The LEGO brand has been a consistent part of gaming for over thirty years, with a surprisingly high amount of quality products attached to the brand. From ’00s PC games to creation suites to Traveller’s Tales' branded games and most on-point for LEGO 2K Drive, Forza Horizon DLC packs. The latter led to a small outcry of folks wondering why a dedicated racing game was needed when that existed – but playing LEGO 2K Drive made it clear why it’s so much better to have this product than “just” a DLC pack.
The world of LEGO thrives on creativity and that’s stifled when you see existing LEGO content in a real-world setting. While those DLC packs helped that title and put the LEGO brand out there for more racing fun, as it had been used in the past for kart racers, it felt like a bit of a disconnect. LEGO 2K Drive uses a similar all-LEGO world to the TT LEGO games with a light-hearted tone that’s right alongside what was used in LEGO City Undercover. In a lot of ways, this feels like a natural extension of those games – but with Visual Concepts' polish taking things to a new level.
The core mode of the game is the story, where your new racer hits Bricktopia and sets out to first conquer the land before traveling to the Sky Cup, while also taking care of business on the sea. Vehicles have a land, sea and off-road variant and it enables a higher level of control while keeping the action fast. Having everything you drive basically be like a weaponless Interceptor from Spy Hunter is cool and the switch between vehicle types happens instantaneously without any delay. One great thing about this being LEGO game is all the vehicles are in theory made of LEGO pieces and just reshape in real-time.
The worst part about LEGO 2K Drive is its ambiguous and sometimes plain odd requirements to move on in the story. Some mission objectives, like gathering pigs up for a farmer are laid out somewhat well – letting the player know that the pigs are in front of the farm and need to be corralled and then put into a pen. Then about a half hour later, a gatekeeping mission comes up where you have to in theory do something similar to people – but have to get a shield protect yourself from the robots and then wait a few seconds for the folks to jump on the car to shepherd them around into the safe zone while avoiding a ghost train and robots. None of this is explained, but the mission has to be completed before the player can take on the final mission of the third island.
For a game with a decent amount of accessibility options in place and one meant for an all-ages audience, vague mission goals seem counterproductive and get in the way of making story progress. It would make sense to have race results be a gatekeeping method, but not something so off the wall that blocks the player from making progress due to a mission that doesn’t have much to do with core racing beyond testing your turning skills and ability to hopefully get people in the shield’s path before moving them around. LEGO 2K Drive’s mission variety outside of gatekeeping missions is impressive and some of the best on the market. A lot of racing games focus on side goals that can be monotonous, but LEGO 2K Drive offers bite-sized missions including things like platforming challenges that remind the player of how important jumping can be. It allows the player to gain more height from a ramp and that can mean the difference between getting some in-game cash and not or offering up just the right angle for a missile attack in a race.
The core racing action is fluid and each vehicle type offers up something different. While there isn’t a sideswipe attack a la Disney Speedstorm, using a larger vehicle does enable the character to bully rivals around the track. Befitting a LEGO experience, the game allows you to run amok in your own creations or even a giant LEGO burger car. It evokes a bit of the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, but in giant burger form while also reminding me of the Pacer in the Good Burger movie. Having a healthy variety of vehicles available at any time makes the experience feel fresh and it’s fun to experiment with different vehicle types in different areas. For areas with a lot of turns, I found a sportier, lighter car to be the best way to get around. For smaller maps with a lot of racing-based missions, going heavier made things more fun to push rivals around.
It’s also possible to just mix things up from the story mode and play a regular Grand Prix cup across a plethora of different stage themes. The story mode races are repeated here as well if you want to replay them, and there are original races to master as well. It’s nice to have a Grand Prix option because sometimes, a long play session of missions can be draining – so focusing on the racing action helps mix things up even though everything revolves around driving at its core. Kart racing mechanics like power-ups keep races moving and ensure there isn’t a moment where something isn’t happening but offers up nice balance compared to something like Mario Kart. The weapon usage feels more like Blur with the more realistic racing mechanics compared to a regular kart racer.
The most-impressive racing type is in the water because the game very much feels right in line action-wise with something like Hydro Thunder Hurricane. The controls are silky-smooth in every racing environment and things like twisters help add in the chaos that made arcade racers so frantic back in the day. One of the most-impressive things about LEGO 2K Drive is that it works well in every kind of racing scenario available. As an aquatic racer, it doesn’t get as much time to shine generally, but it holds up when compared to dedicated experiences. The off-road gameplay is exciting with a lot of jumps, and you never know what a regular race on-land will have in store for you. There will at least be a few sections of switching up the vehicle forms, and that makes you get more comfortable with each racing surface in real-time.
The player is given a blank canvas to work with in each island and can tackle things at their own pace or just do Grand Prix races until their heart’s content. Having mission structure helps keep the player on-task, but the freedom of smaller missions keeps things from ever growing stale. The mission variety reminds me a lot of Project Gotham Racing’s challenges – like the cone challenge, which in theory should not be anywhere near as fun as they are. Because of the execution, however, even something like a fetch quest to give someone flowers to their crush works as a way to keep the player invested in the adventure.
Visually, for a game that is running the gamut from the Switch to the PS5, it’s impressive to see just how great it looks on the PS5 hardware. The ray tracing used for the LEGO bricks themselves looks fantastic and very much matches how light shines off of a real LEGO piece. The fact that this holds up for the environment itself is even more impressive. Audio-wise, LEGO 2K Drive hits hard in every way – with a killer soundtrack, sound effects that impress in every area and solid voice work. The soundtrack is mixed up a lot based on the venue, so the southwest-inspired Big Butte area gets a lot of old Western-style music, while the modern Turbo Acres has a more modern rock style to it. Much like the TT-created LEGO games, the cast blends well together and characters are kept simple but given more depth to work with here due to having so much dialogue compared to not only other LEGO games, but racing games in general. The work done with sound effects is also impressive as things like smashing through the environment have a nice thud, while races have fantastic surround sound usage with enemies all around and that coming through nicely in the audio mixing.
Closing Comments:
Other than having vague missions at times to get to story-essential races, LEGO 2K Drive is an incredible time. There’s so much fun to be had that it’s impossible to be bored by anything that goes on and the mission variety is far more of a blessing than a curse – although work does need to be done to explain how to accomplish mission objectives. The racing action itself is top-shelf and a fantastic basis for a long-term series if that works out. The roots of arcade-racing fun are here, with a lot of depth to the gameplay thanks to things like platforming-style jumps enabling more ways to pickup weapons and power-ups. Anyone who wants a racing game they can spend hours at a time with and never run out of things to do will be overjoyed with LEGO 2K Drive. It plays great, is the best-looking LEGO game yet and has fantastic sound design across the board.
LEGO 2K Drive
LEGO 2K Drive is an open-world racing game that brings extreme racing to LEGO lovers as they have never experienced before. Racers will have to drift, boost, jump, and use multiple vehicles during races to finish in first place. Cup Series offers ultra-competitive racing action, while Story Mode will keep gamers engaged through a compelling campaign. Or LEGO racers can simply explore the diverse worlds in the game, completing missions and claiming collectibles.
