Category: IGN

I was very pleasantly surprised when a new Thief game was announced at Sony’s June 2025 State of Play. It’s one of my favorite franchises — I am still of the opinion that Thief II: The Metal Age is the best stealth game ever made – and it’s been dormant since 2014’s fairly forgettable Thief. That entry in the series was probably most notable not for what it included but what it didn’t: namely, voice actor Stephen Russell, who’s provided the titular thief’s voice and wry attitude since the original back in 1998.

And so Thief VR already starts off on the right foot by including Russell as Garrett – even if you don’t play as him. Rather, you play another prowler named Magpie in events set between Thief: Deadly Shadows and Thief (2014). I played the tutorial mission and then a later one, with a developer politely refusing to spoil how Garrett factors in, only that he and Magpie become joined somehow at an early point in the campaign. From a context clue I heard in the second mission I played, it sounds like Garrett’s spirit or soul might be trapped in some kind of trinket that Magpie wears (after presumably stealing it).

Anyway, Thief has always been about stealth in its purest form, meaning: steal as much loot as possible and don’t get spotted, because if you do, you aren’t physically powerful enough to kill almost anyone. And based on what I’ve played so far, Legacy of Shadow seems to get and fully embrace this. Quite simply, there are valuables everywhere here. On tables, in chests (both locked and unlocked) – even on top of those fancy beds that have a “roof” on them. Keeping a keen eye out for goodies to stuff into your pockets (by way of grabbing them with your VR controller and putting them into an imaginary loot bag on your hip) will satisfy the inner kleptomaniac in any of us. In fact, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the numerous times there were multiple loot items in a single spot – say, two valuable chalices – and I did something that only a Thief VR game could allow me to do: grab them both at the same time, like some insatiable loot-hording goblin.

Speaking of unique VR modifications to gameplay, I really like the way you can go about knocking out unaware (and unhelmeted) guards in Legacy of Shadow when you’re sneaking around crouched: by first swinging your blackjack at their knees to bring them down to theirs, and then whacking them on the back of the head. And yes, you can reach your hand out, grab them by the ankle, and drag them into darkness in order to hide the unconscious bodies. Lockpicking, meanwhile, has you take your pick out from your inventory, insert it into the lock, and then grab both pieces with both hands and rotate until they get into a narrow zone. It’s a good VR-ification of Thief’s classic mechanic. Also, just as in the other Thief games, you’ve got a light gem that shows you how visible you are, though here it’s on your hand since that’s the most organic form of a UI for VR.

Because Legacy of Shadow is set farther along in the Thief timeline, the light-giving torches of the early games have been replaced by electric lights, meaning you can’t snuff them out with one of your water arrows. Yes, if you were wondering (as I sure was) if Thief’s classic arrow types would return, most of them indeed have! In addition to regular arrows — used as a last murderous resort that will leave a noticeable bloodstain on the floor – the fire, water, and rope arrows are back. No word on the moss arrows that were useful to fire at cobblestone floors in the old Thief games to muffle the sound of your footsteps as you slunk about.

And speaking of dousing lights, some rooms have lit candles providing illumination. Not only can you pinch them out with your fingers via the VR controller, but my demo guide told me that in the final version, the PSVR 2’s microphone will be incorporated, allowing you to blow out the candles (note: Thief VR is also being released for Steam VR and Meta Quest). Another VR-specific touch: you can find loose non-valuables like plates or pottery to toss across the room, causing them to shatter and luring any nearby guards to investigate.

OK, so Thief VR has all the right tools, but does it know how to use them? Based on the mission I played – I’m not going to go into detail on the tutorial level, as it was really just to (obviously) get me up to speed on Legacy of Shadow’s mechanics – this longtime Thief fan is going to answer with a resounding “Yes!” thus far. The goal in this mission was to steal a relic from inside a large, well-guarded manor. And by well-guarded I’m talking about plenty of guards patrolling the grounds outside as well as a bright searchlight that pans back and forth across the premises and an alarm system that will sound off if you’re spotted.

