LEGOs are the staple of many a childhood—my own included. Admittedly, I was never great at actually building anything, but that didn’t stop me from trying nearly every day with my older brother. TT Games’ has captured some of that magic with their series of LEGO games; LEGO Dimensions is still hands-down my favorite toys-to-life game. The developer has taken things a step further with their virtual LEGO brick-builder LEGO Worlds—which has been in development for a while and is slated to hit PS4, Xbox One, and STEAM on February 21. I got a chance to see it for myself at the PlayStation Experience over the weekend. Here’s why you might want to keep it on your radar.

Create your own world

Much like Mojang’s Minecraft, LEGO Worlds grants players the ability to create a virtual world, brick by brick—but this time with even more freedom. Simply by holding down triangle on the Dualshock 4, I was given several options that would shape my world, including: the build tool, the discover tool, and my inventory. The build mode is obviously the draw here, and acts as a virtual set of LEGO.

After entering the build mode, hitting triangle again would expand my options. From this menu, there not only was a variety of LEGO block shapes to choose from, but additional accents like doors to add to your masterpiece. Not a fan of the color? No problem. You can change the brick color in the options, or use the paint tool to change the shade of your creation or alter existing terrain.

Everything is awesome!

Building isn’t the only draw here, however. The items and Discover mode is where a lot of the charm comes in. During my hands-on preview, everything was already unlocked, so I got a good taste of the sheer amount of items I would be able to use. In the weapons section, I had several exciting options like a megazooka (a bazooka, but mega), carrot launcher, ice bow, troll club, and so much more. Seriously, there are a lot of weapons you can find in the game, and actually use! For anyone that’s wondering, the megazooka creates a much larger crater in the terrain than the bazooka. I tried it out several times…

Speaking of creating a hole in the terrain, the drill vehicle is especially handy for tunneling deeper in a short amount of time. Though when I tried the vehicle (one of many) out I ran into an unfortunate bug. For some reason, when I dug into the ground, the procedurally generated environment rendered at a snail’s pace. Granted, I was experiencing a ton of bugs at that point that didn’t seemed to be shared by the players nearby, but it was still unfortunate to see. The only way to stop the issue was to leave the vehicle and hop out of burrow I just dug.

Horsing around

For the remainder of my time, I honed my skills as an expert horse whisperer. Wait…what? Yep. After discovering that I could interact with a horse by tossing it an apple—which you’d normally have to find in the environment, but was unlocked for me—my new friend followed me around the map. Because having only one horse was boring, I tossed apples to five of his buddies and had a group of them following me.

After that, I used the discover tool to teleport unlocked animals like rabbits, cows, and even a polar bear! I had a zoo in no time—and it was awesome. Sure, it’s probably not the aim of the game, but it was fun, and a perfect demonstration of how many things you can do to entertain yourself beyond building. Not great at building, no worries! Just pop in a pre-built building with the Discover tool.

The Verdict

While I did run into several bugs during my brief hands-on time with the early PS4 build, LEGO Worlds already showed charming potential. As Niels Jørgensen, Vice President of Digital Games for the LEGO Group, put it, “LEGO Worlds brings the very essence of LEGO play—building—to the digital world, more than ever before.” I’m excited to see later builds of the title, and how it performs on consoles. It’s been in early access on STEAM for a while now, and the community has already created some impressive content. With multiplayer functionality, players will be able to take things a step further by exploring each others’ worlds, creating together, and engaing in co-op experiences.

Are you interested in trying out LEGO Worlds? Let us know in the comments below!

 Images: WB Interactive Entertainment/TT Games