REVIEW – Lego Worlds (Switch)

I grew up playing with LEGO, and I love the idea of creating from nothing. This idea started to become a new genre of game entirely with popular titles like Minecraft dominating the scene. Therefore, LEGO Worlds seems like a no-brainer to join that genre. After all, it is LEGO, and creating is what they are all about. All other LEGO video games are more adventure-based with a theme rather than just creating.

Although this game is largely based on discovering and creating, there is a story in LEGO Worlds called Adventure mode, and most of it serves as a tutorial for how to do things later on in the game. It is not until you get all the pieces of your creation tool does the game really open up. You are still tasked with finding gold bricks and performing certain tasks for people in order to progress the game, but instead of it being a linear level, it is an open world of things to discover and create to complete tasks. After receiving all of the different pieces to the creation tool, I did feel a little overwhelmed with all that I could do at that point of the game. Some tasks, later on, were a little more difficult to understand which pulled me out of the experience some. I got to a place where I didn’t really care about the missions and I just wanted to discover and create. Although, I will say the landscapes and biomes that you explore are fun. Ice worlds to lava-filled lands to prehistoric, and even space areas, are all a blast to explore.

I enjoyed spending some time in the Adventure mode, but I really enjoyed opening things up in the Sandbox mode. In this mode, you are given complete control to build and create anything your heart desires. Although, if the part of normal LEGO games that you don’t like is the building, this game isn’t for you. It is much slower paced, and the combat moments are just plain awful. You don’t really need to worry about killing things because you can just respawn them, so there is truly not much of a point to it. You must truly know this is a game about discovery and creation.

My biggest struggles with LEGO Worlds come down to its camera angles and the difficulty controlling where things are placed. In a game that is entirely based around placing items in their proper place and building from nothing, it takes you out of the experience to not be able to get things placed where you truly want them. Maybe the PC version controls better, but using a Nintendo Switch controller hurt my experience.

I did enjoy hearing the deep voice-actor speak and help you along on your journey. The music was good and fit the situation, as well. The game has had a few updates and has some great DLC packages with it. I think the items they are adding to the game are great. I will say, though, the menu is a little difficult to understand, and it gets confusing whenever you take a break from the journey.

Overall, I would say my experience with LEGO Worlds was an enjoyable one. I might even come back to it in the future whenever I feel that desire to do some building or discovering. With the Switch library increasing in the number of better games, I find it difficult to suggest this one. Even though I am glad to see this on the Switch, I have enjoyed the other LEGO game experiences more.