across thousands of different comics featuring the heroes and villains of Gotham City – a rich, rich universe of fun and action. We’ve threaded a narrative through the game, to create lots of fun situations, comical character interaction and crazy action moments; but it’s all based on the brilliant work already undertaken by the creative talents at DC Comics.
One of the most interesting aspects of the game is the ability to go back and play through levels as villains. Is this an entirely different experience?
Absolutely. The heroes and villains have different special abilities, and work together in quite different ways.
So, how many hours of gameplay are there in total?
We’ve got 30 big story levels, plus some amazing secret levels, all full of bonus and hidden areas to discover in Free Play. LEGO Batman is a big, big game.
What sets LEGO Batman aside from your other LEGO iterations in your opinion?
Gosh – so many different things! The main ones, I suppose, are the cool new fighting system, with lots of great new hand-to-hand combat moves; the Villain Mode, to see the story from the bad guy’s perspectives, and Batman and Robin’s special gear and gadgets, including Batbombs, magnetic boots to scale metallic surfaces, the ability to glide across rooftops, and manually-targetable Batarangs.
In terms of musical direction, which music did you go with – the Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan era?
We were delighted to be able to make use of Danny Elfman’s iconic music from the Tim Burton Batman movie.
How many characters are there to unlock and play through the game with?
We have more than 40 characters for you to play with in the game – everyone you can think of!
Batman and Robin have special suits at their disposal, can you elaborate on these?
Our heroes can draw upon the full resources of Bruce Wayne’s industrial empire, and make use of a wide variety of amazing technologies. Discovering and swapping between different “suits”, each with a distinct ability creates much of the puzzle action of LEGO Batman. These suits will give you the ability to glide between buildings; to breathe underwater; to place and detonate Batbombs; to hack into computers and machines; to collect and rebuild LEGO elements, and to walk up metal surfaces. Switching between all these different outfits gives the Hero Mode experience a really distinctive, fun, new feel.
What Bat vehicles are in there?
There are more than 30 different vehicles to take control of in LEGO Batman, including of course the Batmobile, Batwing and Batcopter, along with villain vehicles such as Joker’s Helicopter, Harley Quinn’s Hammer Truck and Killer Croc’s Swamp Rider.
What next for Travellers Tales and LEGO?
All I can say is that we’ve got some really exciting plans for future LEGO games. I hope you enjoy them!
