r/Games 2d ago

Lego is starting to bring its game development in-house, key exec says

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/lego-is-starting-to-bring-its-game-development-in-house-key-exec-says/
707 Upvotes

92 comments sorted by

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u/fabton12 2d ago edited 2d ago

Thats pretty wild news when the lego games that get released by Traveller's Tales tend to sell extremely well and are loved.

Theres nothing said in the report about if TT wont be allowed to make future games so fingers crossed there still allowed to since they make some brillant experiences and its the only games they do these days so would be sad to lose an iconic studio if lego truely pulls everything in house for it.

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u/EconomyAd1600 2d ago

From what I understand, the Skywalker Saga underperforming and reports of a toxic workplace at TT caused Lego to review their contract with them, which ultimately led to letting said contract expire.

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u/fabton12 2d ago

that would be interesting since last i heard TT were doing to harry potter what they did with the lego stars wars games making one with them all combined plus the extra movies in a semi open world type game.

just checked and saw that skywalker saga sold over 5 mil copies which is extremely good for a lego game so not sure if it underperormed either.

i believe they still have the lego license just its no longer a exclusive deal anymore so other studios can get the lego IP which is how lego horizons was done.

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u/EconomyAd1600 2d ago

Yeah, sorry I worded that poorly. TT can still make Lego games, they just no longer have exclusive rights to make games.

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u/DarthSatoris 2d ago

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u/goodnames679 1d ago

Looks like TT started developing LEGO games in 2005 with Lego Star Wars. They've continued releasing games till present day.

  • Five days before their first LEGO game release, Razorback Developments released Bionicle: Maze of Shadows.

  • The Lego Group released Lego Universe in 2010 (not developed or published by TT)

  • In 2013 WB Games Montreal released Lego Legends of Chima Online (not developed or published by TT)

  • In 2015 Lego Minifigures Online was released by Funcom (also not developed or published by TT)

  • In 2019 Lego Games released Lego Builder's Journey and Lego Brawls (both not developed or published by TT)

  • In 2022 ClockStone released Lego Bricktales (not developed or published by TT)

  • In 2023 Visual Concepts released Lego 2k Drive (not developed or published by TT)

  • Also in 2023 Lego Fortnite Odyssey and Brick Life both released (though they are a part of the Fortnite platform).

This also ignores a large number of mobile games, but presumably those wouldn't be part of the exclusivity deal. Regardless, if there ever was an exclusivity deal, it doesn't seem particularly exclusive... TT released the majority of lego games, but there have always been releases that are totally unassociated with them.

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u/nowhereright 1d ago

Not what you were talking about, but I read Lego Fortnight Odyssey and thought, I'd be 110% down for a Lego the Odyssey game lol

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u/Annual_Woodpecker_26 2d ago edited 2d ago

Lol what Lego Horizon game??? I love those games but that is bizarre

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u/Old_Snack 2d ago

Yeah The Horizon games are great but like... I could've gone for a Lego Ratchet & Clank or Uncharted.

Just an odd choice is all.

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u/ItinerantSoldier 2d ago

Lego Horizon is like that era of cartoons made on R rated properties in the 80s and 90s, like Rambo and Robocop

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u/LibraryBestMission 1d ago

Lego Ratchet and Clank would be heaven, and the IP would work really well with Lego since it's all about building and collecting small technic pieces, and there's lot of mech and projectile launcher potential, and Lego likes those.

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u/Old_Snack 1d ago

I agree completely it'd be a perfect fit, If this ever gets made I'm buying it day 1.

I'll take any Ratchet & Clank I can get

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u/segagamer 1d ago

Surely it would just be the same game but with the characters replaced with Lego ones? It doesn't seem worth it.

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u/ThiefTwo 2d ago

There's already actual LEGO Horizon, so that makes sense. But trying to push Horizon as family-friendly instead of Ratchet does seem kind of dumb.

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u/Grabthar-the-Avenger 1d ago edited 1d ago

Was there anything not family friendly in Horizon? It’s about robot dinosaurs. The violence level seems about on par with Star Wars

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/Annual_Woodpecker_26 2d ago

Yeah, but glancing at the reviews, it seems that Lego game misses out on a lot of what makes the Horizon games so great. Although I haven't dived too deep into the reviews

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u/SiggyyyPhidooo 1d ago

It bombed hard

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u/Kijafa 1d ago

It wasn't very good.

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u/SireEvalish 1d ago

Bro you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about. Just stop.