Just getting in was a chore. My instinct in every Thief game is to try and figure out how to stealthily take down every guard. After a few failed attempts, I won’t say that wasn’t possible here, but I had to be wary of the time constraints of my one-hour demo appointment. So I reluctantly snuck past the patrolling guards outside until I could reach the side of the manor, where I was able to use protruding stones in the masonry as climbing points to grab onto and mantle my way up to an open window.

Once inside, I found loot – so, so much loot – and a bookcase puzzle that required me to pull books with sentence-like titles on their spines in a specific order. It turned out that the solution was inscribed on a painting on the opposite side of the room, but before I noticed that, I was able to put the phrases together into a cohesive poem of sorts, which granted me access to a key I’d need later. I next needed to get downstairs, leaving me two choices: the stairs, which meant getting by a patrolling guard; or down a chimney, at the base of which was a roaring fire. (On this note, having multiple paths to get everywhere is another classic Thief tenet that Legacy of Shadow seems to absolutely nail.) I chose the latter, physically reaching over my shoulder with my PSVR2 controller, grabbing my bow, and then reaching my other hand over my other shoulder to get and ready a water arrow. I aimed down the chimney, loosed the arrow, and snuffed out the flames, allowing me to safely descend to the first floor undetected.

I took out a couple guards on the ground level using the aforementioned kneecap-to-neck-whack one-two blackjack combo, then reached the library room housing the relic I sought. It was in an elevated glass case in the center of the room, very prominently displayed. But when I approached my prize, a security measure activated, sending the relic and its display down a level to the basement via a pulley system its platform was rigged to.

But before I could go down, I had to go back up – to the second floor of this very study, which had a fuse box way up high that I needed to pull in order to disable the relic’s security system. Another VR moment ensued: after climbing a ladder up against the wall of books, I had to hand-over-hand my way along bars hanging down from the ceiling in order to access the fuse box at the very top of this high-ceilinged space.

Once I snuck down to the basement – via a main hallway I’d already knocked out the guard of – I simply had to sneak past one last guard. Except this one was sleeping. I snuck around behind his chair, stood up, took out my blackjack, and…saw at the last moment that he was wearing a helmet, which almost certainly meant that whacking him over the back of the head would only wake him up and piss him off rather than send him into a deeper state of unconsciousness. Moving along and into the relic’s safe room, I this time had no more opposition from either man or security system, grabbed the relic, and then simply had to escape, which meant going back upstairs, outside, and past those pesky patrols and their searchlight again. I remained annoyed at myself for not taking them out in the beginning, but I did successfully reach the exit.

There were a few secondary objectives I very badly wanted to go back and achieve – like finding a secret loot room in the basement and burning the hanging banners of the manor’s lord – that I knew I didn’t have time to do in my limited time. Yet again, Thief VR gets kudos from me for respecting that critical part of Thief’s past: having more to do than just the main quest, and making it fun to want to make that extra effort. Anyway, I look forward to taking my sweet time to check everything off of my to-do list in the final version of Legacy of Shadow later this year.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

IGN can exclusively reveal the Fortnite outfit for KPop Demon Hunters character Rumi.

Rumi, Mira and Zoey — the KPop Demon Hunters trio better known as HUNTR/X — will all land in Fortnite this week on October 2, and star in Demon Rush, a special version of the game’s fan-favorite Horde Rush mode.

In Demon Rush, you’ll work together with your party and the HUNTR/X trio to survive against waves of demons — a change from previous incarnations of Horde Rush. You’ll also, of course, be able to pick up Rumi (and Mira and Zoey!) in the Fortnite Shop.

The director of Resident Evil Requiem has said Western players are more likely to choose the game’s first-person option, after growing up on a diet of PC first-person shooters such as Doom.

Meanwhile, Japanese fans more accustomed to third-person console RPGs like Dragon Quest have tended to play Requiem’s demo in third-person, director Akifumi Nakanishi told Denfaminicogamer, in an interview translated by Automaton.

While Requiem doesn’t launch until next year, a demo version has been publicly available at both Gamescom in Germany and Tokyo Game Show over the past couple of months. After attending both shows and watching fans try the game for themselves, Nakanishi said he had spotted the difference in how most opted to play in each location, and suggested it was due to how audiences had played other games while growing up.

