Since 2005's LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game, LEGO games have improved immensely in visual quality, and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga only continues this trend, boasting a level of visual detail comparable to Warner Bros.' animated LEGO movies. Interior levels have been built entirely with LEGO bricks, while Minifigures look more like actual plastic toys than computer-generated models. This lends The Skywalker Saga an almost movie-like feel, with levels looking more like massive LEGO sets as opposed to environments populated by Minifigures.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the first LEGO title to release on next-gen consoles, meaning developer TT Games was able to harness the power of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X during its development. The Skywalker Saga is also set to be the biggest LEGO game released in the company's history, featuring over 300 playable LEGO Star Wars characters across all nine main films in the franchise. The overall presentation of the series has changed drastically since the first LEGO Star Wars games were released in 2005 and 2006 respectively, as has the level of content that has been crammed into one title.
Visually speaking, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is already the best LEGO video game, and part of the reason why is that it looks similar to 2014's The LEGO Movie. The film was visually stunning, presenting a bright and colorful world that looks and feels more like real LEGO bricks than it does animation. This aesthetic (alongside many other elements of The LEGO Movie's success) was later repeated with a sequel and a LEGO Batman Movie spinoff, and the celebration-themed LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga - thanks to a combination of utilizing levels made out of bricks and a greater level of graphical detail - looks to have a similar aesthetic.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga's Levels Are Made Out Of Bricks
Although LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga's predecessors were limited by past console technology, their levels often alternated between looking not enough like LEGO or not enough like Star Wars. Their larger spaces were built from drab, visually uninteresting floors and walls interrupted by features constructed from LEGO bricks, as well as the Minifigures that populated the scenery. In The Skywalker Saga, many interior spaces are cohesively constructed entirely from bricks, providing the feel of playing with a Star Wars LEGO set rather than playing a video game. The environments are undeniably Star Wars, but tiles, studs, and the oft-glimpsed LEGO logo keep the game rooted in the building system, ensuring that both Star Wars and LEGO carry equal weight. Characters looking plastic-y is actually a good thing when they're literally made of plastic, and environments and ships often feel as though they could be recreated one-to-one with the right bricks.
Beyond the myriad of LEGO elements seen across the game, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga contains tons of visual polish that really sells the experience. Many surfaces (made of bricks) realistically reflect light, the air fills with smoke and sparks, and floors and walls are often peppered with scorch marks from blaster fire. Minifigures bend in animation in ways impossible for physical LEGO pieces but believable for an action game, especially when reacting to damage and breaking apart into bits, dramatically improving combat from previous LEGO Star Wars games. Lightsabers spark satisfyingly when striking enemies and leave behind a faint after-image when swung. A huge collection of iconic vehicles are present for ground and space travel, with space battles featuring dramatic vistas of planet surfaces seemingly right out of a Star Wars movie.
This all breathes life into what might otherwise be cold, flat plastic. The end result is a cinematic experience that's remarkably real, not despite but because of the ubiquitous LEGO elements. The world is believable, reactive, and recognizable, melding shiny sci-fi visuals to the playful LEGO experience. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga's plastic and studs serve as unobtrusive but omnipresent reminders that this game isn't just Star Wars, but LEGO too.