A free new Batman game just dropped on Amazon

To celebrate the release of season two of its animated Batman show, Amazon is giving out an unexpected Batman game via Luna. You don't need a console or a gaming PC to play it, nor do you need to own a gaming controller. Best of all, it's free.

In Batman: Caped Crusader Chronicles, players team up with The Dark Knight to solve crimes across Gotham City. There are 11 episodic cases in all, and they feature classic Batman villains such as The Joker and Scarecrow. The developers promise "unique detective-themed minigames" that can be played with up to three friends. This requires that one player has an Amazon Prime membership and a smartphone capable of running Amazon Luna, the retail giant's cloud streaming service. The Caped Crusader game is a part of Amazon Luna's GameNight, which offers a collection of social party games.

Amazon seems intent on having people check out Luna, based on the high number of free games available on it. The streaming service is currently offering titles such as the choice-driven narrative superhero game Dispatch, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, and Jackbox Party Pack. By Amazon's admission, most of its subscribers don't know they have access to said games. In an effort to improve the discoverability of those games, Amazon recently added a "Luna" tab to its Prime Video section. The tab might still be hard to find for most people, which is a shame: there are some genuinely solid games available for streaming, such as Fallout 4 and Alan Wake 2.

As for the 1940s noir-themed show, it's no Batman: The Animated Series, but the first season is pretty good. The latest 10-episode season, which dropped on July 31, is a mixed bag of nostalgia that only occasionally reaches the highs of its predecessor. The Joker is fantastic in it, though, and that might be reason enough to watch.