'LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga' Could Be The Biggest Game Of 2021

The combination of little LEGO figures and brilliantly designed levels full of puzzles and secrets given a fun Star Wars makeover was so intoxicating that the brick-based adaptation managed to help me come to terms with the infamously stinky prequels on which the original game is based. That's no mean feat.

Then came LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy one year later, which had two things going for it. For one, it offered up more of the same great gameplay I'd come to love. On top of that, it adapted three films that weren't steaming piles of shit.

My relationship with the LEGO games has ebbed and flowed over the years. I've enjoyed a fair few of them, but not a single one of the franchises LEGO has turned its hand to seems to work as well as Star Wars. I don't know what it is, but seeing the heroes of George Lucas' epic sci-fi saga running around in a plastic world being complete and utter goofballs just hits differently. Developer Traveler's Tales has a knack for taking everything great about Star Wars - the action, the adventure, the excitement - and making it fun and accessible. It's an absolute joy to experience.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I firmly believe LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is going to be one of the best games of 2021, if not the best. You probably think I'm full of it, but allow me to explain to you everything this upcoming Star Wars adventure has going for it. You won't believe the power of the bricks.

As the name suggests, The Skywalker Saga will offer up a complete retelling of all nine main Star Wars films, from The Phantom Menace to The Rise Of Skywalker. That's some of the best and worst films in the history of cinema in one package (I'll let you decide which are which), finished off with that inimitable playful TT Games touch. While I would have been pretty happy if we'd just gotten remasters/remakes of levels from the first two games plus a bunch of new content for the sequel trilogy, TT Games has gone bigger than that. Much bigger.

The Skywalker Saga is - and I can't stress this enough - a completely new game with overhauled combat, multiple open world planets to explore, brand-new levels, and so much more going on than we've ever seen in a LEGO game. While we only know the bare minimum at this stage, the mission statement is clear: this is a complete and total evolution of the LEGO video game series, and I really do feel it has the potential to offer up the definitive Star Wars experience.

Whether your favourite film is The Last Jedi or Empire Strikes Back, you can explore every corner of the universe at your own pace, in your own way. That's something no other Star Wars game has given us, and it's not something I expect to ever see in a Star Wars game ever again.

In short, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has the potential to close the book on the last four decades of adventures in one streamlined package. One that doesn't take itself too seriously, or make the same mistakes as some of the movies did. Again, I'll leave you to decide which of the movies made the most mistakes.

Above all, I think The Skywalker Saga has the potential to bring out the very best in each of the nine films and remind us all that actually, if Star Wars is supposed to be anything at all, it's damn good fun. That, my friends, is why it's currently my most-anticipated video game of this year.