Parent's Guide: LEGO Worlds - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

What is LEGO Worlds?

LEGO Worlds is a creation themed co-op adventure - and one that plays out very differently to the other LEGO games. Here, the emphasis is on building, as you set out on a quest to become a master builder, and learn how to make use of the powerful building tools the game offers. Whether you're playing on your own, or in split-screen co-op, the sky's the limit in LEGO Worlds, and once you've mastered the tools, much like in Minecraft, you're free to create, build, and design almost anything you can imagine, from detailed individual models, to entire worlds of your own creation, with a huge variety of LEGO pieces on offer.

How do you play LEGO Worlds?

With an emphasis on creation and imagination, LEGO Worlds is a game divided into two parts. When you first start playing, you'll work your way through a fairly traditional sort of LEGO adventure - only rather than playing through individual levels, you're instead jumping between randomly generated worlds, performing quests for characters who need your help. Whether you're rounding up pigs for a farmer, re-painting someone's house, or repairing a barn (with bricks of your choosing), many of the quests serve as one big tutorial for the game's many creation tools. Along the way, you'll unlock new brick types, and discover new pre-made structures you can use in your own worlds.

The other half of LEGO Worlds is all about creation. With worlds that are randomly generated, you can either jump between the worlds the game creates, or get stuck in and build one of your own, with every single brick, from the tallest skyscraper to the ground beneath your feet being editable. You can lower and raise the terrain; dig holes and tunnels underground; place some pre-built structures (which can be anything from piles of sweets to tables, barns, and even vehicles), or create something spectacular on your own, brick by brick, just as you would a real LEGO model.

As a handy bonus, whether you're playing online or in offline split-screen, you even can choose to load your world in a mode that won't save changes you make - perfect if you're inviting a friend that likes smashing things up!

How easy is LEGO Worlds to pick up and play?

Being so much broader in scope than most LEGO games, LEGO Worlds is also that little bit more complex to pick up and play, and is aimed at a slightly older audience. While the basic gameplay here is pretty straight forward - and even the building tools are pretty easy to use - some of the quests can sometimes be a little bit challenging. Some require you to build something that meets certain criteria the game sets, and it may be tricky to make something that the game thinks fits the bill. Others may require an item you can only find in another world, so you'll need to come back once you've found it. For others still, though, most of the challenge comes in figuring out where to go.

While beams of light will shine down from the sky to show you where the all-important gold bricks (collectibles which unlock new worlds) are, sometimes, rather than pointing to a quest or a chest, they'll simply shine at a spot on the ground with nothing there - meaning it's up to you to delve underground. Instead of accessing an easy hatch, you'll instead have to drill your way down until you eventually reach the underground tunnels - and as these too are randomly generated, they can be a bit of a maze to find your way around.

With so much flexibility, navigating your way around the game's menus is also a little bit complex too - but while the game undoubtedly requires more in the way of manual dexterity, and even patience, than the other LEGO games, there's little here that children shouldn't be able to do if they stick with it. It's simply a different pace of LEGO game.

With nothing in the way of voice acting (characters in LEGO Worlds instead speak in an appealing gibberish), a basic reading ability is required. Sample sentences include:

• Cap'n wants a Pirate Clock Tower, but I can't open the chest to get the plans! Can ya help?
• Some pigs and chickens is what I need right here. Savvy?
• Somebody ate the wall! Can you build a new one for me?
• Those dang bandits! What I need is a Rifle! They won't mess with my stable then!

As with other LEGO games, there's little in the way of mature content in LEGO Worlds. With no sex and no swearing, the strongest any mature content gets is some very, very minor/cartoon levels of violence. Characters can whack each other with spades, swords or fish; shoot each other with toy guns; or even pelt each other with dynamite, but there's nothing in the way of realism here, with characters simply flashing, then breaking into their component parts when defeated.

In terms of multiplayer, while the game does allow two players to play together online, there are a number of safeguards in place. First, whether on console or PC, you can only play with people on your friends list, rather than strangers. Secondly, there's also (at the time of writing) no way to download other people's creations freely - instead, you can download one or two specially chosen items that have been curated by developers TT Games on the main menu, removing any risk of coming across anything crude.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Playstation 4