30 years in the past, LEGO made its tentative first step past bodily toys with the launch of Enjoyable to Construct, a Japanese-only recreation for the largely forgotten Sega Pico console. Three many years later, the mighty LEGO model’s online game ambitions are actually a various empire all of its personal, a set of digital experiences designed to cater to various and tastes.
And for good purpose — as a result of as anybody who follows video video games is aware of, the trade’s development has additionally come alongside huge change, together with an ongoing shift in how gamers entry and personal video games — and a generational distinction in why they’re so necessary.
For a lot of, the concept 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 established creators, such because the current Annapurna-published LEGO Voyagers, or the Nintendo-like LEGO Celebration. And then there’s LEGO Fortnite — however extra on that in a second.
Chatting with the bosses of LEGO’s sprawling gaming portfolio, the corporate’s new SVP of LEGO Recreation, Fredrik Löving, and its veteran Head of Product, Kari Vinther Nielsen, its clear the corporate is aware of the world of video video games has already modified — and can proceed to take action, as a youthful era raised on the likes of Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite — LEGO’s key viewers demographic — seeks related social experiences on a wider vary of platforms. On the similar time, nevertheless, the model is aware of it should nonetheless cater to extra conventional players as effectively.
“Actually understanding in the present day’s children is simply all the time a very powerful factor,” Löving says. “There’s been a huge shift in gaming and everyone knows it, we now have all seen it. Video games imply one thing completely different for the era rising up in the present day than it did for me. Once I grew up on my Amiga 500, I used to be escaping into a world, I used to be escaping into a display and I used to be enjoying these video games with a very set goal.
“The major goal in the present day for youths rising up is to seek out an exercise to do in a social area along with their pals. Secondarily, it is regardless of the exercise truly is round it.” It’s an commentary that rings very true following the large spike in gamers this summer season for video games corresponding to Develop a Backyard and Steal the Brainrot, experiences that helped smash engagement information on Roblox — a social gaming platform that LEGO has to date steered clear of.
“The players are very essentially completely different,” Löving continues. So, the place does that go away LEGO?
“I used to be very fortunate to work on LEGO Worlds,” Nielsen remembers, a LEGO-y sandbox recreation that permit gamers construct intricate fashions utilizing digital blocks. Whereas profitable sufficient, it was a product of its time — and regardless of the LEGO branding, it by no means appeared to hassle the already-dominant Minecraft, the sport it was regularly most in comparison with. Nonetheless, its ambitions had been clear. “That for me was a testomony of what the bodily brick was in a digital area,” Nielsen continues. “We had followers creating fashions, creating worlds, creating tales, and I believe that is actually the facility of digital play the place you’ll be able to create and share in other ways versus what you’ll be able to in the bodily world.
After working at LEGO for over a decade, Nielsen stated the conversations she had engaged on the concept for Worlds stay “the identical tales and the identical issues we speak about” in the present day. “We want to combine IPs, we have to determine what is the digital model of the bodily expression. What’s the actual true recreation model of that? I do not assume the conversations have modified a lot,” she continued. “It’s extra about truly adapting to how children play in the present day and being open-minded about the way you diversify play, the way you develop into inclusive so that you simply make the best kind of play for youths in the world they dwell in. I believe that is the place we have moved a lot by the final couple of years truly.
“Children actually use video video games as a approach to keep social and a place the place can they meet up with their pals,” Nielsen continues, echoing Löving’s earlier phrases. “After all we wish to present up in protected and optimistic methods, however I believe that simply speaks to the kind of video games and the kind of play we actually have to function the LEGO model. It’s not about solely having one model that matches for players, it is about having a various portfolio, for various play wants and completely different moments.”
It’s an method that LEGO has demonstrated over the previous few months, launching the Mario Celebration-esque LEGO Celebration to foster cross-generational multiplayer, the identical month as indie puzzle platformer LEGO Voyagers. “LEGO Celebration, that is actually the place I wish to play with my pals or with my household,” Nielsen notes. “LEGO Voyagers in the meantime, was a check of my relationship, I am not going to lie. There was a little bit of ‘go away, that is me enjoying now.'”
