In the world of construction games, the LEGO brand is probably the most iconic one of them all. Over the years, it has steadily established its dominance by linking its brand with strong licenses capable of reaching all generations, from Star Wars to The Simpsons and even their own creation. Ever since the Minecraft phenomenon developed, the Danish firm dreamed of regrouping the two licenses for one game, and while the actual LEGO Minecraft sets are now available, the game collaboration never happened in terms of videogames. Instead, LEGO Worlds was created, now out on all major platforms after a good year of public testing and game previews. So how is it compared to the giant of construction games that is Minecraft?
Well the direct and simple reality is that LEGO Worlds is much more accessible than Minecraft. Maybe that’s a good thing? In any case it takes a few minutes to let your imagination speak in LEGO Worlds, without having to spend hours farming resources. The tools provided are of a childlike simplicity and make it easy to create life to the worlds of your dreams but also create funny and crazy settings. LEGO Worlds is the digital translation of decades spent playing with the iconic colored bricks, so it remains to see if the intentions of the developers were rightfully translated in the game.
While traveling in search of new worlds, an astronaut finds himself in lost in space and falls on an unknown planet. This procedural generated world will be the starting point of your LEGO Worlds adventure. So to get to the rank of Master Builder, players will cross the universe discovering new surprising worlds. For those of you that played the Early Access since 2015, rest assured that the final game is much more didactic and the progression system has been fixed. It’s all thanks to a bunch of new features such as a narrator, as well as a proper tutorial presented in the form of video sequences.
As expected from a construction game, Traveler’s Tales LEGO Worlds is a gigantic sandbox title where it is possible to do almost everything. You’ll enjoy even messing with the codes of LEGO Worlds by interacting with the environment, the characters but also fauna and flora. As the game progresses, players gains more and more freedom which allows them to make use of their imagination, turning a bunch of standard bricks into more elaborate structures. In a few seconds, you can build a castle,add characters, animals, fantastic creatures that probably don’t fit together but who cares. Obviously like real LEGO creations, it is possible to destroy everything and rebuild at will, or even play the apprentice-painter via a wide range of colors. In any case LEGO Worlds is perfectly calibrated to give life to your craziest desires… provided you are the kind of precise and patient player. Inevitably time-consuming, the game is not without interest and the possibilities are very vast, even infinite for anyone who is a regular of the LEGO game.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Although it is different from Minecraft in its approach, as LEGO Worlds does not offer everything on just one world. To unlock all the elements of the game, it will be necessary to play through the different worlds and accomplish multiple objectives, similar to mini-quests, creating a sort of main adventure. The universe you explore is populated with many NPCs to help or creatures to tame and if some are immediately accessible, other will require you to tame. These small mini-quests require you to to find different LEGO objects or foods to add in your inventory, which in the end gets you to expand your creative options. Once the item is available in your inventory, you will have to unlock it by spending the harvested pieces (which are obtained by accomplishing the various objectives) so that you can use it freely. The principle is fairly simple and the progress remains generally clear, but the important thing is that you really feel free to go where you want and at your own pace.
Speaking of exploration, your main character is also an expert in climbing and can fight when the situation imposes it (like Minecraft, you can get attacked by skeletons, bandits and zombies for example). He also can operate all sorts of vehicles whether on land or sea, which certainly represents one of the strong points of the experiment: the freedom. And like all Traveler’s Tales LEGO games, the humor is there, with fun sequences.
By the very nature of the game, and previous franchise titles, the developers have tried to incorporate a cooperative mode, an online mode and a quest system, but it does not erase the monotony that settles after a few hours. Even if there are ample areas to explore and environments are full of life, LEGO Worlds suffers from a truly difficult to swallow interface, and quickly becomes repetitive. Sure a lot of updates have made to the game since the launch of the early access in 2015, but unfortunately the main problem is yet to be fixed, which is the crude editor system and its menus which could’ve been more clear. On the other hand, LEGO Worlds will charm brick fans, children and builders who will put aside the defects and go through with it, because as it stands, the potential is undeniable but there are still a lot of improvements to get the ultimate construction game.
LEGO Worlds was reviewed using an Xbox One downloadable code of the game provided by Warner Bros Interactive. The game is also available on PlayStation 4 and PC, with a upcoming release on the Nintendo Switch. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.
LEGO Worlds will surely fill those who have always been fascinated by the idea of a digital version of the Danish construction game. In the world of construction games, the LEGO brand is probably the most iconic one of them all.
