LEGO 2K Drive – How Visible Ideas Constructed the Final Driving Expertise Out of LEGO

Whether or not you’re searching for a family-friendly recreation to take pleasure in with the youngsters or one thing enjoyable to play whereas taking a break from slaying dragons or repelling alien invasions, LEGO 2K Drive is a captivating and downright enjoyable recreation to play with a stunning quantity of depth. Earlier than taking part in it, I assumed it was going to be a kart racing recreation with plenty of autos, power-ups, and tracks to select from. As soon as I performed it, I spotted I used to be improper. It’s a lot greater than that and has tons of content material to supply. I reached out to David Msika, the Design Director from Visible Ideas, to get a deeper understanding of what went into combining an iconic model like LEGO with a driving & racing recreation.

“LEGO is a extremely revered worldwide model, that fosters a tradition of unbound creativity, and reaches audiences of all ages, origins, and walks of life. And it’s additionally a tone and a specific model of humor that mirror inclusivity by having the ability to achieve children and adults on totally different ranges, and entertain them equally,” says Msika. “We knew instantly that we wished to make a recreation that would attain the widest viewers potential by providing a gameplay loop that’s very accessible, but additionally incorporates loads of depth for the extra aggressive gamers.”

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Half Driver, Half Racer

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After taking part in LEGO 2K Drive for a few hours I spotted why the group named it Drive and never Race. The sport options just a few totally different biomes, that are basically their very own separate open world, and every time I unlocked a brand new area I spent way more time driving round exploring the totally different areas and discovering new actions than I did within the devoted racing modes. There are many little particulars scattered round – some are collectibles, like golden trophies, whereas others are simply humorous to see, like The Cone Depot and UFOs crashed within the desert. You’ll be able to quick journey between biomes and totally different spots on the map when you uncover new garages, so that you’re free to discover wherever you need to go.

“After we describe LEGO 2K Drive as the final word LEGO driving expertise, we put loads of emphasis on the phrase drive. Early on throughout growth, we had this mantra within the group that persevered all through the whole undertaking: we’re not making a racing recreation, we’re making a driving recreation,” explains Msika. “Each facet of the sport was going to observe that, and that implies that the driving mannequin, the setting, and the actions, would all be geared in direction of permitting the car to be a fast-moving character that may do way more than crossing a end line: it might stroll, sprint, dash, flip round shortly, use weapons, and scale the setting. After all, the racing expertise may be very quick and visceral, however the autos are inherently constructed to discover and compete at nice pace!”

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Begin Your Engines

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One of many neatest options about driving and racing in LEGO 2K Drive are the autos. You might have three forms of autos – Road, Off-Street, and Water, they usually robotically swap (fairly quickly) relying on the terrain you might be presently driving on. You’ll be able to change autos to shift manually within the settings, which is useful in case you don’t need your Road car to shift to Off-Street each time you run off the highway a bit. You need to use the default autos, select ones that you simply’ve unlocked, and even construct your individual. One key ingredient racing video games like LEGO 2K Drive have to utterly excellent is drifting, and the drifting mechanics on this recreation are slick.

Drifting is a function the builders spent loads of concentrate on perfecting. “There have been these breakthrough moments the place, after engaged on one thing for a very long time, it lastly FEELS proper,” defined Msika. “Drifting comes instantly to thoughts, and I keep in mind distinctly the chilliness that went by way of me once I tried the model that’s presently within the recreation and pondering “we bought it!”. This was the thousandth iteration of the system, if you begin to really feel that you could be not fairly get there, after which, there’s that unimaginable “what if…” epiphany that unlocked every little thing.”

You’ll be able to drift whether or not you’re driving across the open world or racing on one of many tracks, and in a single occasion throughout a race, I pulled off the proper drift round a hairpin flip, did the previous slide job on the chief on the ultimate lap, and went on to get the win. It felt superior and left me wanting extra!