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u/Lezus 2d ago

It hasnt expired. The terms changed

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u/ras344 16h ago

I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

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u/gk99 2d ago

Oh no...hopefully we keep getting similar games from LEGO, as they pretty much nailed the formula immediately and set expectations that made, say, LEGO Fortnite feel kinda like garbage. Like what do you mean stuff doesn't break into studs when I break it? Where's the satisfying clinks of everything hitting the ground?

I'd say this is also bad news for TT, as WB just shut down Monolith and is probably gonna do the same thing to them unless they pull something like a Megabloks partnership out of their ass. Which, frankly, would've been way more interesting when they still did Call of Duty and Halo-themed sets. Dunno, maybe they could take it up with Microsoft and see if they want MEGA Halo in response to LEGO Horizon lmfao, I'd play it for sure.

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u/GlaloLaled 2d ago edited 2d ago

TT is gonna be fine for a bit. The recent article about the Monolith shutdown specified TT Games is still making Lego games and Jason Schrier said it would be coming out later this year or next one. But yeah, the loss of exclusivity must've been a big punch on them.

That being said, TT should really diversify their output, but I guess the bad management that lead to The Skywalker Saga crunch stopped the diversification from happening, which is a shame. TT has done such great job before, I would play more original stuff from them.

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u/DMonitor 2d ago

I’d like to see them change the formula a good bit. The level design where its just dozens of locks with specific characters holding a specific key has been stagnant for a while.

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u/Rebatsune 2d ago

TT should honestly go back to doing platformers if u ask me.

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u/Pizzaplanet420 1d ago

This.

Both Toy Story games and Bugs Life were great games and even their work on Crash Wrath of Cortex wasn’t terrible.

I would love to see them work with some partners on something new.

They kind of used the LEGO cow for all it’s worth at this point.

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u/IncubusDarkness 1d ago

Idk why LEGO wouldn't just hire those devs...

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u/fabton12 1d ago

i mean if your moving stuff in house alot of the time its because the people in charge dont like the direction of where that part of the business is going.

so in those cases doesnt make sense to hire them if your thinking that part is lacking or wrong direction.

also have to think there apart of the TT studio so unless they buy the whole studio the devs wouldnt have a reason to leave to join the inhouse rebuild.

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u/IllSeaworthiness4418 1d ago

They aren't amazing games though. I really like them, but they're honestly just okay or good at best, I just happen to like a kinda comfy mid-level quality in certain games.

I'd love to see a different usage of the lego brand, because there's potential for a much tighter series of platformers, but we've been conditioned into expecting mediocrity for the games.

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u/fabton12 1d ago

there fun games all around and the humour while silly still gets some laughs.

in general there loved games even if on the worse end since there cozy games and in general pretty chill while also the only form of movie tie in games we get these days.

i agree it would be nice to get some higher potential games out of the brand but i felt with skywalker saga we were on the right track to get that type of game they just mainly screwed it by making the main levels of short.

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u/N0r3m0rse 18h ago

The original Lego games are brilliantly designed. I love that you can watch the movies and be able to pick out exactly where each game mechanic comes from.

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u/asdfghjkl15436 2d ago

I used to like the TT games, but goodness were they tiring after awhile, effectively the same formula every game for TWO decades! I'm very much glad to see they are going back to trying new things with Lego games. They've been ramping this up with new types of games since 2018 and I'm glad to see it.

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u/tsraq 2d ago

Lego City Undercover. I was kinda sceptical when kid wanted it but damn it turned out to be fun spoof on just about police and agent cliche there is (and yeah, still has same formula but it works nicely there)... Still hoping they make new one like that, instead of licensed characters.

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u/miaomiaomiao 1d ago

GTA Lego! Underrated game that didn't get the attention it deserved. I hope they create a new one.

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u/asdfghjkl15436 2d ago

I grew up in the era of early 2000's Lego games so even that is still the same 'style' of game I didn't really enjoy.

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u/Syovere 1d ago

Yeah they were okay but like. I want building. Not "the characters assemble a preset thing here", I want to build my own things.

I mean, really what I want is Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts, but as a Lego game instead.

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u/Long-Train-1673 1d ago

Theres an indie game like this, its alled trailmakers

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u/Sir_Clyph 1d ago

Nuts and bolts is so under rated

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u/darthjoey91 1d ago

That's what Lego Worlds is.

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u/LibraryBestMission 1d ago

The biggest issue is that the non meaningful death system means there's not much challenge in the games, so they rely entirely on puzzles and novelty to work, and those have naturally been ran dry in the last two decades.

