LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Review

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is a good game. It’s just not a great LEGO Star Wars game, though it’s a close second, and if we’re going on LEGO games in general, it’s third behind LEGO Harry Potter and LEGO Star Wars: The (Not So) Complete Saga.

In an effort to tick as many buzzword boxes as possible, The Skywalker Saga strays away from what made the original LEGO Star Wars games so appealing. Instead of being simple, easy fun for all ages, it’s bogged down with damage numbers, buyable upgrades, and more collectables than I’ll ever bother to search for.

Game Information
Release Date: April 5th, 2022
Developer: TT Games
Publisher: Warner Bros
Availability: PSN, Nintendo eShop, Microsoft Store, Steam, Epic Games Store, Retail

Yes, you read that right. Damage numbers. In a LEGO game. The Skywalker Saga essentially ticks the same boxes as Ubisoft’s The Division, which is not a good thing.

It’s also very brief and rushed through. I get that there’s the need to offer players something new – after all, episodes one through seven have been LEGO-fied before, so a simple re-tread wouldn’t work – but it feels like the stories have been crammed and condensed far too much, with the aim now being to push players towards the “side-quests” and the collectables.

Collecting stuff has always been a staple of the LEGO games, but part of the fun was going through the story, re-living iconic events in LEGO form, and then going back through those levels with unlocked characters and opening up new pathways to get the last few mini-kits or red power bricks. That’s still kind of the case with The Skywalker Saga, but not to the same extent. Instead, you’re pushed towards exploring the semi-open world settings from the movies, and if you want to collect everything (there are well over 1000 collectables) then you’d better get chatting to the thieving scum in Mos Eisley, the long-necks on Kamino, and just about everyone else with a little icon hovering over their heads.

Playing through the episodes is a mixed bag. Some were fine, others were great, while others were just piss-poor. The Phantom Menace, for example, stood out as being rushed to the point that the party on Naboo kicked off in under an hour, and a good portion of that time was spent watching the unskippable cut-scenes.

A New Hope, on the other hand, took a little longer and actually gave me stuff to do while sticking closely to the source material. Too closely, in fact. Chewie still got done dirty at the end with everybody except him getting a medal. Poor bugger.

Moment to moment gameplay isn’t exactly a thrill-a-minute either. To be fair, neither were the originals, but at least I knew where I stood and what to expect. The Skywalker Saga had me confused, frustrated, and annoyed. One minute I’d be forced to slow walk, Uncharted style, which two characters had an expositional chat, then I’m taking a taxi from one area of Coruscant to another, just to watch a short cut-scene and be sent back the way I came before actually getting into a level. It’s all very un-LEGO like, and if anything, The Skywalker Saga feels like it’s punching well above it weight and acting like a “proper” third-person shooter/adventure game, complete with cover-shooting, side-quests, and RPG style systems without the substance to back it all up.

To be fair, it gets away with it more than it probably should due to the LEGO set dressing, the affable humour, and the well-liked source material, and I still found myself putting the hours in and slowly building out my character and kyber crystal collections.

There’s split-screen multiplayer, too, but again, this just didn’t sit right and when I tried to play with my son, Charlie, we did one level and he gave up on it, saying that he liked the other one (The Complete Saga) better. The kid and I don’t agree on a lot of things; bedtime, vegetables, whether his mother is a slug or not, but we found common ground here – the oldies are better and more fun.

That’s a shame, really, because I really wanted to like The Skywalker Saga. One last hurrah from Travellers Tales to see out the LEGO Star Wars collection, but this isn’t it. Between feeling like too much busywork, a disjointed gameplay philosophy, and an overabundance of brevity throughout the episodes, The Skywalker Saga goes down as a disappointment.

Review Disclaimer: This review was carried out using a copy of the game provided by the publisher. For more information, please read our Review Policy.

Primary version tested: Xbox Series X