“I think those kinds of differences are significant,” Nakanishi said, describing the popularity of shooters in the west, as opposed to console RPGs in Japan. However, this was now changing, he continued, citing the popularity of both Minecraft and Apex Legends among younger Japanese gamers today.

After originating in third-person, the Resident Evil series switched to first-person gameplay for Resident Evil 7. But recent years have also seen the launch of various re-releases of previous third-person classics, such as 2023’s celebrated Resident Evil 4 Remake. Requiem will be the first title to hand players full control over which perspective their prefer.

After playing the Resident Evil Requiem demo myself at Gamescom, there’s definitely something to be said for its first-person perspective, which is presented as the demo’s default. In first-person, it’s harder to tell how close behind you the game’s unsettling new monster might be, something that ramps up the horror elements. That said, the view does give you a narrower field of vision for finding hidden objects and clues, which sometimes proved a little frustrating. In reality, it seems likely that most players will likely try a bit of both.

Public demos for Resident Evil Requiem are important, Nakanishi told IGN at Tokyo Game Show, as Capcom’s development team has now made so many games in the series they are unable to tell what is truly scary or not. And, back at Gamescom, I chatted with Nakanishi on a range of topics — the game’s supersized monster, Lisa Trevor, and Raccoon City! — while avoiding the elephant in the room: the continued absence of Leon S. Kennedy.

Resident Evil Requiem arrives for Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on February 27, 2026. How will you play?

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social

After a very successful digital launch earlier this year, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is now getting a physical deluxe edition. If you can’t wait to get your hands on it, the good news is it’s now available to preorder for both PS5 and Xbox Series X, and what’s even better is it releases very soon, on October 13.

At the moment you can preorder it for $39.99 from a variety of storefronts including Amazon, GameStop, and Target. That’s weirdly $20 cheaper than the digital deluxe edition that’s been available since the game first launched, but hey, we’ll take that win. Get your preorders in at the link below and learn everything that comes with this physical deluxe edition further down.

Preorder Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Physical Deluxe Edition

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Physical Deluxe Edition Contents

When you pick up the physical deluxe edition of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered – which features a very cool cover that features a leather-like background texture with gold detailing – you’ll get plenty of bonuses alongside the base game. These include:

• Unique digital Akatosh and Mehrunes Dagon Armors, Weapons, and Horse Armor Sets
• Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine story expansions
• Access to the Digital Artbook and Soundtrack App
• Additional downloadable content: Fighter’s Stronghold, Spell Tomes, Vile Lair, Mehrune’s Razor, The Thieves Den, Wizard’s Tower, The Orrery, and Horse Armor Pack

Earlier this year when it was released, we gave The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered an 8/10 in our review. Writer Travis Northup said it’s, “a fantastic open-world RPG that’s aged quite well, with questlines and stories that are better than I remembered, modernizations (like the slightly improved leveling system) that remove some of the friction of the original, and loads of opportunities to make this adventure whatever you want it to be via the plentiful freedom afforded to you.”

Other Preorder Guides

Looking to secure a few more games for your physical library? Have a look at our list of other preorder guides below to see what else is available to preorder at the moment, from 007 First Light to Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and more.

If you happen to be a PC gamer more interested in savings than physical copies, I’d also check out the Steam Autumn Sale, which happens to include digital discounts on Oblivion Remastered.

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

Sony has confirmed the global release times for PlayStation 5 exclusive Ghost of Yotei.

Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima sequel has an official release date of October 2, but fans in some parts of the United States can play it earlier, from October 1, Sony confirmed to IGN.

It’s worth noting Ghost of Yotei has an important day-one patch, which makes a number of significant improvements to the game. Sony revealed the patch notes to IGN, and confirmed disc owners will have to install the update. Sony also asked players to make sure they’re on Version 1.006 before playing the game.

Ghost of Yotei pre-load via the PlayStation Store went live last week, with the game itself weighing in at over 85GB.

IGN’s Ghost of Yotei review returned an 8/10. We said: “A predictable but well-executed story takes you through Ghost of Yotei’s gorgeous landscapes and satisfying, fluid action — it may not be revolutionizing open world games, but it’s a great distillation of the samurai fantasy.”

