Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens preview: Best Star Wars game ever?

There have been plenty of Lego games over the years, but we have fondest memories for the very first. The 11-year-old Lego Star Wars might have been based on the least popular collection of films but it kicked off a mighty franchise of platform puzzlers that always delight no matter the subject matter.

We’ve had Lego games based on the Harry Potter films, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, Jurassic World, both major comic book universes, Indiana Jones and even Pirates of the Caribbean, but it is the return to where it all started that has us most excited.

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens is, much like the movie on which it is based, a love letter to the series. It is crammed with references and rewards that transcend episode seven itself, and thanks to modern games systems, seems to be the Lego title TT Games has always wanted to make.

READ: Lego Marvel’s Avengers review: A Marvel-lous return to form

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens: First hour of play

And that’s based on the fact we’ve played a good 45 minutes to an hour of the game already.

At a London preview event, we played three levels based on and around Jakku – basically the sections near the beginning of the film. We also got to hear what will make this Lego game stand out amongst its forebears, including the only recently released Lego Marvel’s Avengers. And it’s all great stuff for fans young and old.

Part of the reason is that the developer has pulled a few new game features out of the bag to make The Force Awakens feel a little different to the multiple other Lego games out there already. There are still the familiar gameplay tropes, with two or more characters on screen at once, brick collection, hidden secrets and the cunning blend of platform and puzzle action, but one Lego staple has been enhanced and a couple of new modes make the experience more rounded.

For starters, the game now features multi-builds. In usual Lego games, to solve and conquer certain puzzles, you need to destroy some of the surroundings and rebuild them into a set, useful item. In The Force Awakens, some of the flashing, dancing bricks can be built into different objects.

Warner

Sometimes this is purely aesthetic, giving a similar outcome but different, fandom-serving animation, while others need to be rebuilt in several different ways to solve different parts of the puzzle.

A new gameplay mode entirely involves flight. TT Games added flight sections to Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars but they were linear and fairly basic. This time flight levels are based mainly in large, open arenas, so you get the feel of a genuine Star Wars dogfight.

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Combat

The last major change that Warner and TT Games are willing to talk about now concerns blaster battles. We didn’t actually get a chance to try one out in our gameplay session, but the idea is that they add an all-new aspect to combat. Rather than just rely on the button mashing as per usual, you can duck and cover, interact with the scenery and built turrets to take on waves of enemies. We look forward to seeing that in action as we head closer to the release date.

For now, we got to start our session in a section called “The Scavenger”. This is based on the part of the film when Rey first encounters BB-8. It not only shows a new side for a Lego game, with stunning backdrops both inside and outside a crashed Star Destroyer, but you get to play as the new droid, who is just as charming here as in the movie.

Warner

We especially like the fact that the main cast members reprised their roles to record some exclusive game audio, so Daisy Ridley provides plenty of additional dialogue not just lifted from the film. John Boyega also adds his voice to proceedings when he appears later.

Next for us was a section that kicked off with a hilarious skit about Kylo Ren and his adoration for Darth Vader. We won’t spoil it here, but it reminded us of the excellent “Emo Kylo Ren” spoof Twitter account (@KyloR3n).

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Millenium Falcon gameplay

We then got to try the flight mechanics for the first time, by flying around the skies of Jakku in the Millennium Falcon (of course). Save for the obvious Lego references, it actually felt quite Star Wars Battlefront in control style. And as we had to dispatch 16 Tie-Fighters before we could progress, it was stylishly similar too.

Warner

The last section we played, on the Nima Outpost, had us control Rey, Finn and BB-8 through a mainly combat centric level. The First Order Stormtroopers were everywhere and needed to be blasted to kingdom come, but it was actually the smaller things in the backgrounds that we found ourselves admiring most – like troopers on sun loungers making the most of the sandy environment, or playing beach volleyball.

First Impressions

That just about sums up all the Lego games, not just this or the previous Star Wars titles. The humour is spot on.

It parodies the subject matter just enough without over-egging the point and from what we’ve seen so far, there is also enough lip-service to the franchise to keep fans happy.

You can tell that the development team are all fans themselves, with more than 200 playable and customisable characters included, and more than 40 vehicles and creatures from the films adapted for the game.

There are also 18 levels in total in the finished game, of which seven are made up of content that you have never seen before – such as how Han and Chewie acquired the Rathtars you see on their ship in the film.

Of course, there’s still plenty of time before the game is out – 28 June 2016 – so we hope to see much more of it before then, but on this showing it is shaping up to be one of the best Lego and Star Wars games to date.