New era dawns for LEGO games with in-house development a priority—but there’s room for concern

A new era is on the horizon for games under the LEGO umbrella with a move to more in-house development, but despite that being in the early stages, there is certainly room for concern.

The long partnership with TT Games, who are behind the majority of LEGO games in the past decade or so, including LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga and LEGO Marvel Superheroes, is drawing to a close, and while there’s plenty of reasons to be excited, we’ve already seen some worrying signs. Last year’s LEGO Horizon Adventures, released on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, was a bold choice for a game, adopting the LEGO mechanics into Sony’s Horizon brand, but it was a disappointing entry and fell significantly short of the expectations set from the success of the TT Games partnership.

Players should expect more games like that, however, as LEGO boss Niels Christiansan told The Financial Times that in-house development of titles is now a priority and that he would “rather overinvest” in keeping things in-house rather than handing licenses to outside developers.

This approach has already seen success, as LEGO’s ongoing partnership with Epic Games resulted in a huge Fortnite boom, with almost every skin in the game now having its own LEGO version for use in LEGO Fortnite Odyssey, the Minecraft-like experience, and LEGO Brick Life—on top of thousands of creator-made islands.

While that success shows that there is plenty of life left in the LEGO tank, LEGO Horizon Adventures was at the complete opposite end of the spectrum and will have left many, myself included, wondering why the tried and tested formula with TT Games is ending.

It will certainly be interesting to see how TT Games’ next LEGO entry, which is yet to be revealed and unlikely to release this year, is received given it now seems highly likely that this will be the last title released in the partnership.

The move does at least open the door for more than one LEGO-themed video game to be in development at once and the list of potential collabs is seemingly endless—with real-life LEGO sets having everything from Back to the Future to Jurassic Park, both of which have already been seen in video game form. LEGO’s close ties with Disney in real-life sets tied to the existing partnership both comapnies have with Epic Games is also interesting, opening the door for a world where all the famous franchises from the house of mouse exist in LEGO form alongside each other.

While that’s all well and good, I just want another LEGO Marvel entry, as I can never get enough of my favorite heroes and villains in brick form. If I get that, I’ll be happy. I’m a man of simple taste.