Ghost of Yotei global release times:

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

PDT (Pacific Time):

• 9pm

MT (Mountain Time):

• 10pm

CT (Central Time):

• 11pm

Thursday, October 2, 2025

EDT (Eastern Time):

• 12am

International (midnight local time):

• 12am

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 officially releases on November 14, 2025, for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One. However, those hoping to try before they buy can test Treyarch’s updated formula October 5-8 via an open beta. Players willing to pre-order can get in on the action even earlier via an early access beta running October 2–5.

Don’t forget, Activision recently warned PC gamers that they will not be able to play during the beta and at launch if they do not enable TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. Like rival shooter Battlefield 6, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are required for Black Ops 7 to run on PC as part of strict anti-cheat measures to block modified hardware and unauthorized software.

Check out all the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 multiplayer details announced so far to find out what to expect.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Beta Start Times: Early Access

Thursday, October 2, 2025

PDT (San Francisco):

• 10am

EDT (New York):

• 1pm

BST (London):

• 6pm

CEST (Paris, Rome, Berlin):

• 7pm

EEST (Turkey):

• 8pm

HKT (Hong Kong):

• 11pm

CST (Beijing):

• 11pm

Friday, October 3, 2025

JST (Tokyo):

• 2am

AEST (Sydney):

• 3am

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Beta Start Times: Open Beta Access

Sunday, October 5, 2025

PDT (San Francisco):

• 10am

EDT (New York):

• 1pm

BST (London):

• 6pm

CEST (Paris, Rome, Berlin):

• 7pm

EEST (Turkey):

• 8pm

HKT (Hong Kong):

• 11pm

CST (Beijing):

• 11pm

Monday, October 6, 2025

JST (Tokyo):

• 2am

AEST (Sydney):

• 3am

The beta test ends at the same times given above on Wednesday October 8 (Thursday October 9 in Asia/Oceania).

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Activision has warned PC gamers that they will not be able to play Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 during the beta and at launch if they do not enable TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot.

Like rival shooter Battlefield 6, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are required for Black Ops 7 to run on PC as part of strict anti-cheat measures. These features block modified hardware and unauthorized software, with the goal of creating a fair, secure environment for all players even as cheaters ramp up their efforts.

Indeed, Activision has said it’s well aware Call of Duty cheaters will hammer on the Black Ops 7 beta, insisting: “that’s exactly what we want.”

In a new blog post, Activision suggested PC gamers enable both TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot now to be ready on day one, with the Black Ops 7 beta set to kick off on October 2 for those with early access, then October 5 in open beta form.

However, some Battlefield 6 players ran into issues enabling TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot, preventing them from playing on PC. Speaking to Eurogamer, Battlefield 6 technical director Christian Buhl lamented the situation. “The fact is I wish we didn’t have to do things like Secure Boot,” Buhl said.

“It does prevent some players from playing the game. Some people’s PCs can’t handle it and they can’t play; that really sucks. I wish everyone could play the game with low friction and not have to do these sorts of things.”

Enabling Secure Boot involves tinkering with a part of a computer not all PC gamers will be instantly familiar with: the BIOS. You need to make sure your Windows disk is GPT and not MBR (not everyone will know what these are), too. All this before you can even enable Secure Boot — and then you may not be able to enable it anyway, which then means you need to refer to your manufacturer for guidance. While this won’t be a problem for more experienced PC gamers, it will be an intimidating process for some.

Perhaps with this in mind, Activision has released guides to help Call of Duty players enable TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot, including BIOS updates for the top 10 motherboard makers used by Call of Duty players.

“When Black Ops 7 launches on November 14, these requirements will combine with our newest RICOCHET Anti-Cheat upgrades,” Activision said. “At that point, we will introduce a remote verification system (known as Remote Attestation) to provide the strongest safeguard possible. This type of attestation is the most secure method of validation, more stringent than the client or local attestation methods found in other games, allowing us to validate TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot settings with Microsoft Azure servers in the cloud.

