Synopsis: Welcome to Bricklandia, home of a massive open-world LEGO® driving adventure. Race anywhere, play with anyone, build your dream rides, and defeat a cast of wild racing rivals for the coveted Sky Trophy! In LEGO 2K Drive, your transforming vehicle lets you speed seamlessly across racetracks, off-road terrain, and open waters. Explore Bricklandia, show off your driving skills, and build vehicles brick-by-brick!

Publisher: 2K
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Also available for: PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch

Developer: Visual Concepts Entertainment
Creative Director: Brian Silva
Design Director: David Msika
Technical Director: Dan Stanfill
Art Director: Emmanuel Valdez

LEGO 2K Drive was exciting to see revealed because it meant the LEGO license was being loosened, and we should start to see more games from different developers and genres outside of what TT Games make. With Drive, 2K manages to hit the nail on the head when it comes to building a LEGO-inspired video game, but there’s an odd mix of ideas thrown at a wall here with some specific choices around the racing itself that hold it back from taking the podium.

Outside the pseudo-training map you begin the game in, LEGO 2K Drive will have you sliding rubber, skidding dirt and bouncing off waves across three sizeable maps. With obvious inspiration from Microsoft’s Forza Horizon series, each map features collectibles and side objectives like drift challenges or jump points. Of course, then there are the races—24 circuits, each playable three times across the game’s skill tiers from C to A class.

You may not guess it from screenshots, but a lot is happening in a LEGO 2K Drive race. There are Mario Kart-inspired item boxes that grant weapons, a boost meter built by drifting, and your car loses bricks as you take damage—which you can replace by smashing through trackside objects. There are many mechanics to remember for a game that looks like its target audience is kids. There’s also an extra handbrake for 180s and a stronger boost unlocked after the first big story race that requires a double-tap. If it weren’t necessary to master all of this to win, I wouldn’t hold it against the game—but the AI is aggressive and features egregious rubber-banding that can send three cars blasting past you on a straight even in one of the fastest rides.

So maybe the game isn’t for kids? I don’t feel like it was for me either. Although the races demanded full attention, I didn’t find them hard—just that the enemy AI was tuned to be a pain. And the cutscenes featuring slapstick LEGO humour and corny jokes are surely focused at kids, right? So who is LEGO 2K Drive’s target player base? In an attempt to reach everyone—an understandable goal given LEGO’s broad appeal—Visual Concepts has landed on a game that’ll be frustrating for kids, too busy for younger audiences, and too simple for adults used to arcade racers.

With all that said, the game is enjoyable to play thanks to the spot-on LEGO aesthetic and the Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed-inspired vehicle swapping—your ride re-lays bricks on the fly and switches between a street car, rally car and boat. Drifting feels great and finding shortcuts is fist-pump worthy, but the weapons feel phoned-in: missiles, bombs, shockwaves—the standards. The most LEGO-feeling power-up is a backward spider-web that sticks to an opponent’s windscreen.

Free-roaming each of the three core maps is where fun can be had for everyone, even younger players struggling in races. Side quests send you chasing villains, tracking runaway dolphins and more, all with familiar LEGO silliness. It’s a pity there aren’t enough of these to satisfy the players who enjoy them, while those who just want to race are forced into them by level-gating. After each big story race you’re tasked with reaching the next drive tier—B, then A—at player levels 10 and 20 respectively. You won’t earn enough XP by simply racing, and hitting the next class doesn’t unlock cars or unique abilities—it’s just there to stretch out the campaign for folks who’d rather skip side content.

Exploring the world you’ll find bucks to unlock vehicles, parts and mini-fig drivers. Being a 2K “sports” title, there are also microtransactions. Kids can spend up to $82.45 on in-game currency that converts to bucks. I couldn’t spot anything that felt pay-to-win, but microtransactions in a full-price LEGO game already feel a bit grimy.

LEGO 2K Drive features both split-screen and online multiplayer with cross-play. Friends can race together, but you can’t free-roam the three world maps in tandem to hunt secrets, and you can’t build together either—a big missed opportunity when the in-game builder feels primed for LEGO experts to flex their creativity. Brick by brick you can create vehicles for land and sea—a LEGO staple of creativity—just missing the communal joy of building with friends.

LEGO 2K Drive throws many popular arcade-racer ideas together and asks, what works? For LEGO fans, this will scratch a specific itch. I don’t think we need a “Scotty Smash” to fix this build, but to truly satisfy LEGO racers young and old, a sequel will need some tweaks.

(LEGO 2K Drive code provided for review)