When Is Lego Skywalker Saga Come Out

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is stuffed with take chances

(Image credit: Warner Bros)

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is finally here, after many years of teasing updates and burdensome delays.

Developer Traveler's Tales has recreated all nine of the mainline Star Wars films in its trademark mannerly style and we've spent the weekend getting in amongst the bricks to encounter how they stack up against other Lego games. At that place are hundreds of characters to unlock, overhauled gainsay to get grips with, flyable starships to pilot, and a whole galaxy to explore. The question is, is this the Star Wars game y'all're looking for?

Your first decision in Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is crucial: which trilogy to start with. We opted for the prequel movies, not considering they're our favorite (shout out to the original trilogy), but because the first Lego Star Wars game covered the prequel films back in 2005 and nosotros want to poke at that nostalgia (and run into how the games compare).

Afterwards a classic Star Wars clamber about intergalactic taxes and trade blockades, the shiny, plastic forms of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn walk onto the screen in all their minifig celebrity. From at that place, it'south straight into what makes these games so charming: a cinematic that had us giggling immediately – Traveler's Tales has lost none of its silly, self-referential humor over the years.

Traveler'due south Tales has lost none of its airheaded, cocky-referential humour over the years

If you're familiar with the films, you lot might look to commencement the game in that alarmingly clean briefing room that totally isn't a trap. Instead, Skywalker Saga'due south take on the Phantom Menace kicks off with you in full control of the Commonwealth starship on the way to the negotiations. It's a tease at how much bigger this game is than the 2005 original.

After landing on the Trade Federation's donut-shaped starship, nosotros walk effectually the big and ominously empty docking bay. A change that immediately jumps out is the camera, it now sits much closer to Qui-Gon than in the other Lego games, and information technology makes for a more than intimate view of the activity. Nosotros practise what any self-respecting Jedi would practice in this state of affairs and brainstorm to destroy every inanimate object in the room with our lightsaber. A little orangish objective marker tries to get us to talk to a waiting protocol droid, just those boxes weren't going to destroy themselves.

Qui-Gon swings his lightsaber with weight, easily eviscerating the random assortment of objects around the room; he feels powerful to play, more and so than in the Lego games that have come before. Naturally, we can also use the force to selection up the crates and containers effectually the room, bang-up them against the walls to make them explode in a shower of colors and Lego studs (the small plastic pegs you use equally currency). You can likewise throw your lightsaber at enemies (and boxes), using the forcefulness to pull information technology dorsum to your lego hook hand, making for a devastating ranged attack.

Size matters not (only it'southward all the same impressive)

As soon equally you open the Holoprojector, you get a sense of just how large The Skywalker Saga is. This carte screen shows a map of the entire galaxy, broken upwards into sectors. There are too tabs for characters (of which at that place are hundreds), ships, and skills. It's a little overwhelming. But, every bit we became familiar with the game, it's all useful data to have at your fingertips.

The combat overhaul makes fights experience smooth and reactive compared to previous games.

Surprisingly, the meeting room the protocol droid leads us into is a trap, only this gives us a fine opportunity to destroy things that fight back in a decidedly un-boxlike fashion. We used the force to boom droids into ane some other, our lightsaber to slice them limb from limb, and accidentally blew ourselves upward with an exploding barrel, it's all ridiculously expert fun. A major change to the traditional game's combat is the introduction of a philharmonic system that lets yous link your attacks together, instead of just swinging your weapon around frantically. The combat overhaul makes fights experience smooth and reactive compared to previous games.

As the concluding battle droid falls, we sprint for the loading bay and smuggle aboard a droid invasion transport about to make its way down to the surface of Naboo. Keenly enlightened that we're walking into the waiting artillery of anybody'south favorite Gungan: Jar-Jar Binks.

A sightseeing tour of Star Wars

Naboo is host to multiple areas you'll know from the films. You tin explore the Gungan City, running around the place equally an arms-flailing, tongue-waggling Jar-Jar Binks, hop into the Bongo ship and sail back to the planet'due south surface while dodging giant monsters, then, on the docks of the capital metropolis, find a huge hub surface area to explore.