“This creates a tougher environment for cheats to operate in and ensures that the protections these features detect cannot be bypassed or spoofed, which would be possible if we used local verification on a player’s PC.

“Our layered defense that combines TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, and RICOCHET Anti-Cheat’s upgraded detection systems delivers our most advanced anti-cheat protection yet, safeguarding fair play across Call of Duty.”

Activision continued: “We’re setting a new standard for gaming security. TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are not optional; they are the foundation of our multifaceted defense system, and with your help, they ensure a fair and secure experience for everyone.”

Call of Duty has a reputation for cheating, especially with the free-to-download battle royale Warzone. Activision has spent a significant amount of time, money, and energy in response, even taking on cheat makers in court, although it, like all video game developers, faces an uphill battle in the war on cheaters.

And Activision knows cheaters will descend upon the Black Ops 7 beta (despite it being a beta, it happens with Call of Duty every year, and indeed the Battlefield 6 beta suffered the same fate). In the blog post, Activision welcomed the onslaught that is to come.

“Cheaters will try to test the limits during the Beta. That’s exactly what we want because #TeamRICOCHET is here, watching, learning, and removing them as they appear,” Activision said. “Any account permanently banned for cheating during the Beta will be banned across all Call of Duty titles, from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to future releases.”

It’s worth noting that Activision has highlighted its new aimbot detection, which it said is “one of the strongest detection systems we have ever built,” and its new wall hacking detections, “making it harder for cheaters who manipulate the game to see enemies through surfaces harder to escape detection.”

Check out all the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 multiplayer details announced so far to find out what to expect.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Terminator 2D: No Fate — the new retro game that blends scenes from Terminator 2: Judgment Day with original scenarios and multiple endings — has once again been delayed, this time to November 26, 2025.

It would appear that not even Skynet is immune from tariffs; publisher Reef Entertainment confirmed the delay in a brief blog post, claiming the release date had been pushed back from the original October 31 date due to “ongoing global trade and tariff changes that delayed shipment of the components for our Day One and Collector’s Editions.”

“Because we are committed to launching all editions together, this new date applies to both physical and digital releases worldwide,” Reef added. “We truly appreciate your patience and understanding, and we’re sorry for this further delay. The team is working hard to make sure your wait is worth it, and we can’t wait to share Terminator 2D: No Fate with you all this November.”

Terminator 2D sees you play as Sarah Connor and the T-800 as you try to put a stop to Skynet’s plans before the human race is annihilated. It’s coming to PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and last-gen console systems. It was initially slated to release on September 5 before being delayed to the end of October.

In June, IGN reported on how developer developers at Bitmap Bureau tracked down the actor who played future war John Connor back in 1991 to include his likeness, and found out why Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t in the game.

(Terminator 2D: No Fate includes gameplay that sees the player control future war John Connor in a fight against the machines, fleshing out that brief opening scene in the movie into an entire section of the video game.)

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Given that the LEGO brand has been slapped onto almost every kind of family-friendly multiplayer game you can think of at this point, from kart racers to Super Smash Bros clones and even a Rock Band spin-off, it’s surprising that it’s taken this long for the world’s biggest brick maker to construct its own monument to Mario Party. LEGO Party is something more than a block-based knockoff of Nintendo’s long-running virtual boardgame series, though. Sure, it might use Mario Party’s fundamentals as a baseplate to build upon, with a host of wacky minifigs in place of the Mushroom Kingdom’s finest, but every last piece here is absolutely pulsating with personality and there isn’t a single stud-based dud in the 60 minigames on offer. If lots of laughter is what you’re after, LEGO Party has all the right parts for assembling a fun night in with friends and family.

If you’ve ever played one of Nintendo’s party-starters before then the basics of LEGO Party will be as easy to grasp as a tiny coffee mug in a minifig’s fist. In this instance, the goal is to collect gold bricks and studs instead of stars and coins, as you and three other players move around four uniquely themed game boards littered with various stud-sapping hazards and potentially lucrative event spaces to land on. Depending on the board you choose, each session can be as short as six rounds or roughly 45 minutes but can be extended all the way up to three-hour-long, 24-round epics, and each round pits all four players against each other in a minigame designed to be easy to pick up for LEGO Juniors and old-timer Technic fans alike, but tricky to master.

