For years, LEGO has found great success in teaming up with third-party studios to develop its tie-in game titles. However, it seems that collaborations with the likes of TT Games, 2K and Epic may soon come to an end, as a LEGO executive has suggested that the company wants to take things in-house in the future.
In a recent interview with the Financial Times (paywall), LEGO chief exec Niels Christiansen stated that the company is looking to build its digital departments alongside its classic, physical manufacturing. “We can definitely say as long as we’re under the Lego brand we can cover experiences for kids of all ages, digital or physical," Christiansen told the outlet, "[Game development in-house] is something we’re building up".
It will mark an interesting move for the company, which, despite having a presence in the gaming space for the past two decades, has always outsourced development to other studios. TT Games has long helmed the movie tie-in series like LEGO Star Wars, Harry Potter and Indiana Jones, 2K got behind the bricky wheel in LEGO 2K Drive and, with a recent win, the company paired up with Epic Games in 2023 on the immensely popular LEGO Fortnite.
That said, it makes a lot of sense. With LEGO sets cropping up for Mario, Animal Crossing, Sonic and Zelda in recent years, the company clearly sees the appeal of getting in with the gaming crowd, and it's not as if the House of Bricks is strapped for cash of late — in its latest financial report, the company posted increased revenue of 13% to 74.3 billion DKK (£8.4 billion / $10.8 billion) with consumer sales up 12%.
"We have made quite a few investments in the future — I’d almost rather overinvest," Christiansen told the Financial Times, "That’s the benefit of being family-owned and long-term". Back in 2022, LEGO announced that it was planning to triple its number of software engineers to make more of an impact in the digital space. Two years on, it seems that is still the case.
What this means for the future of LEGO games remains to be seen. LEGO Fortnite continues to be a huge success, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is still selling like hot cakes three years after its release, and we remain none the wiser about that rumoured football game from 2K. You'd think that it would be a tall order to pull everything in-house immediately, but when we're talking about LEGO money, who knows?
