A defining element of Lego games is detail. Whenever the developers at Traveller's Tales get their hands on an IP, they take a deep dive into every nook and cranny. They take full advantage of both the franchise's lore and toy format to deliver an all-encompassing experience.
A prime example is character selection. In these games, even the most minor player gets a Lego minifigure. That variety is integral for puzzle-solving, so the list of characters stretches to gargantuan lengths. Players can spend days unlocking them all. Many of them will do just that, if only to see which obscure face lies around the next corner.
7 Lego The Incredibles
What's impressive about The Incredibles is how effectively it captures the feel of '50s and '60s superheroes. As a result, countless costumed crime-fighters come off as an everyday occurrence. These guys may get only a few seconds of screen time in the movies, but they have ample time to shine in Lego form. The developers take those few seconds and scant descriptions and craft a surprisingly dense catalogue of "supers." That's not enough, though.
The Incredibles is a Pixar flick. As such, the game supplements the roster with other Pixar characters. Fans can unlock heroes from Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., A Bug's Life, Up, Inside Out, Wall-E, and even Cars. Put together, they make for 115 total characters.
6 Lego Jurassic World
The Jurassic Park/Jurassic World movies are largely about survival. That often comes down to people with different skillsets working together to escape prehistoric beasts. The developers use those skillsets to create several characters. Trackers, diggers, scientists, technicians, and even gymnastic kids help solve puzzles and evade dinosaurs. This makes for plenty of variety in the Jurassic staff.
142 figures make up the roster, but not all of these are human. Over 20 of them are dinosaurs. If players collect the right fossils, they can reassemble their favorite bygone reptiles. They don't serve much gameplay purpose, but it's undeniably fun to smash everything in sight as a T-rex.
5 Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens
It's odd that Traveller's Tales would make a Lego game out of one movie, but it's odder still that they derive so many characters from that film. After a prologue set during Return of the Jedi, this Star Wars title uses The Force Awakens as for its main campaign. Thankfully, that flick's breakneck pace benefits the game. The heroes go to a dozen locales and tangle with several hostile factions, each with a plethora of minor enemies available as Lego figures. The resulting roster surpasses 200 characters.
The DLC adds more to that hefty total. The developers craft character packs based on The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, the prequel and sequel trilogies, and even The Freemaker Adventures. These add nearly 80 additional figures to an already impressive playset.
4 Lego Marvel Superheroes 2
The first Lego Marvel Superheroes is already a love letter to the most iconic aspects of the Marvel Universe. The Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and other famous faces unite to save the world. The sequel maintains that while giving the same love to weirder, more obscure heroes. The Guardians of the Galaxy, Defenders, Inhumans, and various web-slingers of the Spider-Verse take center stage this time around. When combined with the more recognizable crime-fighters, these bring the roster between 190 and 208 characters.
The various DLC packs continue that trend of lesser-known figures. Comic fans can access characters from Agents of Atlas, the Champions, Cloak and Dagger, the Runaways, and a few of the MCU flicks. Over 60 of them can get in on the momentous Marvel mashup.
3 Lego DC Super-Villains
After exploring the bizarre parts of Marvel, Traveller's Tales sought the same with DC. In Lego DC Super-Villains, the Justice League find themselves transported off-planet by their evil counterparts from an alternate universe. Their mainstay villains must then band together to save the day. After all, no one conquers the world but them.
As expected, the tale takes fans all over the DC Universe. Gotham, Metropolis, Oa, Apokolips, and Gorilla City are all on the list of stops. Each come with comic goodies and baddies both big and small. Heavy hitters like Superman and Batman share the screen with unknown figures like Detective Chimp.
174 of these guys are in the base game, and that number goes up to 270 with DLC. This is where DC's scattershot content comes in handy. The developers draw from several distinctive adaptations. Batman: The Animated Series, the Arrowverse, the DCEU movies, Young Justice, and Justice League Dark all get character/level packs. These provide fresh versions of established characters as well as new faces altogether. It really hammers home the idea of a multiverse.
2 Lego City Undercover
How ironic that, with so many franchises under its belt, one of Lego's biggest games would be an original adventure. Lego City Undercover is about a plucky cop who solves a criminal conspiracy in a sprawling Lego city. That might sound cliched, and that's because it is. The game uses that framework to spoof cop shows and urban crime stories.
With that in mind, it's easy to see how it could arrive at 305 characters. A city obviously has a ton of people of all different professions, and cops interact with these colorful citizens on a daily basis. Drivers, divers, athletes, reporters, construction workers, detectives, and garbage collectors are just a few examples, and Lego City Undercover pokes fun at all of these archetypes. They're still useful for gameplay, albeit usually in a satirical way.
1 Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
With this ambitious title, the folks at Traveller's Tales go back to their roots. That passion is palpable as players progress through all nine mainline Star Wars films and the epic events within. Those events involve Jedi, Sith, senators, clone troopers, Stormtroopers, rebel fighters, separatist droids, regular droids, bounty hunters, and all the alien civilians caught in the middle. That's almost 400 characters in the base game, yet so much of the saga remains unexplored.
That's why the developers opted for DLC. Once again, they include character packs based on The Clone Wars and Rebels. On top of those, though, they add Rogue One, Solo, The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and The Bad Batch. These spin-offs propel the character count past 450. Suffice it to say, that's more than enough to fill a galaxy far, far away.