A week or so ago, we were invited to attend a LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga preview event put on by TT Games. The event went in-depth into what to expect from the developer’s latest and greatest LEGO title to date. What we came away with blew our minds and raised the expectation level of what a LEGO game should be.
Let’s dig right into it.
So much to see, but at the same time different
TT Games designer Mike Consalvey led the charge during the preview and introduced the game’s nine-part pieces, which were the set of trilogies established through the famous (and sometimes infamous) films. The preview began with Star Wars: Episode 4 – A New Hope, which featured a heavy amount of LEGO humor, but also curiously a camera angle that wasn’t expected from a LEGO game, third-person perspective. The shift in camera angles, where you’re looking over the shoulder of your character instead of down on top or wide zoomed on the side, did wonders for the environments and changed up the gameplay style and mechanics considerably. Getting down and dirty into the action means that you get into the story, which seemed to be a goal for the folks at TT Games. And you want to be engaged and engulfed by these stories.
The shift to third-person also allowed the player to focus in on specific parts of the environment as well as aim down sights. As Consalvey went through the episode preview playing as Leia Organa, he showed us how accuracy through this perspective changed how the game could be played. Allowing Leia to shoot targets and be specific with stormtroopers, which sometimes led to solving puzzles and secret events helped to open up the game quite a bit. It was interesting to see in action and far more comfortable during the preview. I had wondered why TT Games never tried this before, as I’m sure they wondered as well because damn…it works.
The third-person perspective also allowed the player to enjoy the construction of the visuals. I loved LEGO Builder’s Journey visually. I felt like that was the most insane gorgeousness ever conceived by a LEGO game. There was ray tracing, accurate lighting, and it just screamed that there was an actual LEGO set in front of you on the screen. It was breathtaking. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is almost at that level of beauty. There is beautiful ray tracing present, lighting that goes with the accurate environment, and it has a nice Star Wars sheen to it that matches how the original episodes were lit and presented in theaters. What we saw with the episode 4 preview, wowsers. It was stunning. The blocks on the floor reflected the characters, the lighting situation fluctuated with character movements, and it was simply one of the more gorgeous LEGO games to date. In the past, LEGO games were colorful and did their best to match the mood of the movie they were mimicking, but this was a new level of design visually. And that continued throughout the different areas that we saw in the preview.
Story and Mechanics
As the episode 4 preview continued, we were introduced to a few other goodies. First, as stated above, the humor that you’re used to seeing in these games is still present. The voice acting was spot on the characters and the wackadoodle-ness of the LEGO brand was very thick. The good folks at TT Games also threw in some love from outside the trilogies for Star Wars fans. For this part of the preview, we saw the infamous Vader scene at the end of Rogue One make it to episode 4. Darth comes in and tears poor rebel soldiers to bits. It was horrifying as it was hilarious in expected LEGO fashion, but it was neat to see Rogue One story bits make it into the trilogy. That scene absolutely deserved to be included. As the stories go, though, expect all the stories to be told as you might think they would go. Yes, even the last one, which was a hodge-podge of what-the-heck. The stories do stay true to their form.
On the mechanics side of the tracks, there are a few new improvements to the old system. There is a new combo meter with bigger attacks, more powerful ones, and counter-attacks. You can mix-match button combinations to create combo attacks. The game is loose on how you can do it and accurate on its execution. The bigger attacks are easier to pull off and more devastating. We didn’t get too much detail beyond seeing it in motion, but it looked spectacular and effective.
Thanks to the new third-person view, you also can take the cover position. If you’re under heavy fire, and there was a scene where Leia was pinned down by two stormtroopers, you can take cover and fire from there. Taking cover works with aiming down sights, which equals out to something familiar and comfortable that you’ve seen in other third-person-driven games.
There are also the ever-present branching options in the game, something that Knights of the Old Republic fans should be familiar with in their Star Wars experience. You have choices you can make to complete missions. This means you get different experiences with different choices, which also means that there is potential for replay value. Having multiple routes to choose from really does open the gameplay.
The gameplay also features some intelligent AI reactions depending on what character you’re using. For example, if you’re a droid, then you won’t usually get attacked by enemies, as droids typically aren’t a threat. If you’re a Rancor, you’re going to cause panic amongst the NPCs and more than likely draw enemies. Oh, I didn’t mention you could be a Rancor? My bad.
Other mechanics in the game include Jedi having the ability to throw lightsabers. You can throw out lightsabers at enemies and have them return to you. Like a lightsaber boomerang. Having that sort of mechanic for attacks from a distance will play beautifully into this game. Just imagine it.
There are a lot of new additions to the mechanics, but we’ll see how it goes when we have the game in hand. Right now, they seem to be on the right track.
Open World Goodness
The preview shifted between several locations after episode 4, each having its own flavor and style, as you would expect from different Star Wars scenes. One thing was for certain, the limitations of the old linear LEGO universe structure seemed to loosen quite a bit with this preview. This game wants you to explore and that’s something that was limited in previous iterations of LEGO games. For example, there was a scene where Consalvey played Qui-Gon Jinn on Tatooine, and the girth of the environment was far bigger than I have seen in a LEGO game. There was legitimately a large amount of space to explore and the ability to discover items of interest in locations that may not have been part of the campaign. There was a part where Qui-Gon went down a valley and came upon a large temple entrance. While we didn’t see what was in the temple, it just further proved that TT Games really wants you to expand your efforts and explore. There appear to be a lot of goodies and hidden areas to find in this game. Qui-Gon also played soccer in one area. Yeah, stuff like that is hidden and waiting for you to find. Exploring was a huge repeated deal during this preview.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga also features a fast way to switch between episodes. Typically, games like this would have you back out of the current episode and all the way back to the title screen. TT Games gives you the ability to instantly jump between episodes by simply opening up the game’s menu and choosing which episode you want to jump into. While I can’t say the speed of the process is consistent between all consoles that it releases on, because we didn’t see all the consoles in motion, the preview we saw was nearly an instant jump from episode to episode. Again, when you see the size of the world, you’ll understand why this is impressive.
Related, there is a galaxy map. Each planet on the map can contain its own set of quests (side and otherwise). The map is big and jumping between planets is as easy as jumping between episodes, or so it seemed during the preview.
Other Odds and Ends
Other noteworthy items of interest were as follows:
– There are a ton of character classes to choose from in the game. They include scoundrels, villains, bounty hunters, astromechs, and such. You can choose and go from there. Character classes bring their own flavor of functionality with them, or so it seems.
– As per usual in a LEGO game, you have plenty of characters to unlock. PLENTY in this game. Enjoy that part.
– Lightsabers can be used to cut through walls or reach high places. Both were shown during the preview and both opened up intriguing possibilities (secret rooms, exploring new places, etc.).
– Co-op in the game is split-screen and still third-person. Harkening back to better days of local co-op, the screen splits when you play with someone. It makes sense, especially when you’re looking for hidden objects and extra challenges. Having the ability to go your own way and work on something while your partner goes in a different direction is nice. You no longer have to share the screen and do a tug-o-war with priorities. You can also do instant drop-in, drop-out with co-op, the latter of which changes the game to single-player.
– There are space battles. X-Wing space battles. Fully controlled X-Wing space battles. Think about that for a second. Yeah, enjoy that thought. I enjoyed watching it. OH! And watch out for Kyber comets. Those are rather important. *wink-wink*
Anyway, there was a lot to digest during the preview, but all of what I saw seemed like a positive direction for the franchise. If it turns out to be half of what I think it will, then this will be the best LEGO game in the entire franchise. It seems to be heading in that direction.
Stay tuned for more.
