With the highly anticipated 'The LEGO Movie' set to be released next February (yes, LEGO's getting a film - if you haven't already seen the hugely tongue in cheek trailer, you can find it here), it's perhaps no surprise that long-time LEGO game developer Traveller's Tales have announced that they'll continue their mission to brick-ify every film franchise going by releasing The LEGO Movie Videogame. Making it the game of the film of the toy, LEGO is putting a lot of weight behind their first foray into the world of film, with the game rounding out a package of cool new stuff that's set to include building sets and a series of collectable minifigures. Luckily for us, the LEGO games have all been great fun from their inception with LEGO Star Wars through to the most recent LEGO City Undercover, so we're excited at the prospect of a new adventure.
While little has been revealed about the game so far, beyond the fact it'll follow the same plot as the film, the initial screens seem like it'll be business as pretty much usual in terms of the gameplay, albeit potentially on a much larger scale. You'll most likely be once again completing various missions, building and demolishing LEGO structures and of course hoovering up countless shiny LEGO studs across a series of film-themed locations. A busy city construction site and a wild western town are amongst the areas revealed so far, with the biggest difference being that everything in sight appears to be actually made out of real LEGO bricks, rather than the mix of real world environments with LEGO figures and models we've come to expect from the recent games. Whether that'll mean entirely destructible environments, or whether it's just the developers getting to grips with the extra power of the upcoming new consoles, the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, remains to be seen.
Is that a jet pack we see? Or just a LEGO figure that can jump abnormally high?
The LEGO Movie game will feature 15 levels and over 90 playable characters, ranging from main man (well, main minifigure) Emmet and the Morgan Freeman-voiced mystic Vitruvius all the way down to the more obscure 'blink and you'll miss 'em' bit players.
As seen in the teaser trailer above, the film's set to feature characters from several different themes, including the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, DC Comics superheroes and LEGO's own classic 80s Spaceman. While there's no info yet as to whether these will feature in the game, having characters from multiple themes available could make for some unique puzzles and gameplay elements - and seeing as most of the cameos have already had their own specific LEGO games, we'd be surprised if they didn't at least show their faces. And while the screenshots don't make it obvious whether the game's an open world adventure in the manner of LEGO City Undercover, or more mission based like the previous games, we'd actually err towards the former judging by the scale seen in some of the pictures.
Please have flyable helicopters. Please have flyable helicopters. Please have flyable helicopters.
While it looks like The LEGO Movie Videogame won't stray too far from Traveller's Tales' winning formula, we'd be shocked if there weren't a few surprises in store. The announcement comes with scant few details of what we can expect from the game, but presumably more will be revealed in the build-up to release. As long as it retains the trademark humour and drop-in local co-operative play that's defined previous LEGO games, then it's OK with us.
The LEGO Movie Videogame will be released in 2014 on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS and PS Vita.