And then there’s LEGO Fortnite, which continues to evolve week by week. Its arduous to gauge the present degree of its total success versus expectations, particularly when evaluating it to one thing like Develop a Backyard’s viral reputation. However its most substantial providing, LEGO Fortnite Odyssey, stays an evergreen hit and can quickly obtain its subsequent huge replace (which followers count on will add characters from the massively fashionable Ninjago franchise). Position-playing sim possibility LEGO Brick Life, in the meantime, enjoys a smaller viewers, although is presently internet hosting a huge The Simpsons takeover. And a core attraction for LEGO right here stays the flexibility for gamers to construct and make their very own mini-games — one thing which ought to solely develop into simpler to do and extra superior in potential 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 develop the chance for creators to make their favourite LEGO recreation, to inform their tales by gaming. It’s nonetheless early days truly in that area,” she continues. “It’s not that we have not had digital constructing or digital creation in our portfolio for the previous 30 years, however the world round it has modified, as has the platforms and the tempo of creation. When Fred joined, we had this type of [joke] like, ‘You have been used to creating a recreation and it takes 5 years, I can do what you do and try this in 4 hours as an alternative.'”
Whereas that is probably not true — but — of one thing that appears as polished as TT Video games’ upcoming LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Darkish Knight, some of LEGO’s earlier output may definitely be recreated in Fortnite in the present day, corresponding to LEGO Island, the model’s second online game (and its first actual digital hit). “It’s simply a completely different actuality of making experiences and testing new issues and attempting them out in a manner quicker engine with the best accomplice, with the best creators,” Nielsen says.
“And going again to what I discussed round actually understanding players of in the present day,” Löving provides. “Co-creation, company, all of the issues that you simply simply talked about. They’re turning into in a short time, if not already, desk stakes for a lot of experiences on the market, particularly the large platforms.”
All of that stated, LEGO’s extra conventional gaming experiences are additionally not absolutely going away — as subsequent yr’s arival of LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Darkish Knight proves. It was one of this yr’s greatest and best-received gaming reveals, and was just lately proven to a massively optimistic reception throughout Gamescom 2025. For LEGO, experiences like it’s set to supply additionally stay a cruical half of its model providing.
“I handed down Star Wars to my son by a Lego recreation, Skywalker saga,” Löving stated. “That’s a lot for a dad, to truly have that have collectively along with your son — not simply enjoying collectively however passing down a fandom, enabled by the truth that it is a LEGO recreation. Even earlier than I joined the corporate, I used to be simply impressed to see, ‘how can we even dial that up? How can we try this and actually make it intergenerational play?'”
“Our model stands for a lot of issues and I believe in some moments you are actually diving in and also you’re immersing your self in like a six-hour session,” Nielsen affirms. “I play legacy board video games, I do know it’ll take a very long time. I am invested, and it is even higher if I can truly play alongside or sofa co-op with some of my pals or relations. That is incredible and I believe that is what TT Video games does so effectively.”
As LEGO enters its fourth decade in the digital area, the corporate clearly has ambitions that vary past easy, static plastic. Ever because it dipped its toe into the world of easy robotics with MindStorms, by to its rather more just lately interactivitiy melded into LEGO Tremendous Mario bricks, its clear the corporate is eager to experiment with what’s doable with play. LEGO Dimensions, the model’s experiment in the toys-to-life class, was one other instance of that — and with its give attention to IP mashups and journey, could possibly be seen as a precursor to LEGO Fortnite in the present day.
On the finish of the day, although, Nielsen says it is all about discovering the correct of play for the best viewers. “Typically there’s a time for a recreation after which you’ll be able to nearly take that recreation and convey it into the now — or to the longer term with completely different flavors and twists,” she says. “It’s no completely different than what’s our LEGO model of Darth Vader or Batman. I believe there’s one thing generational to it.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s Information Editor. You possibly can attain Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or discover him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social