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Can BB-8 be made even cuter? Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens announced

Danny Cowan
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Disney has teamed up with Warner Bros. and developer TT Games to produce an upcoming video game adaptation of Star Wars: The Force Awakens that renders its starring cast as Lego miniatures.
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Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens is due to launch this summer for consoles, portable platforms, and Windows PCs.

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In addition to offering a lighthearted retelling of the film’s storyline, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens will include “exclusive playable content that bridges the story gap between Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” according to publisher Warner Bros.

“Gamers will be able to engage in intense new Blaster Battles for the first time, utilizing surrounding environments to drive back the First Order,” Warner Bros. adds. “Fans can also experience the thrill of high-speed flight gameplay through arena-based battles and dogfights in space, while utilizing a multitude of vehicles along the way, including the legendary Millennium Falcon.”

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the latest in a series of family-oriented Star Wars games developed by English studio TT Games. The company found its first major success as a Lego licensee with its 2005 co-op action-platformer Lego Star Wars, which put a quirky spin on the events of the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

TT Games quickly followed up with a second Lego Star Wars game based on the original trilogy of films, then later produced Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, inspired by Lucasfilm’s animated television series.

The gameplay formula introduced in Lego Star Wars served as the foundation for multiple Lego-licensed games developed by TT Games over the past decade, including Lego Batman, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Harry Potter, Lego The Lord of the Rings, and Lego Pirates of the Caribbean.

The studio’s most recent releases include Lego Jurassic World, Lego Marvel’s Avengers, and Lego Dimensions, a crossover title that merges many of the company’s past license-based works.

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens will premiere for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PS3, PS Vita, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, and PC platforms on June 26th. Warner Bros. will additionally launch a Deluxe Edition for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One bundled with a Finn Lego minifigure and a Season Pass redeemable for future downloadable content.

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Danny Cowan
Danny Cowan
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Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…
Elden Ring finally dethroned on Steam by Lego Star Wars
Promotional art of Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga.

After over a month as the top-selling game on Steam, Elden Ring has finally been cut down by an unsuspected title: Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.

Released last week, The Skywalker Saga has quickly risen to the top of Steam's top-sellers list, bumping Elden Ring down to third place. This is just the latest piece of good news for Traveller's Tales' newest Lego title, though, as it's already broken the record for the series' most concurrent players on Steam and became the second-biggest physical release of the year in the U.K.

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Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga isn’t just for kids
Promotional art of Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga.

Before Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, I had fallen out of love with TT Games and WB Games' Lego titles. The Lego Star Wars, Batman, and Indiana Jones series helped make me passionate about video games as a kid as I spent endless fun (and sometimes frustrating) hours playing them with my brother.
Over time though, I aged out of the series and grew more disappointed with the basic open-world formula the series settled on after great games like Lego City Undercover. I was no longer smitten with one of the series that helped cement my love of video games. That’s why The Skywalker Saga’s bold new direction excites me.
It not only revisits the films behind some of my favorite Lego games, but builds on top of them with more expansive hub worlds, mission variety, and deeper gameplay than previous Lego action games. While The Skywalker Saga’s multiple delays and development issues concerned me, my hands-on with an early build of the game managed to engross me just like the original Lego Star Wars did 17 years ago.
A New Hope for the series
My demo took me through the first 90 minutes of A New Hope, one of the nine Star Wars films represented within The Skywalker Saga. Like every Lego game before it, this segment of the game followed the events of the film it was based on. It features full voice acting (from soundalikes, not the film cast), though I appreciated the inclusion of a “mumble mode” that makes the characters grunt and pantomime as they did in early Lego games.
LEGO® Star Wars™: The Skywalker Saga - Gameplay Overview
TT Games also experiments with the iconic opening of A New Hope. Many jokes are present to keep kids entertained, but it also intertwines with the end of Rogue One. The first character I played as was actually Princess Leia, who has the Death Star plans and is trying to escape Darth Vader as he boards the Tantive IV. Somehow, this Lego game made this oft-adapted and parodied plot beat feel fresh.
This mission also served as a tutorial and a demonstration of how The Skywalker Saga differs from previous Lego games. Yes, there are still combat, exploration, and puzzles, but those are deeper than before. A cover-based system has been implemented to make shootouts more involving. Meanwhile, players can now string together melee combos with different moves and counter enemies' attacks, making melee battles more enjoyable than before. Character classes and abilities also ensure fights in this game are more than simple button-mashing affairs.
Missions often give players multiple options to complete objectives, whether that’s because of a specific Lego build players can create or the abilities of their playable character. It’s no Devil May Cry, but these deeper gameplay systems made sure my eyes didn’t gloss over out of boredom within the first hour, something I can’t say for the last couple of Lego games I played.
The Skywalker Saga made a strong first impression on me and excited me to see how the rest of A New Hope would unfold. I was able to play as Luke Skywalker on Tatooine, meet Obi-Wan Kenobi, recruit Han and Chewbacca, and explore the Death Star before my demo ended. While this is the second time TT Games is adapting this material, it feels completely new because of the revamped approach to storytelling, level design, and gameplay design.
All grown up
During my demo, I only scratched the surface of what the game had to offer. The Skywalker Saga seems to be the most densely packed Lego game yet, as all nine mainline Star Wars films have been recreated here. Not only are there linear levels based on the main plot points and set pieces of each film, but there are large hubs on planets and areas in space that players can explore and complete side missions within.
As players complete the stories of more films and gain access to more characters, ships, and planets, the amount of options players will have at their disposal will only continue to grow. The Skywalker Saga also has a progression system to back that amount of content up ,as missions reward players with Kyber Bricks that players use to unlock and enhance abilities on skill trees.

Yes, this game has skill trees to complement the aforementioned classes -- which include Jedi, Smugglers, and Protocol Droids -- and their abilities, which is useful during and outside of combat. Systems like this bring TT Games’ Lego series more up to par with its action game peers and make it feel like the franchise has finally grown up. As The Skywalker Saga will be the first Lego game in years to appeal to those with nostalgia for the series' earliest game, it's a relief to see that it won't disappoint. 
Of course, The Skywalker Saga still will be approachable enough for kids thanks to its visuals, humor, and approachable gameplay basics, but it finally doesn’t seem like that’s coming at the sacrifice of engaging gameplay for older players. While I thought I had aged out of ever liking a Lego game again, this demo of The Skywalker Saga revealed that I could still love these games -- they just had to catch up to me first.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will be released for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch on April 5, 2022.

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2K reportedly publishing two Lego sports games
Two characters race in a Lego Worlds neighborhood.

Publishing giant 2K is partnering with Lego to produce multiple sports games, including a soccer title that is set to release later this year, according to a report from Video Games Chronicle.

Set to launch close to the start of this year's FIFA World Cup, 2K's upcoming soccer game is reportedly being developed by Sumo Digital, which has previously developed Crackdown 3, along with numerous entries in the Sonic Racing franchise. It's somewhat ironic then that 2K's second Lego game will be an open-world racing title developed by Visual Concepts, which itself has made multiple sports titles for 2K, including NBA 2K22 and WWE 2K22. The 2K Lego racing game will reportedly release in 2023. According to VGC's sources, a third Lego sports game based on a major sports franchise is also in development.

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