Evolving game: Lego Worlds added online multiplayer halfway through 2016.
Soft-launched as a June 2015 computer game, the very well-received Lego Worlds is now heading to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One for February 2017, as Warner Bros challenges the era-defining success of Microsoft-owned Minecraft.
When you're making a game that takes on Minecraft, recognisable branding isn't enough.
Fortunately, the studio charged with developing Lego Worlds has a long history of successful Lego adaptations.
TT Games got started on a line of humorous brickwork adventures with 2005's Lego Star Wars: The Video Game, a conversion that shouldn't have worked but really did thanks to its rigorous recreation of key scenes – always with a dash of unpredictable humour – and a smattering of collectibles and unlockable characters sprinkled throughout.
A sequel followed before Traveller's Tales branched out into another Lucasfilm property with Lego Indiana Jones, continuing to work on Disney and Lucasfilm Lego games after becoming part of Warner Bros' media empire.
Lego game versions of Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Marvel's Avengers and several Batman titles followed. Traveller's Tales had become Lego's video game home.
And despite an official partnership with Minecraft for a branded Lego set, the toy manufacturer has been making its own answer to 2011's generation-defining creative construction game.
Its sandbox worlds made out of digital Lego bricks, "Lego Worlds sits on a Very Positive user rating, 81% of nearly 8,000 reviews recommending the experience.
Come February 2017, the game will be out of Early Access on PC and making its debut on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, according to an announcement from TT Games.
"Thanks to you all for helping us during our first ever attempt at not only Early Access, but at doing something that is outside the realms of our normal game design," the company said, recognising the shift away from TT's usual Lego game formula. "We have some amazing things planned for February launch." Watch the trailer here.
It won't be the first time that a big publisher has stepped up to the Minecraft challenge, but Lego Worlds might have the biggest global reach.
PlayStation's Dragon Quest Builders leveraged a popular Japanese video game franchise upon its January 2016 launch, while MMO giant Trion released its own blocky twist in Trove.
But where games like these are compared to Minecraft, Minecraft has always been video game Lego; from February 2017, Lego Worlds will be looking to take its crown back. — AFP Relaxnews
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