I was obsessed with Lego Star Wars when I was a kid. Not the Skywalker Saga, or the Complete Saga, but Lego Star Wars: The Video Game on the original Xbox. It wasn’t the first Lego-branded video game, but it was the first title in Traveller’s Tales’ long-running series of big IP adaptations.
Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Marvel – all the biggest and most iconic series got their own Lego game, and though they evolved away from the voiceless mumbling and slapstick humour of the earlier titles, they were a staple of the 3D platforming genre.
Along the way, we saw many different spin-offs like Lego Horizon Adventures, Lego 2K Drive, and Lego Worlds. But none, however, hit the mark quite like Lego Fortnite Odyssey.
Lego Island is a close second.
Fortnite Has Everything, So Why Not Lego?
I know it’s strange to say the best Lego game is Fortnite. You may even be someone who looks down on Fortnite – I get it, I took that stance too – but it’s hard to ignore the qualities and merits where it’s deserved, and Lego Fortnite Odyssey is one of the game’s shining aspects.
Odyssey isn’t a battle royale, or even a compulsory multiplayer experience; it’s a survival crafting mode that gives you a huge world filled with enemies, resources, and recipes to unlock as you build and level up settlements.
There’s also a mode called Lego Fortnite Brick Life, which is more of a social roleplay city, if that’s more your speed.
While this is nothing new, as Odyssey – originally just titled Lego Fortnite – was introduced in December 2023, I’m impressed at how far it’s come. While it’s certainly not the best survival game on the market, it’s a solid one to play while switching off for the day, and it utilises the Lego aspects in a fantastic way with the build blueprints and iconic character skins in minifig form.
This Is What Lego Worlds Could Have Been
About ten years ago, Lego Worlds was released in Early Access on Steam. It was all about having the freedom of an open world, discovery, and building Lego structures to your heart’s content. However, as time went on, and with the full release of the game in 2017, it felt like it had backtracked on some of the potential.
Instead of an endless open world to be your own Lego sandbox, it became more of a needlessly structured game, with levels that felt like a shadow of what we once had, and a repetitive quest structure of collecting gold bricks. Still good, sure, but it backed itself into a brick-built corner rather than reaching its full potential.
To me, that’s where Lego Fortnite Odyssey shines. In Lego Worlds’ absence, Odyssey offers a colossal world, creative freedom, and a fun gameplay loop, and it brings with it all of the fun IP crossovers that Fortnite – and past Lego games – are known for.
You can build things brick-by-brick one minute, and the next become a dancing Adventure Time character while playing a Post Malone song on the guitar.
If you’re looking for a game that gives you the freedom and pure joy of building with Lego, while keeping the crossovers akin to previous Lego games, then, with some sadness in the lost potential of Lego Worlds, I’d have to say Lego Fortnite Odyssey is the one to choose.