Wandering around LEGO Worlds

In the last few days, an alpha version of a game called LEGO Worlds has appeared on Steam Early Access. For a mere USD$15, you can explore a huge number of very Minecraft-esque procedurally generated worlds. It’s like Minecraft, so there is open world construction (and demolition), and exploration, where everything, and I mean everything, is crafted from digital LEGO elements. 

I downloaded it last night and had a bit of a play, and I have to say, for an Early Access game, it’s pretty good! Now from the outset, there are going to be bugs. Animals stuck in trees, items hovering in the air, and some messy elements to moving and building, but it’s good fun for a very unfinished game. If you aren’t sure what Early Access is, it means it’s very unfinished, has no real polish, and only has a little bit of the planned features of the game. It’s to whet people’s appetites, and for me, it’s worked. I’ve never really had much luck with other LEGO games, so this is really exciting, and I’ve been playing Minecraft since it’s alpha stage, so seeing LEGO take a shot is great.

So, what can you do? After selecting a world, full of water, hills, trees, plants, a few buildings, lava and more, you skydive into the land and you’re off. Dotted around the landscape are controllable LEGO vehicles such as cars, bikes, buggies, helicopters, planes, and a big drilling machine that will drill a nice tunnel through anything.  There are also animals such as horses, goats, pigs, sheep, bears, eagles and dragons, which are all rideable. Yes. You can ride an eagle or a dragon. 

There are also loads of plants and other elements, that once you walk into, will be added to your prop inventory, so you can buy them and build them to your heart’s content. These same elements are destroyable. When you break them, the game’s currency of ‘studs’ (we know them as the humble 1×1 plate) fall out of them. They get added to your bank, which  you can spend later on the items in your inventory.

Finally, there are other NPCs of LEGO minifigures that are walking around. Some are friendly, so when you walk up to them, they turn, wave at you, and are added to your character inventory. Others are a little more hostile, like mummies, skeletons, and cave people, which you will have to attack in order to get them added. Be careful though, skeletons are a little nasty, and their mates will come and get you!

So, after figuring it out, I went exploring. If you’re overly destructive like me, you’ll rack up some studs pretty quickly. Anything I found, I tried to destroy! There’s loads in this game, and for a game with so far no real mission, it’s quite exciting, as each world is different, with different characters and buildings. So far I’ve only seen a Sphinx and a few pyramids (some of which are filled with skeletons and goodies, others are just solid), a nice looking barn with some hay, a Chinese temple, and a large hollow boulder. Inside are some of the standard chests, but there’s also a big, brick-built chest, with some decent loot in it. So far I’ve picked up a cutlass, gun, dynamite, sword, fish and banana. The fish and banana are just throwable and don’t do anything, but throw the dynamite and stuff goes boom! Very good fun. I did recently stumble upon a steam roller that lays down road (1×1 grey tiles) over anything as long as it isn’t too steep. That’s a good one to have!

The great thing about this is that for each world you start, your inventory comes with you. Whether this will continue remains to be seen, but it’s great so far! There are other items in the game that are pre-built, such as temples and lollypops, a great Gingerbread house, and a buildable set – 31038: Changing Seasons, which has been recreated perfectly in the game, including a functioning pool, bbq and lawn mower. There is only the one set at the moment, but more will be added. 

There’s  also a pretty good creative mode, which gives you a selection of building elements in a huge variety of colours to build your own creation from scratch. It’s tricky getting the camera angle right, but this will hopefully change in the future. 

I’m really impressed with the whole setup. Yes, there are lots of things that need ironing out – better camera options, selection options, more to do, more to interact with, multiplayer, I could go on, but for an alpha start, it’s pretty great!

It’s only available on PC through Steam Early Access, but get on it. Things will definitely improve! It’s extremely popular on Steam, so be with the crowd, and don’t miss out. It really is the game LEGO should have made ages ago – let’s not talk about LEGO Universe, shall we? It will be very interesting to see where LEGO and the developers at TT Games take it, particularly with LEGO’s already strong relationship with Mojang in the Minecraft sets. Only time will tell! Back to riding my dragon…