Everybody can carry up to three power-ups that can be bought with studs at the shop or collected from Wheel of Fortune-style spins, and these can have dramatic leaderboard-levelling impacts, like teleporting your minifig directly to a gold brick space, or slowing your roll so you can increase your chances of moving the exact number of spaces you need. Many of these basics have been established in the Mario Party blueprint several times over, and Lego Party takes an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fish the dog-eared instruction booklet out of the toy chest and rebuild it’ approach to keeping many of these proven core concepts intact.

However, there are some key elements to be found in LEGO Party’s Pirate, Ninjago, Space, and Theme Park boards that set them apart. For starters, each minigame is chosen democratically by moving your minifig in front of one of three options presented at the beginning of each round, and I liked that it meant my party was given a bit more control over which events we were able to enjoy in each evening’s session. (Of course, if you prefer a more randomised minigame experience like Mario Party, you can opt for that too.) I also prefer LEGO Party’s system of letting the results of each minigame determine the order of turns in each subsequent round, as opposed to Mario Party’s more rigid setup of dictating the order via a dice roll at the start and sticking with that all the way to the end. I find that LEGO Party’s results-driven method increases the ebb and flow of each board and brings extra incentive to do well in each minigame.

More notably, each of LEGO Party’s wonderfully candy-coloured and brilliantly detailed boards has a number of special construction zones to land on, giving you the choice of two structures to build on that space that can dramatically alter the map and introduce a variety of game-changing additions. For example, in the Theme Park board you might opt to build the Extreme Zone, which introduces a gauntlet run of twitchy stunt challenges to successfully pull off in order to earn a gold brick. Alternatively you could go for the Royal Ramparts, which brings with it a ballista-based minigame for quickly snaring studs, and a catapult for lobbing you at another random player and stealing one of their gold bricks. Mixed in with the various other board-specific features, like when the Space map briefly transforms into a turn-based battle against a giant green alien, and each go-around of these game boards has felt fresh and fun over the dozen or so hours of playtime my family and I have put in together so far.

Everything is Awesome

It’s also been consistently funny, and that’s largely due to the inclusion of Ted Talker and Paige Turner, LEGO Party’s own quip-cracking commentary team. Seemingly inspired by gag-making game show playcallers like those of Wipeout or Holey Moley, Ted and Paige provide colourful context to each turn taken, as well as responding in real time to each player’s performance in a minigame – either bigging them up when they’re on top, or hilariously dragging them when they’re struggling. Surprisingly, even after multiple playthroughs of each of LEGO Party’s four boards I’ve barely heard the same joke twice, although in fairness that could be because half the time the commentary has been completely drowned out either by fits of uncontrollable laughter or salty bickering as a hard-earned gold brick is ruthlessly snatched away from another player. Seriously, if you’re playing with a competitive group, that tends to sting harder than suddenly finding a lost LEGO brick with the fleshy part of your bare foot.

The rest of the comedy in LEGO Party stems from the competitive chaos of the challenges themselves, and developer SMG Studio – who previously entertained with the slapstick-based shenanigans of its Moving Out series – has really outdone itself as far as crafting a construction derby of morish minigames. From memory-testing challenges to physics-driven races and rhythm-based dance-offs, Lego Party’s roster of minigames is as diverse as it is diverting, dripping with personality and creative flair. Besides, it’s always a great indication for how immediately engaging multiplayer minigames are when players get caught up in the competition without realising they haven’t even left the pre-game practice screen, which has been a regular occurrence during my time with LEGO Party so far.

Some minigames are terrific, toybox tributes to other titans of multiplayer mayhem, such as the obstacle course dash that feels straight out of Fall Guys or the zero-gravity space shuttle soccer that’s very much in the same orbit as Rocket League. Others lean into the familiarly tactile feel of playing with LEGO itself, like the one that involves trying to build monsters out of a pile of different-shaped blocks without being provided any instructions. There’s one challenge with four soccer goals to defend from an ever-increasing number of balls that plays out like an inverted game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, and another that sits each minifig on a LEGO motorbike and challenges you to navigate an undulating course like a cutesy recreation of Trials HD.

