LEGO Party review — Finding out who’s a stud and who’s a brick

You can never have enough LEGO in your life. Whether it’s building the LEGO Death Star, watching LEGO Ninjago, or playing any of the many LEGO games out there, fans of the colorful bricks have no shortage of fun to dive into. Now there’s even more to enjoy, and you can bring the whole crew together for a LEGO Party! Combining LEGO classics with party games, LEGO Party! hopes to bring everyone together for some shenanigans full of bricks, studs, and so much laughter.

LEGO Party! is a 4-person party game where players compete on different themed maps, called Challenge Zones, to collect gold bricks and be crowned champion. Similar to games like Mario Party or Pummel Party, players take turns moving around the board, collecting studs, buying items from shops, and causing mayhem for other players. There’s a minigame between rounds where players can earn additional studs, which are needed to acquire gold bricks. The person with the most gold bricks after all rounds are over is the winner! Of course, there are also unlucky spaces, event spaces, and more to trigger as players move around, including adding entire new sections to the board.

There are four maps to choose from at launch, which is a decent starting point, however, it was surprising to see that a particularly iconic LEGO property was absent from the starting lineup – LEGO City. We do have LEGO Ninjago, as well as pirate, space, and theme park maps, but it would have been nice to see more actual titles being represented. Hopefully we’ll get to see more with post-launch content, including some of the collaborations LEGO has done with other properties, like Star Wars, Fortnite, and more.

Each map has a different theme and a gameplay length. We played the pirate map during our co-op game, which we enjoyed a lot. The space map was a particular favorite because of the theme. The ambiance on the Space map goes crazy, and it feels incredibly thematic. The theme park map has four different sections that all connect to one central zone. Of course, the LEGO Ninjago map is full of references from the movie and the show.

This is a fast-paced game, with each round and minigame only lasting a few minutes. Playing a 12-round match took us about an hour and a half to complete. During that time, Raven was mugged by a bunch of monkeys, who proceeded to steal studs and give them to Cassie. We watched as another player had a rotisserie chicken land on their head, causing them to drop one of their gold bricks on a random space on the board, which put it up for grabs for another player.

There are dozens of fun minigames, which players get to vote on. Three options are presented, as well as one ‘Random’ option. The selection with the most votes is the minigame that you play. This was a very enjoyable way to keep things spicy between players, seeing what kind of rivalries would develop if any particular player(s) decided to always choose the chaotic ‘Random’ route. Your skill in the minigames determines how many studs you’re rewarded at the end, and also determines in what order players make their move during the next round. Some minigames are easy, like moving a cart back and forth over a teetering platform to collect studs, while others require more precision or snappy movements.

Minigames can be played in three additional modes. In Minigame Rush, you compete against other players in a series of minigames to see who can collect the most studs. There’s also a mode that’s simply called MINIGAMES, where you can practice playing any of the minigames. Lastly, in Score Chaser, you try to beat high scores in different minigames.

This game feels like an instant party classic, with all the elements needed to make it an exciting and chaotic good time amongst friends and family. The menus are easy to navigate, matchmaking is easy, and gameplay has that LEGO flair. It plays like a game show, with your hosts, Ted Talker and Paige Turner, providing lively, hilarious commentary throughout, throwing shade at those struggling to make a move while praising players stacking up those gold bricks. The LEGO effects are also well done, with each set piece beautifully constructed from individual bricks (the theme park map is 210,000 bricks). The game is full of LEGO charm!

LEGO Party! has hundreds of customization options to choose from to create your minifig. You can buy new minifigures with carrots that you earn after each match, and you also unlock a ton of minifigures simply by playing the game. If none of these options work for you, you can also create your own character. There are plenty of pieces to use at the start, with a nearly unlimited number of possible combinations, and you unlock even more as you unlock more minifigures. However, we didn’t spend as much time creating our own character because the character presets you unlock are substantial enough to keep you going. For some, customization is also a little overwhelming, and sometimes you just want to jump right into the game. However you choose, there are plenty of options for creatives and non-creatives alike.

One of the best things about LEGO Party! is that it supports cross-platform play with anyone on any available platform, and they’ve stripped away the hassle of needing to hunt for people on connected friends lists to join a lobby. Instead of having to link together your Nintendo, Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation accounts to find your friends, all you need to do is share the private lobby code. Connecting to the lobby is a breeze, taking less than 30 seconds to get connected (as long as you have a good internet connection, of course). After that, it’s pretty smooth sailing. The game can also be played in couch co-op if you want to have an in-person LEGO party.

The only major concern we had cropped up during minigames where controls on the Nintendo Switch 2 seemed to bug out or severely lag, making it impossible to complete a task and ultimately costing some valuable studs. Aside from that, the Switch 2 handles the game like a star-studded dream. We also had some time with the game on Steam Deck, which handled the game wonderfully, maintaining 60fps on medium settings. Both systems were played while docked, so performance will likely differ in handheld mode.