There are few things on this planet that collect more intergenerational goodwill than hard plastic Lego bricks and Epic Games’ battle royale Fortnite. While one is tactile and the other more tactical, colorful Legos and Fortnite both look like they’ve dabbled in clown face paint, they benefit from near-constant updates, and they can sometimes be expensive pastimes. So when Lego teased a collaboration with Fortnite earlier this year, it made perfect sense. Now, we’ll get to witness the harmony of the marriage in a new survival crafting game, Lego Fortnite, the toy company announced.
It’s not the physical Fortnite Lego set some fans are yearning for - at the moment, Lego has only a few sets based on video games, including one for Sonic the Hedgehog, and, more recently, Animal Crossing, but none for Fortnite. Though, Lego Fortnite might be enough to hold them over.
"Within Lego Fortnite," a press release said, "players can explore vast, open worlds where the magic of Lego building and Fortnite collide. Designed for people of all ages to enjoy together, the game will encourage creativity, experimentation, and collaboration through play." Lego Fortnite will be available to play inside Fortnite’s main game.
The news was announced following today's Big Bang event in Fortnite, which closed out Chapter 4 and set the stage for Chapter 5 with an apocalyptic dimension-hopping spectacle. Among the vignettes in the event was an apparent preview of the Lego game, which featured teases of extensive crafting systems and combat against what looked like NPC enemies.
This is apparently as part of Lego and Epic’s Metaverse directive announced in 2022. At the time, the companies said in a joint statement that they planned to "build an immersive, creatively inspiring and engaging digital experience for kids of all ages to enjoy together." To them, the Metaverse — a buzzword that usually simply refers to an engaging virtual world — is family-friendly and generative, and it sounds like Lego Fortnite intends to be that.
"Together [Lego and Fortnite] will build positive digital play experiences that enable young players to become the creators of tomorrow,” continued Lego’s most recent press release. “Lego Fortnite will be the first play experience to come from our long term partnership with Epic Games to develop fun and safe digital spaces for children and families.” The game comes to Fortnite on December 7.
But there are already so many Legos out there to play with. Why not start with 10 of the best Lego games?