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The Storage – Construct Your Personal Automobile Brick by Brick

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The Storage is…wonderful. Like each LEGO fan’s dream – a seemingly bottomless bucket of LEGO neatly sorted with dozens of items in all types of colours. The Storage might very nicely be a standalone LEGO constructing recreation. It’s enjoyable and very simple to make use of, with particular instruments to make the method even simpler. Clearly since you might be constructing autos to drive and race, there are limitations. The Storage flooring will preserve your building undertaking throughout the dimension limitations, and there’s additionally a most piece rely you have to adhere to. Apart from that, although, you’ll be able to design no matter contraptions you need, after which test-drive them on a closed course. I needed to ask Msika about The Storage as a result of it’s such a pleasant a part of the sport.

“The Storage is a big level of satisfaction for the group, as a result of it faucets into the fantasy of constructing with LEGOs, however with out having stock restriction, and with the addition of instruments that don’t exist in actual life, like the power to reflect one aspect of a car or change colours on the fly,” describes Msika. “We provide it as a option to not solely be true to the LEGO model by providing a mode that emulates most carefully the expertise of taking part in with the bodily plastic toy, but additionally as a option to complement somebody’s playtime by permitting them to creatively provide you with options to make the sport simpler.”

It’s essential to notice you don’t have to make use of The Storage or construct any customized autos. You’ll be able to skip that half in case you select, however you’d be lacking out. There are many tutorials to show you the fundamentals of constructing autos and you’ll consult with them even after you’ve accomplished them.

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Solo and Group Actions

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There’s so much to see and do in LEGO 2K Drive. Not solely are there core actions like single races, cup collection races for a championship, and story mode, there’s additionally a bunch of mini-games. Even within the story mode there are a number of actions scattered round every biome along with the primary marketing campaign. Plus, story mode might be performed solo or solely in native break up display screen with family and friends members.

“We wished to provide gamers as a lot of a enjoyable, complete, and diversified expertise as potential, so we got here up with an entire lot of various actions for gamers to interact in,” says Msika. “We now have shut to 2 dozen extremely enjoyable races the world over of Bricklandia that every one have a selected theme, in addition to minigames the place it’s a must to both rescue townsfolks from hordes of monsters or defend turbines from being destroyed by waves of robots. Within the open world, there are dozens of On-The-Go occasions which can be bite-size actions that can problem gamers on particular abilities, like leaping, boosting, drifting, and so on.”

LEGO 2K Drive helps solo and break up display screen, but additionally has a number of choices for connecting with your mates or everybody else on-line, together with cross-platform coop and multiplayer (which might be disabled within the settings).

“The World Challenges might be loopy races throughout the open world, the place roads are solely a suggestion, or they could be a very quick paced scavenger hunt, the place gamers compete to gather probably the most objects,” says Msika. “Lastly, gamers may also take part in one among our Cup Collection, the place you play 4 races back-to-back, scoring factors based mostly in your place on the finish of every race.”

Play With Pals permits an internet social gathering of as much as 6 gamers from your mates listing to play both within the shared world, a multiplayer model of the only participant open world, or do single occasions like races or cup collection championships. In Play With Everybody, you and as much as two buddies can matchmake with gamers world wide to take part in races and cup collection.

Though we don’t all the time get to see every little thing it takes to construct and ship a online game, I’ve all the time been fascinated with the method and the behind-the-scenes moments we seldom get to listen to about. I requested Msika a couple of memorable expertise from growing LEGO 2K Drive and smiled actual large with the response.

“One thing I’ll all the time keep in mind is that the designers had created a secret race mission. Each time we’d provide you with a brand new hazard or entice for the sport, we’d put it, in extra, in that secret mission,” says Msika. “After which they added some extra that have been simply plain loopy, like large laser partitions with solely a gap the dimensions of a small automotive to get by way of. For some time, on the finish of each playtest, we’d launch into that secret mission, and have a blast for 10 minutes. There are solely two laps on that race, and it’s in all probability lower than a mile to drive for every lap, but it surely takes about 10 minutes to complete it due to all of the loopy stuff the designers put in there!”

LEGO 2K Drive is out now and accessible on Xbox One and Xbox Collection X|S. You’ll be able to see the assorted editions under and make sure you observe @LEGO_2K_HUB  and take a look at their official web site for all the newest information and updates.