LEGO Batman 3 thrusts you into the action the moment that you begin a new game. Complete the first mission, and you find yourself in the Batcave—one of LEGO Batman 3’s many hub areas. Other hubs include the Hall of Justice and the Watchtower. It’s within these hub areas that you discover more missions, along with hundreds of additional secrets!
Story Mode
The first time that you play each mission, you’ll be enjoying Story Mode. In Story Mode, you play as two or more preset heroes (usually Batman and Robin), and you’re treated to brief, yet hilarious, cutscenes that bring the adventure to life. Your Story Mode heroes always have the skills it takes to beat the mission, but they often lack many of the special abilities that are needed to fully explore each stage. That’s where Free Play comes in!
Free Play Mode
Each time you beat a level in Story Mode, you unlock Free Play for that stage. In Free Play, you can bring every character that you’ve unlocked into the missions. With a whole army of Free Play heroes and villains at your command, you can accomplish many new feats that you couldn’t possibly have achieved during Story Mode. Simply press the Map button to bring up the Justice League Computer and quickly revisit any mission that you’ve beaten. Bust back through the missions in Free Play and find every hidden goodie that each level has to offer!
Hub Areas
LEGO Batman 3 features multiple hub areas, including the Batcave, the Hall of Justice, the Watchtower, and more. You always return to a hub after you exit a level. While playing through Story Mode, simply follow the trail of “ghost studs” to locate the next mission, solving a few simple puzzles along the way.
The hub areas are big and filled with goodies, so there’s plenty of exciting adventure to be had in them. A few puzzles must be solved in the hubs in order to advance the story, but the vast majority of the hub content is totally optional and can be explored at your convenience. However, like the missions themselves, you can’t fully explore the hub areas at first—you need to unlock Free Play!
Beat the first six Story missions to unlock Free Play in the hubs. However, it is best to explore and conquer the hubs once you complete Story Mode, because you are free to use all of the characters that you’ve unlocked through completing the story. Unlock even more characters by breezing back through the missions to collect Tokens in Free Play, then set about exploring the hubs with a vast amount of heroes and villains at your disposal!