Hands-on review of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the latest in a long line of LEGO games from the team at TT Games, packing in all nine episodes from the star wars saga and featuring over 45 story missions. Before we jump in, I want to say a massive thank you to the team at Warner Bros, who sent me a copy of the game for free so I can review it; here are my honest, hands-on impressions of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.

These impressions are formed from my experience playing through The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, The Rise Of Skywalker and spending some time reexploring areas in Galaxy Free Play.

From the outset, It was clear this wasn’t just about making another LEGO game but making the best one yet.

There’s so much visual detail throughout the game. The main demonstration of this is through the brick weathering. You’ll start with a clean mini-figure, and as you explore such places as Niima Outpost, the sand will begin to pick up and mark your character; this is such a fantastic feature and, in a world of LEGO, adds a natural human feel to the game. The high level of visual details doesn’t stop there; there’s some excellent lighting and shadowing, dust clouds in the desert, and hugely detailed LEGO brick build environments.

It’s not just in the visuals you experience the environmental effects but also in the surfaces you walk upon; for instance, walking through wet sand gives you the resistance and slightly heavier feel of your feet, just as if you were walking on a beach. It feels so surreal.

One of my favourite details is how each character has a range of movements and actions they perform rather than standing static. For instance, in this clip, you can see the metal detector in the background, but keep an eye on Kylo Ren as he doesn’t think anyone is watching him cuddle his toy.

So let’s talk about those playable characters. There are over 300 characters within the game, featuring an array of outfits inspired by the most beloved moments of the movies. These characters are categorised by their class, and interactions throughout the galaxy will require certain class type mini-figures to complete.

Not only that, but these class types have individual skill trees in the form of the upgrades menu. Here you can spend your Kyber bricks along with studs to buy upgrades.

Kyber Bricks are one the most significant collectable throughout the galaxy. You’ll earn this for completing true Jedi and specific moments in levels, completing challenges, and blasting asteroids. The change to true Jedi also makes it easier to earn Kyber Bricks, as you’ll get rewarded in three stages for stud collection in a level. As you can imagine, with so many ways to earn them, there are a lot of them in the game to collect, with over 1,100 Kyber Bricks to find and acquire.

They aren’t the only collectable, though; there are also the classic mini kits to find and data cards too. Data cards are similar to the Red Bricks in previous Lego titles; you’ll go into the extras menu to redeem them alongside studs for such unlocks as stud multipliers, baguette lightsabers and universal translator. I love the array of silly options and will be trying them all over time, but like many, I’m sure I’ll be focusing on the multiplier unlocks first.

The one thing I initially thought when hearing they’d be only 45 story missions within the game was that it feels short for nine movies worth of content. However, when you jump in and get stuck into playing, you’ll soon realise it’s been done in an ingenious way that features hundreds of different things to do and complete. Yes, I said hundreds, we’ve touched on the 300 plus characters and over 1,100 Kyber bricks to find, but there are also over 200 mini kits, over 100 level challenges, over 100 side missions, over 700 puzzles plus trials and challenges. I can’t imagine the amount of time it will take to complete 100% of this game’s content, but I’m excited to find out.

The challenges will undoubtedly be some of my favourite things to complete whilst it may seem like there are only ten things to do, these are huge. For example, the one I’ve started in Where’s the Wookiee in which the reward is 5 Kyber Bricks and the Wandering Wookieee character; now it’s not just one you have to find but 33 that span the galaxy and could be hiding anywhere.

One of the things I’ve always been a fan of in LEGO games is the replayability of levels and how you’ll need to rerun different areas once you unlock new characters to complete or take on something new. This is done for the most part through the Galaxy Free Play mode, which allows you to fly to any planet or area in the galaxy to re-explore. You can also replay the missions by going to them within the menu and choosing which you’d like to take on.

What’s great about these things and the menus in general is how easy to navigate and intuitive they are. You aren’t overwhelmed by the many different things to do because of how they’ve been presented. For a game that fans of all ages will play is critical; parents won’t have to aid kids confused and frustrated; instead, everyone can have a fun experience.

That fun experience is also delivered through humour which is a core part of lego games; they have a long history of making us giggle with how they interrupt movie scenes in their unique way, and I’m pleased to say that’s continued throughout this game. One of the big moments of recent star wars movies was when Princess Leia is cast out into space, in which she uses the force to fly back through space; this scene within the game uses a fishing rod to reel herself back in and has me chuckling.

A few other notable things are unlock codes are back, plus there are multiple saves. You can play the whole game separately to the progress of your partner, kids or stream playthrough. So no need to feel guilty that you didn’t ask for didn’t wait to play co-op together, and instead took some time to enjoy the fun yourself. Speaking of couch co-op, I’m yet to try it myself, so I won’t comment on that, but it looks to work in the same way as previous titles where you can jump in and out midway through.

So how am I getting on so far? At the time of writing this, I’ve played around 11 hours of the game so far, and I’ve completed just under 15% of the game. I’ve done my initial playthrough of all missions of the latest trilogy, but none of which I’ve completed 100%. I’m having a lot of fun, and if anything, I think it’s surpassed the expectations I had of this game; there’s just so much content to play through in the most visually delighting way; the team at TT Games have raised the bar with LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.

Thanks again to the team at Warner Bros, for providing me with a copy of the game for free so I could review it.

LEGO® Star Wars™: The Skywalker Saga

Release Date: 5 April, 2022

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

Genre: LEGO, Adventure, Open World, Multiplayer

Developer: TT Games

Publisher: Warner Bros. Games

I received 'LEGO® Star Wars™: The Skywalker Saga' for free, to play and review thanks to the team at Warner Bros. who kindly gifted a PlayStation 5 copy of the game.