LEGO Voyagers (PS5) Review: Stuck On You

As someone who instantly fell in love with thatgamecompany’s Journey, LEGO Voyagers already had a leg up when it came to grabbing my attention. To be clear, I’m not suggesting these two games have a lot in common to begin with; Journey is, first and foremost, an adventure game with light platforming elements, while LEGO Voyagers is firmly rooted in the puzzle-platformer space.

But at their cores, both games are centered around the idea of connection and communication, which is perhaps why LEGO Voyagers took me by surprise. The form it takes is certainly different from an art game like Journey, but it’s hard to deny that they are built from some of the same foundational blocks.

While you won’t find yourself playing as a nameless wanderer adventuring for the top of a far-off mountain, LEGO Voyagers does open with a familiar setup. You play as a small, 1×1 Lego brick, the kind that can leave you on the floor, shouting expletives, should you ever step on one accidentally. Thankfully, this Lego brick, with its single eye and ability to chirp/sing, is infinitely more charming, and while it isn’t well-suited for combat or hardcore platforming, its bite-sized jump and ability to tumble and roll just about anywhere leave it well-suited for exploration.

You can perhaps see why LEGO Voyagers reminded me of Journey, but gameplay-wise, that’s where the similarities end. Rather than attempting to reach the peak of a mountain, your intrepid Lego brick has its own North Star, which takes the form of a space shuttle launch site far off in the distance. And instead of randomly stumbling across other players during your journey, you’ll be making the trip with another Lego brick by your side, from start to finish.

Whether you play online with a friend or locally, LEGO Voyagers follows in the same vein as other co-op-only games like Split Fiction and It Takes Two. To be fair, co-op LEGO games are nothing new, but unlike the many licensed LEGO titles that leaned into pop culture references and lifting jokes from your favorite summer blockbusters, Voyagers is a much more serene, laid-back affair, more in line with developer Light Brick Studios’ last title, LEGO Builder’s Journey. There’s zero dialogue throughout the entire game, and while I’d have to do another playthrough to confirm, I swear I didn’t see a single camera cut across the three-hour campaign. Eat your heart out, God of War.

While your Lego brick’s ability to roll around, jump, and communicate via chirping might make for a good game on its own, its ability to snap onto other Lego pieces is the last piece of the puzzle that really makes the entire thing click. This plays a crucial role when platforming, allowing you to jump and snap onto pieces of scaffolding and other environmental objects, but you can also attach your Lego brick to other loose pieces of Lego and move them around. The building process can take a minute to get used to, as you’ll need to carefully orient Lego pieces before snapping them together, but before long, you’ll be building makeshift bridges and ladders with ease.

That being said, you’ll need to work with your co-op partner to tackle some of the game’s bigger challenges, which do an amazing job at recreating the childhood joy of building your own LEGO creations with friends. Piloting a boat (with each of you controlling a rear propeller) and driving a dump truck around (one on the throttle, the other on the steering wheel) might not demand the same level of creativity as building a vehicle from scratch, but the feeling you get from solving a puzzle is just as palpable.

LEGO Voyagers (PS5) Review: Final Verdict

LEGO Voyagers is a rather brief affair (my first playthrough clocked in at just over three hours), but each minute brings with it something new and novel. Whether you’re working together to repair a train track or taking a minute to unwind and play on a makeshift see-saw, it’s packed with these special moments that highlight the importance of friendships in our lives. It’s also, surprisingly, an incredibly emotional game (especially during its final moments), but I won’t dare spoil any of that for you. Even if LEGO Voyagers could be reworked into a strictly single-player affair, the result wouldn’t be half as good as it currently stands. It’s very much a game that’s not about the destination, but rather, the journey you make together.

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