Traveller's Tales' series of licensed LEGO games have lasted a long time because they skillfully blend the lighthearted spirit of LEGO with iconic pop culture. On the one hand, games like LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga manage to deliver largely accurate retellings of the stories they adapt, but on the other hand they represent the charming creative energy of LEGO products through building mechanics. Creativity is particularly well represented in custom characters, which can be made in most games by mixing and matching the parts of other playable characters.
Traveller's Tales hasn't discussed it at length, but odds seem good that LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will have a custom character builder too. While The Skywalker Saga has tons of innovations, it has also gone far to preserve core facets of LEGO gameplay. It could be that The Skywalker Saga's big changes result in a stronger custom character builder than any previous LEGO game. Because Traveller's Tales has added so many playable characters to the new LEGO Star Wars game, and introduced a class system that determines each characters' abilities, making a playable character could be more rewarding than ever.
The Skywalker Saga's Customization Strengths
Throughout LEGO game history, custom characters have always derived their part options from the game's playable cast. The bigger a LEGO game's playable character list is, the more options players have. Previous LEGO games have had impressive character rosters, but The Skywalker Saga's list has some 300 playable characters expected to show up. With that many characters in the roster, LEGO Star Wars fans will have a litany of customization options. Traveller's Tales could always offer extra character details exclusive to custom characters too, like rare lightsaber colors ranging from orange to white.
Perhaps more importantly, The Skywalker Saga has RPG mechanics that could have a huge impact on character creation. In The Skywalker Saga, each playable character belongs to one of several classes like Jedi, Sith, Scoundrel, and Bounty Hunter. Classes all have abilities that can be unlocked and upgraded as players progress. Custom characters traditionally gain their moveset from the weapons they wield, but in The Skywalker Saga players might choose a custom character's class at the outset, which could simultaneously tweak their customization options and streamline their attacks and abilities.
Improving Custom LEGO Characters
LEGO characters have had their ups and downs as far as customization is concerned. For some games, like LEGO Star Wars entries, customization is as simple as putting a particular weapon in a character's hand, with all other abilities stemming from that weapon. Other times players have to use a particular torso or helmet to give a character a certain set of abilities. For some, this can result in confusing or buggy custom characters with abilities that don't work well, which ultimately discourages players from playing as a custom character.
The Skywalker Saga's classes could make playable character better organized and more useful, directly borrowing animations and abilities from a set class. Compartmentalizing character abilities as part of a class would also allow The Skywalker Saga players to design whatever character they like, rather than having to look like Boba Fett in order to gain Boba Fett's abilities. The framework for an excellent customization system in The Skywalker Saga is already in place; Traveller's Tales just has to follow through and integrate it. Hopefully future gameplay clips reveal character customization and explore its relationship with The Skywalker Saga's other improvements.
LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga releases April 5 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