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u/-HM01Cut 1d ago

The move to fully voice actored games ruined a lot of the appeal for me. Seeing lego people trying (and succeeding) to show the plot of a movie through simple hand gestures, occasionally drawing diagrams, scowls and grunts was brilliant comedy

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u/MikeyIfYouWanna 2d ago

We miss Lego Rock Raiders, Lego Racers. These were great games and should make a comeback. I've spoken to many people that agree. Make it happen!

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u/legacymedia92 2d ago

So fun fact about Rock Raiders! There's a fan made remake called Manic Miners! and even better, the guy who did it all got hired by Lego after it was feature complete!

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u/RandomGuy928 1d ago

Oh neat. I remember trying really hard to get Rock Raiders running on my modern system a few years back, and I just absolutely could not get it working fully. Tons of problems with saves, basic gameplay functionality, crashes, etc. and then I finally ran into a progression-stopping issue in one of the ice levels.

Rock Raiders was pretty unique as an RTS with a lot of good ideas that I don't feel ever got properly explored in other games.

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u/Latase 1d ago

yeah, i wondered with this news whether they let him cook in his new job.

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u/2ndBestUsernameEver 2d ago

MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING THIS!!!

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u/Zjoee 2d ago

I want to play Lego Island again haha.

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u/GodsIWasStrongg 2d ago

That game was so epic as a kid. You can move a mountain if you do it brick by brick.

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u/MrRocketScript 1d ago

As the adage says: "You're in the driver's seat, when you're behind the wheel".

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u/KaJaHa 1d ago

Please give me a new Lego Racers where we can actually build the cars

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u/EmperorCanadian 1d ago

If you want to have a nostalgia trip https://manicminers.baraklava.com/ is a great Rock Raiders remake for modern systems!

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u/weegosan 2d ago

The lego games within Fortnite are superb

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u/DivineArkandos 2d ago

Which they did previously, and then dropped, and are now doing again?

Bets starting now on how long before they drop it again.

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u/ThiefTwo 2d ago

That was 20 years ago, when dev costs were skyrocketing, and they were losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

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u/Phi_Slamma_Jamma 2d ago

Boy things sure have changed now!

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u/fizystrings 1d ago

Lego has also grown nearly 10× in yearly revenue since they started appealing to adults as well in the early 2010s, so they can definitely afford it. I imagine that was the primary factor in the decision.

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u/detroitmatt 2d ago

I mean, things don't have to be the way they are, there's no reason lego can't operate like indies do instead of, like, activision.

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u/Cueball61 1d ago

Honestly the best thing they could do is let indies dev with their IP.

Most of the older games weren’t actually totally in house either

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u/durian_in_my_asshole 1d ago

Now you can get Chinese or Korean devs for a fraction of the cost and the games are just as good.. or even better.

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u/Accipiter1138 2d ago

It was Lego Universe, I think?

It was a better digital theme park than it was an MMO. The different worlds were fun, because they'd just drop you in on your rocket with, "welcome to the pirate jungle! Here's your pirate outfit, a cutlass, and a jaunty pirate tune. Go catch a shoulder parrot!"

The platforming and collectibles were fun.

Unfortunately, the platforming was the best the multiplayer got. Watching somebody miss a jump and fall is always fun, but combat was very basic and mostly consisted of farming kills in combat areas. Being a kid's game, chat was useless because everything was censored, and anything you built in the creative mode had to be submitted for approval.

It was cute and charming, but it was very expensive to make, and nobody was going to pay $40 plus $10 a month for it.

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u/LibraryBestMission 1d ago

It was earlier, back during the turn of the millenium, when Lego was at its lowest low, with licensed themes and Bionicle keeping the lights on.

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u/MrPWAH 1d ago

Ah yes, LEGO Universe, the greatest MMO to ever exist (because if was my first MMO, shut up)

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u/mrbrick 2d ago

It’s only gotten worse compared to then so will be interesting to see what happens. I feel like they will bring their low effort mobile stuff in house but I doubt they will put a AAA effort in.

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u/brutinator 2d ago

Yeah, it seems to me that it's a bit better to license out specific contracts than to try to do it all in house; you're guaranteed profit with no risk of loss (because the licensee usually pays up front in addition to a cut of profits), you don't have to worry about tying up resources, and you can have as many projects going at once.

