Featuring all three trilogies, the latest LEGO Star Wars games are the most comprehensive reinvention the series has ever seen.
In 2005, when the last of the prequels was released, LEGO Star Wars appeared on GameCube – the first of many LEGO Star Wars games and the early days of feverish development of licensed LEGO games. These games had a cutesy charm that initially rolled out with just gestures and no voice acting, adding more detail as the various LEGO games came out. At a certain point the formula became stale. Don’t get me wrong: LEGO Marvel Super Heroes was a good time, but it settled into a format that was more than a decade old.
Developer TT Games took its time with the next big LEGO game, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which is scheduled to release on April 5, 2022 for Nintendo Switch. Based on reports of workplace issues, it may still not have been enough, but still, this was one of the longest gaps between LEGO games since LEGO Star Wars came out 17 years ago. The wait seems worth it as LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is an ambitious reinvention of the LEGO formula that packs an incredible amount of content.
Right from the start you can start with any of the three trilogies. During a hands-on gameplay preview, I was able to see a few different parts of the game. The opening of A New Hope cleverly includes some Rogue One references as you initially put yourself in the shoes of Leia and Captain Antilles’ minifigures. Shortly afterwards you are on Tatooine and play the young Luke Skywalker. Part of Revenge of the Sith highlights the opening where Anakin and Obi-Wan display Jedi skills (and Anakin outright beheads Count Dooku). The beginning of The Last Jedi puts you behind the control of a ship as Poe Dameron and Tallie Lintra (I had to double check that spelling; no big deal if you don’t remember them) fight the First Order. The levels feature shades of familiar areas from previous LEGO Star Wars games, but this is all new, complete with a tighter camera system and sophisticated combat and puzzles.
What I noticed about the combat is that it’s more combo-heavy and flashy. You build up a combo meter by landing attacks and your moves become more varied. There is better gunplay, especially with different classes. There are a variety of classes including Hero, Jedi, Scoundrel, Scavenger, Bounty Hunter, Villain, Dark Side, Astromech and Protocol Droid. Everyone plays differently and has their own skill tree, which is upgraded with Kyber Stones that can be found by completing levels and also by completing various missions. Some of these missions are cheeky missions found in the overworld, like a silly sand football in an early Tatooine hub world.
The numerous ways to find Kyber Bricks ties into a key element of the design, as shown in the hands-off demo: player selection. At different intervals throughout the levels you have different options for where you want to go, whether you use a droid class to unlock another door to avoid combat or go in as a hero with guns blazing. These different paths can lead to different level challenges, which in turn unlock more Kyber Stones and allow you to level up more classes and characters.
With nine full films full of levels to play through, The Skywalker Saga potentially has a lot of content and from what TT Games has shown, it’s the most ambitious LEGO game in more than a decade. As someone who has only dabbled in LEGO games here and there over the last decade after really enjoying them early on, I’m looking forward to playing around with virtual toys when LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga comes around in a few weeks out.
Perform aileron flight in Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga
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