10 CANCELED Lego Games We Wish We Could Have Played
“Lego The Hobbit” DLC?
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“Lego The Hobbit” was released at a very strange point in time, launching right around the release of the second “Hobbit” movie, “Desolation of Smaug”. So, what about the then-yet-to-be-released third movie, “The Battle of the Five Armies”? Well, there were plans for DLC based on the film in order to complete the game, having been announced three months BEFORE “Lego The Hobbit’s” launch. Despite never having been officially canceled, Warner Bros didn’t say anything about it until roughly a year later in March 2015. In a statement to GameSpot, WB said, “The game provides an excellent set-up for the concluding chapter of Peter Jackson’s film, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. There are no plans to develop DLC based on the final film of the trilogy."
“Roblox” x “Lego Star Wars”
In a world where live service games like “Fortnite” are constantly getting crossover events, it’s no surprise to see “Roblox” get one of their own. Regardless of how you feel about it, this is one of the biggest online platforms today. And given their young demographic, a “Lego Star Wars” crossover does make sense. All the way back in 2012, an event was planned that would have united “Roblox” with “Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars”. However, no reason was given as to why this was canceled. Over the years, players have discovered remains of the event in the form of various assets. Lego blasters, character models, and the like have been revealed through bugs in “Roblox” and images from portfolios of former staff. Perhaps we’ll learn what happened one of these days.
“Lego Star Wars Battles”
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Speaking of “Lego Star Wars”, there was a whole other game that was planned for Nintendo DS. Lego fans will recall a strategy game called “Lego Battles” which saw players commanding units of knights, pirates, and spacemen. The general concept was revisited as a mobile game for Android devices in 2019, but the title never left beta. Though “Lego Star Wars Battles” was planned for a full launch in 2020, said launch never happened, and the servers were shut down in July 2021. However, a month later, it was announced the game would be resurrected…as an Apple Arcade exclusive with a subscription model.
“Lego Racers: The Video Game”
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Now, this one is REALLY enigmatic. Lego has seen a few racing games with “Lego Racers”, “Lego Racers 2”, and “Drome Racers”, but it's a genre the brand hasn’t touched upon for quite some time. Funny thing is that there was supposed to be a whole game in the mid- to late-2000’s based on the revamped “Lego Racers” lineup. The game was quietly announced as “Lego Racers” sets were advertising the game on their packaging. The game was never released, and we didn’t find out until 2013 when a developer from Firebrand Games, the studio who was working on it, posted the work they did on the game.
Before “Lego Battles”
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“Lego Racers” wasn’t the only moderately advertised game to quietly die. Going back to “Lego Battles” for a second, the final version of that game wasn’t even the original plan. “Lego Battles” was originally going to be three separate games as a means to further promote new Lego sets based on “Lego Pirates”, “Lego Space”, and “Lego Castle”. Why they were all blended together remains to be explained, but it’s safe to assume this was done to cut down on development time and costs, something that would partially kill off our next entry.
“Lego Dimensions: Year 3”
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Now, some of you might be thinking “Wait, ‘Lego Dimensions’ DID see a Year 3!” They did…if you count 2017 as “Year 3”. Year 3 was supposed to be the year “Dimensions” turned around and got more folks on board. Alas, that was not the case. While Story Packs that changed the portal’s appearance did get released, so many other packs wound up having their plugs pulled as “Dimensions” simply wasn’t turning a profit. The cost of making figures was too high, and the prices for customers were much higher than other toys-to-life games. Even when sets were discounted, they weren’t selling, causing the game to cease support in October 2017. It’s a shame, too, because they were planning sets based on “Avatar: The Last Airbender”, “Mega Man”, “Captain Underpants”, “Looney Tunes”, “TMNT”, and even “Shrek”!
“Brickcraft”
We’ve all made the obvious comparison between “Minecraft” and Lego bricks. Heck, “Lego Worlds” is arguably a copy of “Minecraft” itself, but there was a point where Lego was directly working with Mojang for a Lego-fied “Minecraft” clone. Dubbed “Brickcraft”, this project went through a tumultuous cycle just when it was getting prototyped! In an episode from the podcast called “Bits n Bricks”, Brian Crecente and Danial Kaplan explore a history between the two companies that was plagued by creative differences, tight restrictions from Lego, and several accounts where lawyers kept a tight leash. In other words, it was a disaster, and Mojang wound up walking away from the project. Years later, the two companies would collaborate for Lego Minecraft sets.
“Lego Tomb Raider”
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In recent years, we’ve learned about a couple other canceled Lego games from former staff of TT Games, one of them being Jon Burton, who served as a creative director and lead designer on various works from TT Games across twenty-nine years. On his channel, GameHut, Burton posted a short video going over a few canceled Lego projects. One of these was for a “Lego Tomb Raider” game. Burton admits that “Tomb Raider” wouldn’t have been a strong enough IP at the time, at least not compared to the benefits of making a “Lego Star Wars” or “Lego Batman” game. Instead, TT Games tried to take advantage of their strong relationships with LucasArts and Eidos Interactive and suggested a crossover game with Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. According to Burton, LucasArts had a grudge against “Tomb Raider” for supposedly stealing the concept of Indiana Jones.
“Lego James Bond”
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“Lego James Bond” was another game Burton had briefly talked about on GameHut, and honestly, this one is almost befuddling. Burton reveals that plans for a “Lego James Bond” were already well under way at one point, garnering support from the Broccoli family (the sole rights owners of the James Bond IP), Activision (the rights owners for James Bond games at the time), and even Lego themselves. Problems arose after “Casino Royale” was released in 2006. Despite a strong start for the project in both test animations and support from every party on the board, Lego had the project shut down due to the new direction of James Bond. “Casino Royale” was (and still is) viewed as an edgier take on the MI6 agent, which understandably conflicts with Lego’s family-friendly image. Leave it to Hollywood to ruin a promising game, right?
“Lego Bionicle: The Legend of Mata Nui”
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Of every canceled Lego game, this one arguably had the most potential. The Bionicle toys rarely got good games, and if there were any tolerable ones, that was it - they were tolerable. As for “The Legend of Mata Nui”, this one could have been tremendous. Taking cues from various third-person action games, “Legend of Mata Nui” aimed to bring the world of Bionicle to life, allowing players to control various characters and their respective elemental powers to protect villages and traverse the land. Sadly, the game had become too expensive for developer Saffire to keep going, and it forced the studio to enact layoffs and eventually close its doors. In February 2018, an alpha build and additional files were sent to a group of fans called BioMedia Project who wanted to finish the game. After much coordination between additional parties, Litestone Studios was formed and finished “Legend of Mata Nui” in August 2019, complete with all cut content and previously unfinished assets.
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