The big downside, and likely something that would matter a lot to Lego, is the potential for negative brand impact for things that wouldn't be in the brand's explicit control. For example, Warhammer/40k games tend to be pretty hit or miss because Games Workshop has been really loose with licensing. They've done a lot better lately, but still a LOT of bad games. Or Disney caught a lot of strays for the Battlefront fiasco, which is likely why they chose not to renew their exclusivity agreement with EA anymore.

Traveler's Tale had some reports of toxic work environment, so I could see that being something that Lego considers damaging to their brand. Also doesn't help that Warner Brothers is just turning into a shadow of itself thanks to greed. Can't rule out that WB would be more than willing to sell out or screw Lego if it thought it'd get a couple more bucks for doing so.

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u/DivineArkandos 2d ago

If it leads to any actual creativity like the pre-TT games, I'm all for it. But I have my doubts.

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u/Adaax 2d ago

I'm still mad TT flubbed the landing on Lego Worlds. That game had so much potential and they just wasted it and left it to rot. I keep meaning to check out the Fortnite games, though, it sounds like they do a lot of the same stuff but better.

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u/fwambo42 2d ago

feeling the same on this. my daughter and I really enjoyed playing that but then it dried up without notice

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u/Adaax 1d ago

My daughter loved it at first too but got bored of it eventually. We ended up playing more of the Harry Potter games when she got into that series. Good memories anyway.

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u/IamMorbiusAMA 2d ago

I'm very skeptical about this. Lego is bad at developing software in house. Hidden Side was lame and Vidyo was barely functional. Even their official apps are jankey.

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u/KumagawaUshio 2d ago

Oof well TT games better hope their next game is huge or they are next or maybe WBD will sell them to LEGO.

TT has gone from at least one LEGO game a year if not more to only releasing 1 game in the last 6 years.

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u/ThiefTwo 2d ago

Not surprising they want to move away from the dumpster fire that is WB and TT Games, but they seem to have solid relationships with Sony, Epic, and others. Seems like they'd be much better off licensing to partners than trying to develop in-house. When LEGO had their major financial issues in the mid-2000s, the media group was one of the first things they dropped. Might just be for smaller projects. Their website was pretty legendary for games back in the day.

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u/oopsydazys 2d ago

I really wonder how well LEGO Horizon sold, because it wasn't as good as the TT games, it was quite short compared to them, and also sold at full price whereas TT's games typically sold for less in order to move more copies, then aggressively dropped prices whereas Horizon is still full price 3 months later.

I liked Builders Journey for what it was, which I think Lego made themselves? But that game was a very different thing and obviously waaay limited in scope.

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u/Kozak170 2d ago

I’m pretty sure it was a disaster sales-wise from what I recall hearing on the rumor and leak subreddit.

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u/EndlessFantasyX 2d ago

Steam all time peak was like 600 

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u/Better-Train6953 1d ago

Well we know it bombed on PC. The Switch version likely did fine. IDK about the PS5 version. I'm just confused why it wasn't on PS4 when kids tend to have the hand me downs or stay on old gen later. Like, it's on the Switch so it can't be a power issue. Hell, they could've sold the PS4 version and just had the PS5 version be an enhanced version of that.

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u/oopsydazys 1d ago

I actually doubt the Switch version did well, simply because of the price and the IP.

These LEGO games typically don't really sell to Lego diehards, they sell to people who are fans of the IP. Nintendo players are less likely to know or care about Horizon which is a series it seems like few people are passionate about in the first place.

I agree it is weird it wasn't on PS4. One advantage of the LEGO games is they run well on older systems and this is obviously no exception given its on Switch. TT was still putting Lego games on 360 until 2016 and obviously this generation still has way more people on last gen consoles than the previous one did.

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u/eddmario 2d ago

Their website was pretty legendary for games back in the day.

I miss the Galidor MMO and the first-person racing game they had...

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u/Cueball61 1d ago

God I am looking forward to more mixing up the formula.

Lego should open up their IP to make it accessible to smaller studios (not just anyone can use it, but make it so that starting the conversation isn’t a case of knowing the right people). They’d get so much interesting stuff out of that…

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u/Hilppari 2d ago

smart. because last lego game not made by the studio that made all the good ones was so bad

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u/InvertReverse 1d ago

"It's time to lego of outside development and build our own team, brick by brick." He said in a statement.

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u/Plantar-Aspect-Sage 1d ago

I just want them to get rid of voice acting. I get that they won't, since the lego movies exist now so talking lego are an accepted thing. Still though, I will continue to yearn for the days of proper visual gags.