LEGO Worlds

Genre: Open-World 3D Action-Platformer

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local Split-Screen)

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Review:

LEGO Worlds, released in 2017 on the PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, is an Open-World 3D Action-Platformer that has drawn a lot of comparisons to Minecraft, and often those comparisons are not kind to LEGO Worlds. However, I tend to feel that the criticisms this game has received are somewhat unfair… though not without merit.

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If You Build It, They Will Come?

This game starts with the same basic gameplay of any major Traveller’s Tales LEGO game. However, LEGO Worlds may be the most ambitious game to ever take on the formula. Much as in Minecraft, every location within this game is procedurally-generated, created wholly out of LEGO bricks. And, much like in Minecraft, players are given the tools to deconstruct these worlds, reshape them, or build entirely new structures within them.

However, from there the descriptions of the two games begin to diverge. You won’t be pulling apart these worlds brick-by-brick – the tools at your disposal allow for you to deform the landscape and reshape it in a general area. This can make things a bit messy, though if you do want to build a structure brick-by-brick you have that option, though it’s fiddly, time-consuming work, and it lacks the same sort of joy of direct interaction that you get from placing blocks in Minecraft.

Resource gathering is also different. You won’t be breaking apart most things for resources the way you do in Minecraft, but as per usual you’ll be getting studs you can use to make purchases. In this case, those purchases are being able to unlock and reuse the various items you can in the environment – see a bush you’d like to use later? Scan it and buy it with studs, and it’s yours, to copy-paste hundreds of times over if you so desire! Like that chicken? Scan it and buy it, and it’s yours!

The first issue with this mechanic is that it isn’t consistent. Some things can be scanned and bought, but others have to be quested for, and this includes the various human characters you’ll come across. It’s hard to tell when you come across a creature whether you can just scan it and buy it, or whether you need to perform some sort of task to gain access to it. If it’s the latter, it’s not always clear just how to go about that task.

These sorts of quests make up much of the meat of this game. Characters in LEGO Worlds want things, and you’re the one who’s expected to make it happen. What they want may range from “paint this patch of floor with the ‘water’ color so it becomes a pool” to “Build a roof for my house” to “fight a bunch of enemies that will spawn after you talk to me”. In exchange for doing this, you may get more studs, inventory items you can use or trade, or the coveted gold bricks you need to progress through the game’s campaign overall.

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A Bad Build?

However, what some characters are asking for is not entirely clear. One criminal I spoke with requested a way to lookout for anyone trying to track them down, so naturally I created a nice mesa for them to stand on. Apparently this wasn’t good enough – they wanted a specific build of something that I could not tell from its picture exactly what it was, and there was no apparent way I could search for the item. I wasn’t even provided a name of what it was.

Later, I encountered a cowboy who wanted help building his ranch. After creating his barn from a pre-made build, and then copy-pasting some hay bales and windmills, and then fixing his roof, he wanted me to round up his cattle and place them in a pen. Did he want me to search the area for other cows? The few I found wandering around didn’t seem to be counted by him and refused to stay in the pen. Did he want me to copy-paste the one cow that was already there? The scanning tool wouldn’t let me do it for some reason. Perhaps I needed to complete a request for the cow so the cow would let me copy it? The cow wanted some sort of plant… but by this point, I’ve scanned dozens of plants, and as far as I could tell, none of them were the kind the cow wanted. But of course, everything is represented by LEGO pieces, so it’s not exactly easy to distinguish them in the first place…

I could just say “screw it”, abandon this world and go to a different, new, procedurally-generated world and try to fulfill goals there, but I would basically be writing off all the time spent on the current quest as a loss, and I may very well run into a similar issue in the next place.

This sort of issue was the cause of so much frustration for me, and it was really depressing because if it wasn’t for this problem I was outright delighted with the game. Well, that and the aforementioned fiddliness when trying to build things. Oh, and the overall jankiness of the game. Oh, and I haven’t gotten around to talking about combat yet. Okay, okay, maybe I’m not as delighted with this game as I thought I was.

Okay, so, combat. Combat is also sorta’ an afterthought here. You will occasionally have hostile creatures looking to harm you, but this is not extremely common, which is good because the combat here is even worse than usual for a Traveler’s Tales game. Whether you’re using melee attacks or projectile weapons, aiming is a crapshoot, especially when there are multiple potential targets in the area (which is pretty much always).

Oh, and there’s one final complaint I have to mention. This game’s save file takes up 1.9GB on your Nintendo Switch’s internal memory. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a fresh game or if you’ve created a scale replica of the Starship Enterprise, you’ll need to clear up nearly 2GB of space on Your Nintendo Switch (and not the MicroSD card, either), and that’s not even counting the amount of space the game itself takes up. Yikes!

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Built Like a Brick Outhouse?

While there are other areas where LEGO Worlds has issues, the presentation in this game is excellent, with a lot of detail filling the world being made up of LEGO blocks. What’s more, the lighting, shadows, and atmospheric effects are very good here too. It was wonderful to see the sun reflecting off of the surface of the LEGOs making up the landscape when it was setting, and delightful seeing the heat of a Wild West-themed desert planet represented by a haze that fell over everything during the day. The only flaws to this were the aforementioned jankiness that happened on occasion, as well as blurriness the game imposes over some more distant areas, for obvious reasons. However, for the most part I felt this game looked great.

The sound is also decent, if not quite up to the standards that people may expect from LEGO games, since this game doesn’t benefit from a film soundtrack by John Williams or Howard Shore. However, the music in this game is still pretty good. For the most part, the people within the game are limited to simple one-word expressions, but the game does get some nice dreamy narration by Peter Serafinowicz.

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Built to Last?

I’ve probably felt more conflicted about LEGO Worlds than any other LEGO game I’ve reviewed. I’m absolutely thrilled with the concept, and when this game is working well, I feel like it gives the player a sense of freedom and joy that is exactly the sort of thing I want from a LEGO game. What’s more, the presentation is great, and gives me a game that looks like what I want a LEGO game to look like. And it doesn’t hurt that this game is extremely ambitious, doing far more than the countless other LEGO games which often seem to just copy-paste the same formula into a different licensed crossover.

However, at the same time, it’s hard to ignore the flaws here. The goal structure is unnecessarily confusing and inconsistent in a way that’s frustrating and makes me feel like I’m wasting my time. Building or changing anything feels awkward and inefficient. The combat is poor, and as I mentioned a few times there’s a “jankiness” over everything that’s uncharacteristically unpolished for a LEGO game.

Overall, I still very much like LEGO Worlds, but I can’t help but feel like its flaws keep it from becoming the great game it could have been. If you’re a fan of LEGO stuff and especially if you’re looking for a game that breaks out of the usual Traveller’s Tales LEGO game formula, I think LEGO Worlds is absolutely worth a look, but be prepared for the frustration this game brings with it.

tl;dr – LEGO Worlds is an Open-World 3D Action-Platformer that many have compared to Minecraft, with its procedurally-generated environments and the player’s ability to deform and recreate the environment as they like. There’s a lot of promise here, and a surprisingly good presentation, but unfortunately it comes with a lot of problems. Interacting with the environment is fiddly, the game’s goal structure is unclear and frustrating, and the game feels overall unpolished. If you’re looking for something that breaks the mold of the usual Traveller’s Tales LEGO game formula, this may be worth a look, but be prepared for the headaches that come with it.

Grade: C+

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