There’s no doubt thatLEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagapushes the boundaries of theLEGOvideo game franchise. It appears determined to be a fresh start for the series, introducing totally new mechanics while overhauling some central aspects of the series. From its vast overworld to its staggering list of hundreds of playable characters, every aspect ofLEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagaseems poised to break free from tradition. However,The Skywalker Sagais far from the firstLEGOgame to experiment with the formula. It owes many of its central facets and its spirit of innovation to games likeLEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes.
Released in 2012,LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroesintroduced a number of major innovations that changed the franchise’s formula forever, including its totally new approach to an overworld.LEGO Batman 2’s decision to replace the traditional hub with a large world that players are encouraged to explore carried over intoLEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham,which applied the open-world concept to a series of planets, rather than just one city.LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagaowes a lot to both of these games, which experimented with theLEGOfranchise’s overworld long beforeThe Skywalker Sagasought to capture a whole galaxy of planets.
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LEGO Batman 2’s Groundbreaking Overworld
The Skywalker Saga’s overworld wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t forLEGO Batman 2.BeforeLEGO Batman 2,allLEGOgames featured a small hub where players could travel to levels new and old, buy new playable characters, look at their Minikit collection, and so on. This included the firstLEGO Batmangame, which limited players to the Batcave and Arkham Asylum while they weren’t actively playing a level. In developingLEGO Batman 2,Travellers' Tales decided to push boundaries quite a bit. Instead of using the Batcave as a hub again, it allowed players to run around Gotham in search of levels and objectives, which was a level of freedomunprecedented in aLEGOgame.
Exploring Gotham was one ofthe best parts ofLEGO Batman 2.Players could use the vehicles they’d unlocked to drive and fly around at their own pace, seeing a pretty sprawling and detailed rendition of Batman’s home city of Gotham. What’s more, Travellers' Tales filled this overworld with a ton of objectives to keep players busy after they finishedLEGO Batman 2’s story. There were a staggering 150 Gold Bricks for players to collect, which they could then use to unlock certain playable characters. What’s more,LEGO Batman 2players could save various citizens in peril scattered around Gotham and track down Red Bricks to activate Extras and put new twists on the gameplay.
Although Travellers' Tales has provided fairly limited details onLEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga’s overworld, it sounds like it’ll resembleLEGO Batman 2’s Gotham quite a bit. Odds are that players can search the overworld for unlockables and bonus objectives for a very long time. Fans already know thatthere’s a lot ofLEGOvehicles availablein theSkywalker Sagaoverworld, and considering the fact thatThe Skywalker Sagahas around 300 playable characters, the overworld will surely be packed with ways to unlock newStar Warscharacters to play as.LEGO Batman 2’s open-world got praise from critics and fans, soThe Skywalker Sagawill likely lean on this successful ancestor’s design choices.
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LEGO Batman 3 Was an Early Skywalker Saga
The Skywalker Sagasells itself on an overworld composed of manyStar Warsplanets, but it’s actually not the firstLEGOgame with an intergalactic overworld. In fact,LEGO Batman 3did it just a couple of years afterLEGO Batman 2broke new ground with its overworld. InLEGO Batman 3,the Justice League and the Legion of Doom team up and travel into outer space to stop the villainous Brainiac, who wants to capture Earth. The result is aLEGO Batmangame where DC heroes and villains travel to the planets of the various Lantern Corps, aiming to free the different Lantern Corps leaders that Brainiac has kidnapped. While these planets are represented as levels, they’re alsopart ofLEGO Batman 3’s overworld. Players can travel to each planet from the Justice League Watchtower and explore them on foot.
The Lantern Corps planets inLEGO Batman 3introduced a brilliant new level of overworld variety that set it apart fromLEGO Batman 2.If descriptions of the game are to be believed,LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagawill be wildly different from previousLEGO Star Warsgames for the same reason. Players will be able to run around ontwo dozen notableStar Warsplanets and moons, collecting studs and solving puzzles. It’s a diverse sci-fi overworld that’s far broader in themes and aesthetics thanLEGO Batman 2’s Gotham, or even bigger worlds likeLEGO The Lord of the Rings' Middle-earth. That diversity of settings drawn fromLEGO Batman 3’s spacefaring model will serve theLEGO Star Warsseries well.
The Skywalker Saga is LEGO’s Next Step
Looking back, it wasn’t hard to tell thatLEGO Batman 2was a revolutionary game in theLEGOgame franchise. After all,using Gotham as an open overworldwas only one of its innovations. It was also the firstLEGOgame to feature voice acting, telling an original story with fully voiced DC characters. Fans and critics responded positively toLEGO Batman 2’s story and dialogue, and so voice acting and detailed stories have become newLEGOgame conventions.LEGO Batman 2was a big step forward for Travellers' Tales star franchise, and it always will be.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagacould very well be the next step forward. Between its interplanetary overworld, massive character roster, and enhancements to theLEGOfranchise’s combat,The Skywalker Sagaclearly aims to set a new bar for content quantity and quality inLEGOgames. FutureLEGOgames could very well be on the same scale asThe Skywalker Saga,featuring hundreds of characters and diverse combat mechanics, yetpreservingLEGO’s humorous charmand approachable puzzle and adventure gameplay all the while. SinceThe Skywalker Sagais overhauling the franchise by building onLEGO Batman’s ideas, maybe the next bigLEGOgame will return to DC, honoringLEGO Batman 2’s bold ideas.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Sagareleases in early 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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