LEGO is one of the key brands in the video game industry and has produced tons of excellent fun titles in the past. However, there has been one thing common among those titles, and that nearly all of them were officially licensed titles and featured sets from different franchises. Light Brick Studios has set out to change this with LEGO Builder’s Journey, their brand-new project which is an original LEGO title and features normal LEGO bricks for creating the world and its characters. This is our review of LEGO Builder’s Journey in which we relax and experience the journey of a father and son through a beautiful LEGO world.
LEGO Builder’s Journey revolves around a father and son duo who are traveling a world made out of LEGO bricks. Unlike the previous titles, LEGO Builder’s Journey is a chilling puzzle game that is made for players of all ages. With its simple gameplay mechanics to decently complex puzzle-solving, you will be relaxing to the soothing soundtrack in LEGO Builder’s Journey while experiencing the narrative of an emotional father, son story. There are no licensed LEGO pieces here and that is what makes this game so special because all the ideas that went into it are completely original.
The gameplay of LEGO Builder’s Journey is pretty simple. The levels in the game are not too big however each one of them is brilliantly detailed. Your main goal is to reach the end of every level and to do so, you have to form paths. This is done by creating bridges and connecting different areas with each other with the strategic placement of bricks on the level. Each level has a limited number of bricks available to you and you have to work around those bricks to reach the end of the level. To move the son forward, you have to rely on the two yellow movement bricks. The son will only move to these single slot yellow bricks, and you have to place them closer to each other in order to move the son to the exit.
Unlike most LEGO games that we have seen, LEGO Builder’s Journey also has its own design for characters as well. We do not have the traditional LEGO characters here and you will instead play experience the journey of a father and his son who are made from regular LEGO bricks and they do not even have arms or legs like traditional LEGO mini-figures. The developer detailed this earlier and said that this is because the real stars of the LEGO Builder’s Journey are the bricks and both father and son are made up of bricks. Additional NPCs or any other character that you meet in the game are also made similarly.
LEGO Builder’s Journey might look like a simple puzzle game and play like one as well however when it comes to game design and its visuals, nothing is simple. While everything is made from bricks, the world feels lively as mud and swampy areas have bricks that show mud bubbles and waterfalls that break spilling water everywhere. As you progress in your journey, you travel through a world shown through these small island levels where the creativity of the level designer is visible in the small details. The PC version looks just like the real-world LEGO universe that you would create in real-world although with some cool animations here and there.
Thanks to the improved PC power, Light Brick Studio has managed to add Raytracing in the PC version as well which makes the lighting in the game really stand out and look amazing. The reflections on the bricks in various levels really stand out as compared to its Apple Arcade version or the Nintendo Switch release. This is not the first time for me to experience LEGO Builder’s Journey as I did play the title earlier on Apple Arcade however PC definitely brings out the best of the title specially in terms of visuals. If you are looking for visuals, PC should be your platform of choice for playing this adventure.
The main idea behind LEGO Builder’s Journey is to have a peaceful title that you can enjoy at the end of a hectic day and LEGO Builder’s Journey does exactly that. It is a peaceful puzzle game with a soothing soundtrack that is even pleasant to watch if someone else is playing. The soft tick, tick of removing and placing down the bricks is extremely satisfying to hear and really let’s you feel like you are playing with LEGO in real life, apart from the painful stepping on them. The no-guidance puzzles are not that hard to figure out despite the puzzles getting increasingly challenging as you progress in the game.
Overall, LEGO Builder’s Journey is a stable title technically as well. I did not encounter a single error or glitch during my gameplay however I did manage to glitch myself out of a level but that was on me and not the game. The only thing that really bothered me while playing it on PC was the camera control. While mouse usually offers the best way to manage the camera, here, the camera felt really odd and for some puzzles, I was not able to properly align the bricks over and over. It would appear like the brick is in the proper place but upon release, it would just fall down. I would like to see a little bit of camera and controls tweaking with future updates because this might annoy some of the new players of the game as well.
Another lost potential with LEGO Builder’s Journey at this point is the lack of mods and custom levels in the game. PC and particular Steam is notorious for excellent community-made content and not adding the Steam Workshop support to the game will be a lost opportunity to increase the game’s life massively. At this point, after completing, you might play it once more but after that, you will be done with the game. However, adding custom levels to the game will massively increase your drive to go back and try out some new levels and even make some levels of your own for the whole world to try them out.
Despite the PC version supporting Raytracing, the developers have made sure that you do not necessarily need a top-of-the-line PC to enjoy the game. You have three modes to play the game including the DX12 mode which is the best way to experience the title however you can also start and play the game in DX11 compatibility mode for older builds. If your PC is not very strong or a little dated, there is a Classic Mode for low-spec PCs as well so you can at least enjoy the game or your low-spec PC or laptop. This makes LEGO Builder’s Journey an excellent choice for your chill time or when you want to wind up after a long day and you just want to chill in your bed.
Final Verdict:
We have seen very few original LEGO titles for quite some time now and mostly we have seen different licensed LEGO franchises coming out as video games. LEGO Builder’s Journey shows that original ideas set in the LEGO universe can be amazing as well if executed properly. The PC release is the definitive version of the game to experience it with the highest visual fidelity available to players. While I am not a fan of the camera controls and the gameplay controls could use a little bit of tweaking, overall, I loved the setting and premise of LEGO Builder’s Journey. It shows that not everything needs to be licensed to be good especially when it comes out of LEGO, and I hope that we see additional original LEGO titles released soon. For the time being, I will highly recommend that you jump into LEGO Builder’s Journey and experience a great story.
Final Score: 8.5/10
