The first reviews are in from those who have had the chance to play LEGO Voyagers, and it's looking good for the brick-based co-op.
The first 30 minutes of LEGO Voyagers has been made available to video game reviewers, and the early opinions seem largely positive. Ahead of its release on September 15, a new trailer was revealed, offering further looks at the typically aesthetic graphics that you'd expect from Light Brick Studio and the co-op gameplay that sets Voyagers apart from its predecessor, LEGO Builder's Journey.
You never know what a video game will be like until you actually play it – so let's dig into what the reviewers with hands-on experience had to say.
An authentic LEGO experience
For LEGO fans wanting a digital brick experience, something many reviewers agree on is that LEGO Voyagers captures the raw creativity of LEGO building. The goal of the game, much like Builder's Journey, is to pass levels by building ways for bricks to travel through strange locations.
"Because you can only build new structures by clicking yourself onto other bricks and dragging them around, usually without any precision whatsoever, it reminds me much more of how I played with LEGO as a young'un," said James Archer from Rock Paper Shotgun. "Specifically, dumping a container of loose, assorted bricks onto the carpet and just smashing pieces together from the pile."
Similarly, Mark Delaney wrote for GameSpot: "Growing up with LEGO, I've always found something so meditative about its building process; working through its numbered instructions can put a person in something like a flow state as they thoughtfully place each brick where it belongs. Playing LEGO Voyagers gave me a strong sense of that familiar feeling I never outgrew, and I'm excited my kids will be able to enjoy it with me, just like when we decorate the dining room table with hundreds of colorful toy bricks."
The entire landscape of the game is made up virtual LEGO bricks, giving it a distinctly blocky atmosphere. For James' co-player at Rock Paper Shotgun, Mark Warren, that was a 'drawback'.
"One of the drawbacks of being a Lego game is that environments do just end up looking like LEGO," he said. "That’s not a big hangup by any stretch of the imagination, but it does mean Voyagers doesn’t look as visually unique or striking as other chill puzzlers."
However, that might just be down to personal preference, with James immediately arguing: "Woah woah woah. You didn’t like how it looked like LEGO? That’s exactly what I’d want from a LEGO game."
Double trouble
As LEGO Builder's Journey didn't have a co-op option, Light Brick Studio has really leaned into that USP in Voyagers, something that was complimented by many reviewers.
"I found that turning yourself into a LEGO brick comes with a surprising amount of human connection," wrote Paulo Kawanishi for Polygon. "Instead of a metaphorical connection, LEGO Voyagers works with literal physical connection, which creates an interesting dynamic between brick partners...The cooperation is never seamless because both players control the movement of the single entity you become when connected."
That lack of seamless playability does suggest that there is a knack to Voyagers that players will need to grasp. However, many referenced how well it would suit younger players, so it doesn't seem too tricky, especially for experienced players. Rather than game mechanics being hard to handle, it seems like cooperation will be the skill that needs to be developed.
"This necessitates coordination and cooperation, like when we stacked a bunch of plums to ourselves – after we shook them out of a nearby tree – so that we could get tall enough to vault ourselves up onto a higher platform," said Ryan McCaffrey from IGN. "I really do hope this gets bigger and more complicated as the campaign goes along, because my daughter and I had some good laughs trying to get on the same page while moving our combined plastic monstrosity."
Surprisingly tricky – or just surprising?
It's the unpredictability of the game that seems to be the biggest challenge of LEGO Voyagers – but that all seems to be part of the fun. Falling off the edge instantly resets your bricks, so there's not much of a punishment for failure. Instead, the focus is on having fun and progressing, without real consequences for mistakes
"Controlling your brick is difficult, not because of neglectful game design, but trying to traverse the world — whether it’s a flat surface or riddled with knobs — leads to amusing unpredictability," said Kawanishi.
LEGO Voyagers will be available to buy from September 15 and you can add it to your Steam wishlist already.
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