Some of the most popular minigames amongst the contestants on my couch are the ones that feel like nothing else we’ve ever played. There’s the frantic, four-way battle to smash your opponents’ LEGO vase with a brick boulder that gradually speeds up as it’s deflected off each player, or the nightclub-themed showdown that sees each of you scramble to fling your minifig onto a floating dance floor with elastic grappling hooks. Of course, everyone in my party has their own personal picks: I love anything on four-wheels, my son’s really into the zero-gravity games, while my daughter’s favourite is… basically whichever minigame she won most recently. But the quality of challenges here is so consistent across the game board, that even when we opt for a random minigame choice we’re rarely disappointed with whatever comes our way.

Everything is Cool When You’re Part of a Team

I also appreciate that success in these minigames is mostly reliant on a combination of skill and luck. You won’t find any cheap button-mashing challenge types here like the ones that often pop up in Mario Party, which I always felt put unnecessary wear and tear on my expensive game controllers, not to mention seeming somewhat unfair to the younger players in my lounge room who haven’t had decades of button-pressing practice pumped into their biceps.

There also aren’t any lopsided three-vs-one match types to force the majority to unfairly gang up on an individual, as LEGO Party’s minigames are always evenly split – either every man for himself, or face-offs in teams of two on the occasions you land on a Brick Battle square. These team-based clashes range from the pure intensity of a doubles game of air hockey through to more ridiculous co-op tasks where one person aims a T-shirt cannon and the other fires it at an audience of shirtless minifigs, and all of them demand effective communication and coordination between duos in order to get the win. In fact, I enjoyed these Brick Battles so much that I was slightly disappointed to find there were only nine of them included in the roster.

Even so, I am happy that LEGO Party doesn’t bother with random participation awards at the end of each board, like many Mario Party games do. There’s still plenty of twists and turns as fortune-changing chance spaces are sprinkled across the map in the closing stages, and many games I’ve played have seen the lead constantly change hands all the way through to the final round, but the winner is always clearly defined by the time you reach the end – not unfairly elevated into first position after the fact purely because of some arbitrary, unseen statistic like they happened to land on the most event spaces. It makes victory feel like it was achieved through genuine merit rather than more mystifying means. That doesn’t mean that other players won’t take any opportunity to knock you off the winner’s podium, though – and I mean that quite literally, especially during the riotously interactive results screen that typically devolves into delirious slap fights, slipping on banana peels, and background breakdancing.

While LEGO Party’s lineup of playable minifigs might not feature anyone as iconic as Mario or Yoshi, it makes up for it in terms of sheer numbers and the substantial suite of options for character customisation. Playing through each of the game boards or one of the curated minigame playlists earns XP that gradually unlocks new minifigs along a series of simple progression paths, as well as awarding you carrots that can be spent unlocking a separate collection of minifigs in the shop. There are more minifigs here than you could shake a mini twig at – by my count well over 200, from goth kid minifigs to person-shaped pizza slices and stylish ninja warriors – and as you unlock each one their individual parts can be used to craft entirely new creations of your own. Want a minifig with tigerprint pants, a Miami Vice-style linen jacket, and an American football helmet? Weird combination but sure, it’s all yours.

Speaking of bolting things together, I’d love to see LEGO Party leverage the many pop culture partnerships that the Danish brickmaker has amassed over the years and bring them to the party either in the form of expansion packs or future sequels. A LEGO Star Wars board with minigames designed around lightsaber battles and Death Star trench runs would be a treat, as would a LEGO Indiana Jones board that had event spaces to trigger Raiders of the Lost-ark style booby traps and boulders. Given Nintendo’s cosying up with the LEGO brand in recent times, it’s not inconceivable that we could even see a LEGO Mario LEGO Party expansion, at least in the Switch versions, to really bring things full circle. To be clear, nothing of this nature has been announced and I’m merely thinking out loud, but I’ve had a blast with LEGO Party so far, and I really hope that it’s set the fantastic plastic foundations for a series that’s here to stay.