The royal urban center of Theed is packed with behemothic glistening statues, massive courtyards, and lush gardens. There are characters with petty floating bricks over their heads who need tasks done for them. Completing sidequests, like fixing cleaved statues effectually the city, will reward you lot with Kyber bricks, a resource you tin can employ to unlock character abilities. We were in a rush to save the Queen, though, so Theed's statues remain unrepaired.

The ensuing rescue consists mostly of fighting waves of droid enemies all while keeping the Queen and her entourage prophylactic from equalizer burn. It'southward a challenging fight to get to the royal send, only nosotros become on board and break for orbit, rubber on our fashion to Tatooine.

Despite being comprised mostly of plastic, Mos Espa feels alive.

Afterwards the clinical Trade Federation transport and grandiose royal city on Naboo, Mos Espa and its teeming streets are a wonderfully dense change of stride. Nosotros find ourselves slowly moving the photographic camera to take in an surroundings that, despite being comprised mostly of plastic, feels alive. There are many little details that could become unnoticed, like the way Qui-Gon's lightsaber hilt shines as information technology swings back and along nether the harsh twin Suns of Tatooine, and the way the clay and sand of the desert planet realistically glaze his little plastic legs. Only, pocket-sized every bit these details are, they all add to the scene.

As nosotros walk through the streets of the rough town, a brawl breaks out, with light-green-skinned Rodians coming out of the woodwork to attack us. This gives us a run a risk to endeavor out the new shooting combat, as Padme is a fan of the blaster. Equally you lot aim down her gunsights, the camera goes in tight over her shoulder and a reticle comes up on the screen. This new style of aiming makes it meach easier to pull off headshots and boom off pieces of armor.

The Lego team wastes no time, keeping the action moving forth, in well-nigh a infinitesimal of us arriving we go from buying parts for our send to betting Anakin's freedom on a Pod Race. Most players volition exist familiar The Phantom Menace's story, so the pacey storytelling is refreshing.

That speedy pace does have its downsides, though. Nosotros'd happily spend more than time pod racing, merely it's quite a brusque segment in the Skywalker Saga, and information technology doesn't have fourth dimension to breathe. Nor does information technology help that the controls were unintuitive, getting in the way of what could have been an adrenaline-filled interlude.

A proper Mauling

The new combat system comes into its ain when we return to Naboo and take the fight to Darth Maul. Not simply is it thematically on point and consistently funny, but the duel also offers a existent challenge. With a mix of combo combat, quick-fourth dimension challenges, and puzzles, this is the highlight of The Phantom Menace portion of The Skywalker Saga.

Completing the story unlocks the Milky way Complimentary Play mode, letting you return to the planets you've explored, though yous can push button on with the trilogy and roll straight into Attack of The Clones. As you get deeper into the trilogy, the action steps upward both in claiming and complexity. Every bit we work through the battle droid foundries on Geonosis and towards our battle with Count Dooku, we add more characters to our party, many with new abilities to learn and mechanics to master, and we face up more than objectives that are more complicated than anything nosotros saw in the previous episode.

As you consummate more of the story, you'll observe areas you went through before open and offer more secrets to discover. The space sections yous use to travel between planets will become free roam areas, which you can fly about using the ships you've unlocked. You'll find Kyber Brick comets to explode for rewards and random encounters that can lead to even more boodle.

There are loads of side missions to consummate, too, application you studs and Kyber Crystals to upgrade your characters. For some of these quests, you'll need access to a certain graphic symbol form or have progressed far enough along in the story. For example, nosotros met a guy called Biggs Darklighter who had a mission for u.s., but we could only activate it every bit a scoundrel class character, and whiney Luke didn't exactly fit the beak. But, Han Solo on the other unarticulated mitt…

Despite spending ten hours with the game, nosotros've only begun to scratch the surface of this lovingly crafted globe. On summit of the many side missions notwithstanding to complete, we merely reached Episode Iv, which was already adding more mechanics and options from the get-get. There is withal an entire trilogy and a half to play through, more than planets to explore, and a genuinely daunting corporeality of content to uncover. Nosotros're drastic to continue exploring this galaxy far, far away. I that's filled with favorite characters, fantastic environments, and exciting challenges.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is out five Apr onPlayStation five, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and XBO.