For almost two decades now, LEGO has been the king of the family-friendly video game market. While video game adaptations of children’s shows pop up every now and then, and cheerful puzzle platformers enjoy it Sackboy’s Great Adventure may come as a pleasant surprise, there is no company quite as reliable as LEGO – at least when it comes to producing high-quality, content-packed, family-friendly titles. In the eyes of several critics and players, the best game ever to come from LEGO is its latest release, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagawhich has managed to set the standard not only for LEGO games in general, but the family-friendly gaming space as a whole.
Released in 2005, the first LEGO Star Wars the game pushed the boundaries of family-friendly gaming at the time, collecting the events of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and wrap them into a tight, intuitive, creative puzzle-platformer that can be enjoyed by players of all ages. Flash forward 17 years and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga marks another giant leap for the family-friendly gaming market, offering one of the most expansive and replayable children’s games of all time, setting the standard for all future LEGO titles.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga raised the bar for LEGO Games
The last 17 years, ever since the first one LEGO Star Wars released, LEGO’s licensed gaming offerings have largely been the same gaming experience over and over again, just wrapped in a different pop culture skin. LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Indiana Jones, LEGO The Lord of the Rings, and the rest boast different settings, characters, and vehicles, but each game tends to follow the same general gameplay formula. In the vast majority of LEGO games, players will progress through a series of concise levels, solving easy puzzles and engaging in simplistic hack-and-slash combat, before returning to an open world where they can hunt for collectibles. While there’s nothing wrong with this formula, it was about time LEGO changed things up a bit, and that’s exactly what LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga did.
Beginning development way back in 2017, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga had much more development time than any other LEGO game before it, and it clearly shows in the final product. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga collects all nine main lines Star Wars films and packages them into a series of easily digestible platformer missions. While this is nothing new for the licensed LEGO series, it is on a much larger scale, with more missions than ever before and more varied gameplay.
Between missions, players are free to explore the galaxy, which is where most of the content is found. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has a whopping 24 planets to explore, and each of them is a fairly large open world. Across all 24 planets, there are 1,000 eye-catching collectibles to be found, some obtained through exploration and some rewarded for completing fun little side quests. Players can unlock over 300 iconic ones Star Wars characters and vehicles, marking by far the largest roster in a LEGO game.
While LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker SagaThe main missions can feel a bit rushed in some parts, there is no doubt that it has set the standard for future LEGO games. LEGO shouldn’t just go back to its original formula on a smaller scale. Now fans will expect games as big as LEGO Star Wars, with a multitude of hub worlds, a staggering number of collectibles and an extreme number of story levels. It will be no easy feat, but if LEGO wants to continue to push the boundaries of the family-friendly gaming market, it must continue to expand and innovate, using LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga as a basis.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
