‘There’s been a big game changer and we all know it’: After three decades of LEGO video games, the world’s biggest toy company reveals how it’s staying relevant amid seismic shifts in gaming
30 years in the past, LEGO took its first tentative step past bodily toys with the launch of Enjoyable to Construct, a Japanese-only sport for the forgotten Sega Pico console. Three many years later, the online game ambitions of the mighty LEGO model at the moment are a various empire in their very own proper, a set of digital experiences designed to go well with totally different tastes and tastes.
And for good purpose – as a result of as anybody who follows video video games is aware of, the expansion of the business has additionally come together with large adjustments, together with an ongoing shift in how gamers entry and personal video games – and a generational shift in why they’re so vital.
For a lot of, the thought of a LEGO online game is one thing nonetheless synonymous with the prolific output of TT Video games, the British growth studio behind dozens of licensed titles that includes blockbuster franchises like Star Wars, Batman and Harry Potter. However the LEGO model now adorns quite a few different experiences from different well-known creators, akin to Annapurna’s not too long ago launched LEGO Voyagers, or LEGO Celebration as Nintendo. After which there’s LEGO Fortnite – however extra on that in a second.
Chatting with the heads of LEGO’s huge gaming portfolio, the corporate’s new SVP of LEGO gaming, Fredrik Löving, and its veteran head of product, Kari Vinther Nielsen, it is clear that the corporate is aware of that the world of video video games has already modified – and can proceed to take action, as a brand new era grows up with the likes of Mini and Blot. demographic viewers — on the lookout for linked social experiences throughout a wider vary of platforms. On the identical time, nevertheless, the model is aware of it has to cater to extra conventional gamers as nicely.
“Actually understanding at the moment’s youngsters is at all times a very powerful factor,” says Löving. “There’s been a giant change in gaming and everyone knows it, we have all seen it. Gaming means one thing totally different to the era rising up at the moment than it does to me. Once I was rising up with the Amiga 500, I used to be escaping right into a world, escaping right into a display screen and taking part in these video games with a really decided goal.
“The primary purpose at the moment for youths rising up is to seek out an exercise to do in a social area along with their buddies. Second, it is no matter exercise is definitely round them.” It is an remark that rings very true after this summer season’s surge in gamers for video games like Develop a Backyard and Steal the Brainrot, experiences that helped break engagement information on Roblox — a social gaming platform that LEGO has up to now shied away from.
“The gamers are basically totally different,” continues Löving. So the place does that depart LEGO?
“I used to be very lucky to work on LEGO Worlds,” remembers Nielsen, a LEGO-y sandbox sport that lets gamers construct intricate fashions utilizing digital blocks. Whereas fairly profitable, it was a product of its time – and regardless of the LEGO branding, it by no means appeared to faze the now-dominant Minecraft, the sport it was usually most in comparison with. Nonetheless, her ambitions have been clear. “That to me was a testomony to what a bodily brick was in a digital area,” Nielsen continues. “We had followers creating fashions, creating worlds, creating tales, and I feel that is actually the ability of the digital sport the place you’ll be able to create and share in numerous methods versus what you’ll be able to within the bodily world.
After working at LEGO for greater than a decade, Nielsen mentioned the conversations she had whereas engaged on the thought for Worlds stay “the identical tales and the identical issues we speak about” at the moment. “We’ve got to combine the IPs, we’ve got to determine what’s the digital model of the bodily expression. What’s the actual sport model of that? I do not assume the conversations have modified a lot,” she continued. “It is extra about truly adapting to how youngsters play at the moment and being open-minded about the way you diversify the sport, the way you turn out to be inclusive to be able to make the proper of sport for youths on the planet they stay in. I feel that is the place we have moved lots over the past couple of years truly.
“Youngsters actually use video video games as a solution to keep social and a spot to fulfill up with their buddies,” Nielsen continues, echoing Löving’s earlier phrases. “In fact we wish to current ourselves in secure and constructive methods, however I feel that simply speaks to the kind of video games and the kind of play that we actually must function a LEGO model. It is not nearly having one model that fits gamers, it is about having a various portfolio, for various play wants and totally different moments.”
