The LEGO franchise of licensed games currently hangs in limbo. Unfortunately for fans eager to get their hands on it, there’s no release date forLEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. It was once intended to release in 2020, but like many other studios in recent years, Traveller’s Tales has delayed the game multiple times. The additional development time will certainly benefitLEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagain the long run, but in the meantime fans are left hanging.The Skywalker Saga’s new ideas are so enticing that it’s hard to be patient for the game, beneficial as delays may be.
Thankfully, LEGO games have been around for a lot longer thanThe Skywalker Sagaalone. For many years, Traveller’s Tales has been producing delightful retellings of all kinds of IPs, fromIndiana JonestoHarry Potter.That means even thoughThe Skywalker Saga’s release date is in doubt, there’s plenty ofLEGOgames out there to entertain fans in the meantime. A couple games are particularly worth revisiting, considering the specificsteps thatThe Skywalker Sagais takingto reimagine the wayLEGOgames play. As unique as the upcoming game sounds, it owes a lot to games that came before it.
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LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Sagais perhaps the most obvious game worth replaying beforeThe Skywalker Sagareleases. In a sense, they’re the same game from different times: both compilations ofLEGOlevels based on every core movie in theStar Warsfranchise to date.The Complete Sagaproved it could be done more than a decade beforeThe Skywalker Sagaever existed. What’s more,LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Sagaexecutes sharply on retelling the story ofStar Warsin a time before LEGO games used dialogue, instead focusing on funny imagery and minifigure body language.
Fans should revisitThe Complete Sagabecause of its importance to LEGO as a whole. For one thing,The Complete Sagaset the bar for LEGO games in its time; its consistent but diverse level design, huge character roster, and compelling hub all affected LEGO games that came afterwards. For another, it’s the perfect game to compare toThe Skywalker Sagato get a sense of how the series has grown. In its time,The Complete Sagawas a big, ambitious game forcompiling everyStar Warsmovie. Ten years later, fans can see just how much more ambitious LEGO games are.
LEGO Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars
If fans want a secondLEGO Star Warstitle to play, they should pickLEGO Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars.LEGO Star Wars 3wasn’t quite as beloved asThe Complete Saga, but it deserves credit for a few things. For one,LEGO Star Wars 3innovated the LEGO game structure in a couple of surprisingly ambitious ways thatThe Skywalker Sagashould bear in mind.LEGO Star Wars 3featured war levels unlike anything theLEGOfranchise had seen before. Players fought out huge battles against hundreds of droids, all based on real episodes fromStar Wars: The Clone Wars.These war levels showed that Traveller’s Tales has knownLEGO Star Warshas really flexible potential for years.
LEGO Star Wars 3also deserves creditfor its character customization. LEGO games famously tend to let players make custom characters with parts from characters that they’ve unlocked, butLEGO Star Wars 3went above and beyond. It added details like lightsaber colors beyond the standard red, green, blue, and purple - orange and white lightsabers were available inLEGO Star Wars 3.The Skywalker Sagaought to have a character customizer even more ambitious than that, so hopefully Traveller’s Tales is also looking back onLEGO Star Wars 3.
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LEGO The Lord of the Rings
LEGO Star Warsshouldn’t be the sole focus of a LEGO fan’s nostalgia tour.LEGO The Lord of The Ringsis very much worth revisiting, especially considering one ofThe Skywalker Saga’s biggest selling points.The Skywalker Sagahas a sprawling overworldcomposed of a couple dozen planets featured throughout theStar Warsmovies. That overworld sounds fantastic, butThe Skywalker Sagaowes the idea to games likeLEGO The Lord of the Rings.
LEGO The Lord of the Ringsproved early on thatLEGOgames didn’t have to limit themselves to hubs. Rather than players choosing levels from a belovedLord of the Ringslocation like Bag End or Rivendell,LEGO The Lord of the Ringssent players ona journey through Middle Earth. Fans had to seek out the next level on foot, overcoming obstacles inspired by realLord of the Ringsfacets. Beyond the plot,LEGO The Lord of the Ringsmade extensive use of its overworld by filling it with collectible characters and items, rewarding fans for exploring. With any luck,The Skywalker Saga’s overworld will be even more fleshed out than that ofLEGO The Lord of the Rings.
The LEGO Library Keeps Growing
There’s a couple of other LEGO games that deserve mentions. For one, there’sLEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7,which gets a nod for its improvement on the firstLEGO Harry Potter’s spell wheel and combat. Dueling with dark wizards inYears 5-7proved to be a rewarding representation oftheHarry Potterwizarding world’s actual combat, and showed that LEGO games don’t have to stick to combat traditions.The LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Gamegets credit for similar reasons, introducing RPG elements where players could upgrade the playable ninjas' skills. TheNinjagogame suggested as far back as 2017 that Traveller’s Tales was getting restless in sticking to the LEGO formula.
What all these games have in common is that they involved major changes to LEGO conventions. Whether it was the sheer scope of the game that bucked tradition or a total overhaul of a fundamental aspect of the LEGO game formula, they changed things for the better.LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagais trying to do the same thing. If this is how ambitious Traveller’s Tales wants to be from here on out, then the possibilities are endless. The next LEGO game afterThe Skywalker Sagawill hopefully carry onits innovations and find great new ways to build on them.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagais in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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