LEGO Worlds—where everything you can imagine is real
LEGO Worlds is developed by Traveller’s Tales and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. In what can only be described as a LEGO fan’s video game dream come true, you’ll uncover hidden treasures in environments that come to life at dizzying speeds.
With a wide variety of vehicles and creatures ranging from cowboys riding giraffes to vampires scaring Yetis—LEGO Worlds will get your creative juices flowing.
Game Details
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Developer: Traveller’s Tales
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Genre: Sandbox
Modes: Single-player, multiplayer
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10+)
Your imagination is your only limit
LEGO Worlds is very different from previous games in the LEGO series in a variety of different ways. First and foremost, don’t expect a story with parodies of well-known movie characters with a deep narrative. If you are expecting this going into LEGO Worlds, then you will be left rubbing your eyes in disbelief.
LEGO Worlds doesn’t really contain any type of story, and that’s ok. Instead, what you get is a game in which the story comes from your own imagination. You’ll assume the role of an astronaut who lands on an unknown planet which acts as the starting point for your grand adventure.
However, before you can build you must collect those famous LEGO studs. Acting as a tutorial of sorts, this is done through quests that you must complete from randomly placed NPCs scattered around the procedurally generated worlds. These quests range from defending the NPCs from their enemies to building specific structures to taking pictures of rare animals.
The world at your fingertips
LEGO Worlds takes a very different approach than other sandbox games. To unlock all the elements of the game, you will need to travel to complete multiple objectives. These, which are similar to mini-quests, create a sense of adventure in the game.
The universe in which you explore is filled with an abundance of NPCs that will help you and you’ll encounter many different animals that you can tame. Some animals are easily tamed, while others are more difficult and require more work to tame. Similarly, you’ll find that some characters will require you to collect different objects and or food for them before they are willing to help.
After discovering a new item with the Demiscovery tool, which is a lot like a scanner, you are required to pay a one-time fee of studs. This will give you an infinite amount of the item so that you can use and build with. Things you haven’t discovered are easy enough to find by the glow they emit, so you’ll really be stuck looking.
Building made easy
By using a selection wheel, you can use a wide variety of tools with which you can change just about everything in the world around you. Want to build a tunnel of caves down in the ground? No problem!
You can even build a huge skyscraper, stone by stone anyway you like. Heck, you can even build a city with vehicles and inhabitants. Your imagination is the only limit! For those less artistically inclined, you can access building plans and copy tools—making building a breeze.
By using the explorer tool, you can add objects and creatures into your library and then place them freely in the world around you. One of my favourite features of LEGO Worlds is the ability to play with a friend via two-player co-op mode either locally or online. You can even open your world up for a random online player to jump in at any point.
Can you become a Master Builder?
Completing mini-quests can result in getting golden bricks. Ultimately, this helps you achieve your end goal of becoming a Master Builder. It wont be easy though, there are 100 gold bricks that are required to become a Master Builder—and needed to unlock bigger worlds.
Getting to 100 bricks is no easy task, I often found myself jumping from world to world looking for new quests to complete in order to gather bricks. The worlds are procedurally generated and are very different from each other.
Worlds are based on Galactic Coordinates, with a press of a button an entirely new one is generated. You can press this as many times as you like, until you see a 3D model that looks interesting enough to dive into. There are some worlds that are rarer than others.
More items than you can shake a stick at
While you won’t have time to make every discovery in every world, to unlock the characters and certain animals for use, you must first complete their quests. The items in LEGO Worlds come directly from the various LEGO series’ that have come and gone over the years.
This includes the likes of LEGO City, LEGO Pirates, LEGO Mini-figures and various others. The sense of freedom that you have in LEGO Worlds is mind-blowing. The moment when you realize that you can go and do virtually anything you want is truly spectacular.
Though, there are times where I would come across worlds where mini-quests were repetitive. For example, I was on a world where the only available mini-quests involved saving people that are stuck behind an impassible object or giving animals food. While this didn’t happen that often, it would have been nicer to see more varied mini-quests along the way to becoming a Master Builder.
A LEGO lovers paradise
LEGO Worlds has a massive amount of content to explore and do and it is all delivered with the iconic LEGO look and feel. The wonderful whimsy character animations, and the bouncy soundtrack along with the fantastic narration from Peter Serafinowicz all come together perfectly.
However, I did encounter some slowdown in certain areas of the game—often in areas with a lot going on. Furthermore, as the worlds I visited got larger, I encountered instances where the game would be loading preventing me from moving forward until it finished loading.
The camera in LEGO Worlds is a dramatic improvement from previous games. You can now zoom in or out on your character and you can even zoom into first person for really tight areas. Despite these issues, which are not insignificant, LEGO Worlds is a beautiful game that is fun to play.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I had a fun time with LEGO Worlds and never had a dull moment. There are some minor issues, but they do not deter from the game at all. If you are a LEGO fan, LEGO Worlds is the type of game that you have been waiting for.
+ Sense of freedom is gratifying
+ A seemingly endless amount of worlds to explore
+ Fantastic LEGO visuals
+ Great value for its price
+ Fun for all ages
– Loading times can be lengthy
– Camera is still not what it should be
OVERALL
Gameplay: 3.5/5
Graphics: 4/5
Sound: 4/5
Lasting Appeal/Replayability: 4.5/5
Overall Rating 4/5 (80%)
Get LEGO Worlds for PlayStation 4
Get LEGO Worlds for Xbox One
