LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is something of an outlier in its franchise. Although Traveller's Tales' LEGO game franchise historically isn't known for being particularly prone to change, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is rich with innovation. Traveller's Tales has rebuilt all kinds of core aspects of the game, from introducing a far more detailed combat system to adding RPG-style skill trees that allow players to unlock and upgrade abilities for different types of playable characters. It's not every day that any given franchise gets such a revolutionary entry, so it'll be interesting to see how the next LEGO game incorporates Skywalker Saga's innovations.
LEGO Batman seems particularly poised to make use of The Skywalker Saga's changes. A skill tree sounds like a great way to give LEGO Batman players more control over Batman and Robin's gadgets, while combat enhancements will make battling Gotham's biggest supervillains much more interesting. Above all, though, The Skywalker Saga's level design sounds ideal for the next LEGO Batman game. Usually, LEGO levels are linear, but in The Skywalker Saga, players can choose paths that vary between action and stealth. These two-level options are perfect for LEGO Batman because they line up perfectly with some of Batman's biggest skills.
The Skywalker Saga's Branching Paths
In LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, players will apparently have multiple paths to choose between when completing some story levels. The Skywalker Saga's gameplay overview suggests that one of the path archetypes is a high-action path where players will confront lots of enemies and make progress by force. That sounds like pretty traditional LEGO Star Wars fare. In most LEGO games, players constantly run into hordes of enemies in between solving puzzles and completing platforming segments. It's no surprise that The Skywalker Saga's levels will still allow players to solve problems with their lightsabers.
In contrast, the trailer also states that players can seek out stealthy approaches to levels, showcasing Poe Dameron sneaking past some First Order stormtroopers. It's not entirely clear what these stealth segments in The Skywalker Saga will look like, but odds seem good that they'll emphasize LEGO building and puzzle-solving instead of combat. While the stealth path will likely cause players to end up in the same final location as the high-action path, it's still a compelling addition. A stealth-focused path gives The Skywalker Saga's levels much more replayability and creates an interesting opportunity to see the hidden far corners of famous Star Wars locations.
LEGO Star Wars fans don't know exactly how and when they'll know when these branching paths will open up, or if low-action paths are all stealth-centric. Still, stealth alone is already a valuable alternative to traditional LEGO Star Wars fare. The gameplay overview shows that the player's LEGO building choices will sometimes determine the path they take, but it'd be great if some optional paths were a little more hidden in order to encourage exploration within levels. All in all, the new branching levels seem like a priceless addition to The Skywalker Saga.
LEGO Batman Has Stealth Potential
LEGO Batman could easily adapt The Skywalker Saga's style of level design and make great use of it. Naturally, the next LEGO Batman game ought to let players simply barge into the lairs of supervillains if they so choose. The original LEGO Batman game offered players plenty of opportunities to storm their way through famous Gotham locations while beating up the Riddler, Penguin, and Joker's minions. If it has branching levels, LEGO Batman 4 should always have at least one path that's packed with enemies so that players can put the Caped Crusader's fighting skills to good use.
At the same time, LEGO Batman is the perfect kind of game to offer players a stealth approach. Batman is famously stealthy, constantly appearing in unexpected places and attacking villains from the cover of night. LEGO Batman 4 could have some fantastic stealth sections by following The Skywalker Saga's lead. Instead of charging into battle head-on, players might have the option to sneak past threats and find ways to attack them indirectly, dropping objects on enemies from above or using silent takedowns to pick off enemies one by one.
Beyond stealth, LEGO Batman could even innovate by having level paths that are particularly heavy on platforming. LEGO games generally have at least a little platforming involved as players construct platforms that help them navigate levels, but LEGO Batman's story levels could have certain paths that emphasize Batman's agility as well. Gotham is full of tall buildings that are great for climbing and jumping between, so instead of chasing a villain down on the streets of Gotham, players could quickly scale nearby buildings in order to cut the enemy off in a different part of the city. The Skywalker Saga could have platforming segments like these first, but they'd still be perfect for LEGO Batman.
The Next Big LEGO Project
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is very important for the LEGO game brand because it majorly raises the bar for whatever Traveller's Tales makes next. Another licensed LEGO game will need to be just as ambitious in order to stay out of The Skywalker Saga's shadow. Ideally Traveller's Tales will develop the next game a little more patiently too; The Skywalker Saga's innovations are great, but it's sad to hear that Traveller's Tales developers have suffered from crunch because of it. The studio ought to carefully examine The Skywalker Saga's features before trying to adapt them. Historically, that kind of patience is the best way to produce a high-quality game anyhow.
When looking at the innovations that The Skywalker Saga has to offer the next big LEGO game, it's clear that Traveller's Tales has a lot of options. Out of all the IPs it could revisit with those features, though, LEGO Batman really seems like an ideal candidate. Aside from being a fan favorite LEGO series and a great target for a combat overhaul, LEGOBatman is ripe for branching levels that let fans choose between a sneaky approach or raw force. Traveller's Tales ought to take the next LEGO game slow, but hopefully, it'll at least let fans know what franchise it wants to freshen up next.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga releases April 5 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