It is an strategy LEGO has demonstrated in latest months, launching the Mario Celebration-style LEGO Celebration to drive cross-platform multiplayer the identical month as indie puzzle platformer LEGO Voyagers. “LEGO Celebration, that is actually the place I wish to play with my buddies or my household,” notes Nielsen. “LEGO Voyagers in the meantime, was a take a look at of my relationship, I am not going to lie. There was a little bit of ‘go away, that is me taking part in now.’
After which there’s LEGO Fortnite, which continues to evolve week after week. It is onerous to gauge the precise degree of its total success towards expectations, particularly when evaluating it to one thing like Develop a Backyard’s viral recognition. However its most quintessential providing, LEGO Fortnite Odyssey, stays a perennial hit and can quickly obtain its subsequent main replace (which followers anticipate will add characters from the wildly widespread Ninjago franchise). In the meantime, role-playing SIM possibility LEGO Brick Life enjoys a smaller viewers, though it’s presently ready for a serious takeover of The Simpsons. And a serious draw for LEGO right here stays the power for gamers to construct and make their very own mini-games – one thing that ought to solely get simpler to do and doubtlessly extra superior over time.
“My daughter loves the universe, the characters, the tales, the narrative,” Nielsen says of LEGO Fortnite’s modes. “We’re beginning to actually develop and increase the chance for creators to make their favourite LEGO sport, to inform their tales by video games. It is nonetheless early days in that area,” she continues. “It is not that we’ve not had digital building or digital creation in our portfolio for the final 30 years, however the world round it has modified, because the platforms and the tempo of creation have modified. When Fred joined, we had this sort of (joke) like, ‘You are used to creating a sport and it takes 5 years, I can do what you do and do it in 4 hours.’
Whereas that is probably not true – but – of one thing as polished as TT Video games’ LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Darkish Knight, a few of LEGO’s previous productions can definitely be recreated in Fortnite at the moment, akin to LEGO Island, the model’s second online game (and first true digital hit). “It is only a totally different actuality of making experiences and testing new issues and testing them in a quicker approach with the fitting companion, with the fitting creators,” Nielsen says.
“And going again to what I discussed about at the moment’s actually understanding gamers,” provides Löving. “Co-creation, company, all of the belongings you simply talked about. They’re in a short time, if not already, turning into desk stakes for lots of experiences on the market, particularly the massive platforms.”
All that mentioned, LEGO’s extra conventional gaming experiences aren’t going away solely both—as subsequent 12 months’s arrival of LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Darkish Knight proves. It was one of many greatest and most well-received gaming reveals of this 12 months and was not too long ago proven to an overwhelmingly constructive reception throughout Gamescom 2025. For LEGO, experiences such because the one it’s anticipated to supply additionally stay a core a part of its model providing.
“I handed on Star Wars to my son by a Lego sport, the Skywalker saga,” Löving mentioned. “That is lots for a dad, to truly have that have collectively along with your son — not simply taking part in collectively, however passing on a fandom, enabled by the truth that it is a LEGO sport. Even earlier than I joined the corporate, I used to be simply impressed to see, ‘how can we do that and actually make the sport intergenerational?’
“Our model stands for lots of issues, and I feel in some unspecified time in the future you are actually diving in and also you’re immersing your self in a six-hour session,” Nielsen asserts. “I play legacy board video games, I do know it is going to take a very long time. I am invested and it is even higher if I can play collectively or crew up with a few of my buddies or relations. That is superior and I feel that is what TT Video games does so nicely.”
As LEGO enters its fourth decade within the digital area, the corporate clearly has ambitions that transcend easy, static plastic. From its foray into the world of easy robotics with MindStorms, to its far more latest interactivity fused to LEGO Tremendous Mario bricks, it is clear the corporate is eager to experiment with what’s potential with gaming. LEGO Dimensions, the model’s experiment within the toys-to-life class, was one other instance of this – and with its deal with IP connections and adventures, it might be seen as a precursor to LEGO Fortnite at the moment.
On the finish of the day, although, Nielsen says it is all about discovering the proper of sport for the fitting viewers. “Generally there is a time for a sport after which you’ll be able to virtually take that sport and produce it into the current — or into the long run with totally different flavors and twists,” she says. “It is not in contrast to our LEGO model of Darth Vader or Batman. I feel there’s one thing generational about it.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You’ll be able to contact Tom at tom_philips@ign.com or discover him at Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
