We play LEGO 2K Drive, a fun proposal that combines cars and exploration with the possibilities that only LEGO can offer to this formula. To no one’s surprise, it was incredibly fun, and we liked it because it has that classic LEGO charm, plus it’s very ambitious. We will tell you everything you need to know right away.
Much more than a racing game and LEGO
The first thing we played was the campaign, which is simple and to the point: we choose a driver who starts from 0 and wants to be recognized as the best in the world. For that, we look for a retired pilot to help us achieve it, who tells us that he will become our tutor if we beat him in a race.
Once we do, he adopts us and we move on to the main adventure. From here, the world called Bricklandia opens partially, the location where all the adventure takes place, which, naturally, is full of activities. The detail is that, as often happens in open worlds, many areas and tasks are inaccessible until you have a sufficient level.
What gives us the most experience is participating in the story mode races. The competitions against other drivers are similar to those in games like Mario Kart or Crash Team Racing; we have to take several turns on a stage full of items and obstacles and beat 7 rivals.
So LEGO 2K Drive is a clone of said games? Not quite, because it manages to distinguish itself. First, because the items are simple but very useful. These range from missiles to a force field that makes whoever is next to us fly and also defends us from what is thrown at us. Also, we have a boost that fills up when we destroy barriers and our opponents and gives us a considerable boost.
Drive wherever you want, literally
The funny thing is that when we win, we get the vehicle of the leader of that stage and a flag that serves to increase our fame as drivers and later we can compete for the Sky Cup Trophy. We also earn XP, and thus new competitions and sections on the map open up.
The world is huge and full of things to find. There are the secondary missions, the challenges and the possibility of discovering shortcuts and paths. That’s right, exploring, in addition to being fun, helps us earn XP, which helps as motivation for us to drive anywhere that looks interesting.
One cool thing about LEGO 2K Drive is that if you’re scared of going off the road or falling into a river, don’t worry, because the car turns into different vehicles. For example, in the most swampy or turbulent terrain it becomes an SUV, and in the water it becomes a boat so that you never stop. At the beginning we have designated transports, but we can change them with the ones we get in the races or in the garage.
Most of the missions are in the towns and small cities. Some are simple, like one where we have to find a pilot dressed in green, but others are more complex. The one we liked the most is one where an NPC asks us to defend the farm cows from him, since there are aliens who want to take them away, so we must run over them to stop them.
The creativity of LEGO always present
The challenges are scattered around the world and are fleeting, but complicated. They all have a time limit and different duration; For example, there is one where we must cross an oasis in 5 seconds and another in which we have to go under some arches on a road with many curves in a minute and a half. The faster we do it, the greater the reward.
All this makes the main campaign very entertaining and time passes very quickly. This kind of open world and the amount of content make LEGO 2K Drive one of the plumpest titles in the franchise, and that’s as they explore a relatively new genre for them.
Get ready to explore a world full of secrets
2 HEADS HANDLE BETTER THAN ONE
As you can see, one of the central axes of the game is the online experience; up to 6 players can be on their own roaming the shared world. However, it can be enjoyed locally with 2 users in split screen like the old days.
It was exciting to compete against other players and we think it’s the best and most addictive thing about LEGO 2K Drive. The races are just as entertaining as those in Mario Kart and other similar installments, but with a little more adrenaline; the items are perfect for all the time there are explosions, sparks and LEGO pieces flying everywhere.
We can access the races as in the main campaign, that is, through the map and it also has its option in the menu, and that’s how we competed in the cups. We were only able to play 3, but each one has 4 different tracks. There are several difficulties (C, B and A) and we must say that even the least intense one is quite complicated, especially if we take into account that it is a LEGO installment.
The courts that are in the same cup are very similar, and we believe that they could have made them more varied and creative, but those of the other competitions change a lot. There are tours in the desert, in factories and even in locations decorated for Halloween. Trying all the scenarios, cars and difficulties can give us countless hours of fun.
Who is faster, you or the ghosts?
Finally, there is a mode with various extremely entertaining mini-games. We could only try 2: one where the 6 players are in a town and the place where we should go is marked on the map, the first to arrive wins 1 point, and the one with the most points at the end is the winner. In the town there are several obstacles, such as kiosks, buildings, cars and more, so it becomes chaos to reach the goal.
The other one is one where the 6 cars are lined up on a fairly long road, and there is a robot that lights up green to indicate that we accelerate and when it turns red we must brake immediately. In case more than 1 second passes and you keep moving forward, the car will explode and you will have to start over. Whoever avoids this and reaches the goal wins. Something like “Red Light, Green Light” in The Squid Game.
We think these minigames are a great addition to a game that already has a lot of content with exploration and racing. It confirms that one of the focuses of LEGO 2K Drive is multiplayer, and that everyone can have a good time; from those looking for a more serious experience to those who want a casual one. Something tells us that many friendships will be destroyed because these activities are so extreme.
One of the developers told us that, in addition to all the initial content, they plan to release products that help people play the game for a long time. It may be a Season or Battle Pass, but will be revealed in detail later. If they work smart, LEGO 2K Drive will have a long way to go.
As you can see, in this game there is everything
IT’S NOT A LEGO GAME WITHOUT THE CUSTOMIZATION
The last mode we tried was the Garage, a place where you’ll spend dozens of hours if you’re creative or used to building LEGOS. In this workshop there are 3 things to do: modify our car (either by adding parts, changing the color and so on), learn to assemble one of the vehicles we got in the campaign from 0 step by step and finally there is creating one.
The first one is the simplest because it takes an existing car so you already have a very well built base. The second is simply ingenious, because in addition to being like building a LEGO in real life, it allows us to take ideas for our creations. The third is completely free, the only thing they give us is the base of the vehicle (if it’s big, small, what terrain it will move on, etc.) and from there we do what we want.
The amount of parts at our disposal is incredible, and it increases as we unlock cars in the main mode. We have a limit of up to 300 to use in the same vehicle, but it is more than enough. We can build a sports car, an SUV and a water car, so there are plenty of options. Any detail affects your performance, for better or worse, and the results can be surprising.
It’s like when we were kids and were given a box full of separate pieces: our creativity knew no bounds, and neither did LEGO 2K Drive. Although sometimes we run out of ideas, we will always find some piece so strange or incredible that it will guide us to develop funny and great ideas.
The Mobile Crab is canon
CONCLUSION
LEGO 2K Drive has so many modes and things to do, that even though we saw a lot of its content, we think we were several hours away from experiencing it all. The titles of this franchise have always been full of creativity and a lot of intelligence, but perhaps this concept is the one that surprises its audience the most.
It covers many ideas and genres, without drowning in the attempt. It’s not an open world like Breath of the Wild or The Witcher 3, nor is it a Forza Horizon 5-level driving sim, but none of those have the same charm. The delivery has a bit of everything and that is why it is for any type of audience, so both the experienced and casual gamer will have an excellent time.
LEGO 2K Drive paints to be a very fun, familiar, entertaining and different title. Although it has some inspiration from other games, both from the franchise and from different sagas, it promises to build a world apart where we will see many interesting ideas. Everything indicates that 2K, Visual Concepts and LEGO did very well to join forces, as the project is full of passion. Let’s just hope the end result is as planned.
This installment will be released on May 19 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S, Nintendo Switch and PC.
Ready for the final race?
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