For one thing, this take on Episode IV actually folds in some elements from Rogue One, opening with the scene where Princess Leia is handed the Death Star plans and refers to them as ‘hope’. Playing as Leia (with Wedge Antilles as your co-op partner), you must fight your way through the Vader-invaded Tantive IV spaceship to find R2-D2 and give him the plans.

As you make your way through the ship, you’ll get to grips with the new gameplay mechanics, which have seen an overhaul as well. You are still smashing things, building things and collecting coins as you try to earn the mantle of ‘True Jedi’, but you’re also given a greater element of choice as you work through each level. For example, at several points, you are given a choice between two different paths, each of which offer a different approach to a problem – there will often be a sneaky way or a combative way to get through an area, which allows you to tailor your experience to your own tastes.

If you’ve played the more recent LEGO games, you’ll be used to the new-ish game mechanic which allows you to choose between multiple options when you’re deciding what to make from the bricks you’ve assembled. This feature is alive and well in The Skywalker Saga, making this a deeper proposition than the classic LEGO Star Wars games from back in the day.

Combat has also had something of a refresh, and there is a now a combo bar on the screen that will count your attacks and encourage you to dish out special moves rather than just hammering one button to wallop your foes into submission. You could argue that no one is coming to a LEGO game for its combat, but it’s nice to see the developers at least trying to grow their offering.

One thing that hasn’t changed in the sense of humour that you get from LEGO games, which has been ramped up here, helped by the fact that LEGO games are allowed to have dialogue these days (as opposed to the mumbling and miming of the original LEGO Star Wars). There are some nods back to the original game (including a hot-tub full of Stormtroopers that you can stumble into early on), but much of the humour is new, and it’s nice to see the Star Wars franchise embracing comedy again after a few years of straight-faced reverence on the live-action side.

It probably goes without saying that the graphics here are far better than the previous LEGO games, too. You can see reflections of light in the characters’ plastic faces, and you will also notice that a lot of the environments (especially spaceship interiors) have been created using individual LEGO bricks, which is certainly an admirable level of attention to detail.

Once you’ve got the Death Stars plans to Artoo and Threepio, you’ll switch to their perspective as they take an escape pod (here reimagined as an overactive washing machine) down to Tatooine, where they’re quickly teamed up with Luke Skywalker. And once that holy trinity of characters is assembled, you get to see another major upgrade that this game has provided – you’re now in a mini open world area on Tatooine, where you can pick up side quests or solve little puzzles rather than rushing straight into the next mainline story scene.

In these little side moments you can earn special bricks that will help you unlock collectables, as well as picking up extra coins and chatting to newly created characters that may have side quests to give you (for instance, we met a Gonk droid that wanted us to guide it across the dangerous wastelands). If you played The LEGO Movie 2 Video Game or LEGO DC Super Villains, you will have seen Travellers Tales testing out these open world areas, which certainly help to bulk out the experience and make it a bit more than just a recreation of the films.

The rush to meet Obi-Wan is strong, though, so we don’t waste much time before heading off into the clearly marked story area, where we’re ambushed by Tusken Raiders and shortly afterwards rescued by Old Ben himself. There’s another little open world area around Obi-Wan’s homestead – in this area, we climbed up a mountain to find more Tusken Raiders guarding some collectables – but again, we didn’t hang around for long.

In Obi-Wan’s home we saw a funny decor choice – in this version of the story, Old Ben’s walls are adorned with photos of his Clone Wars era antics with Anakin – as well as seeing a comical reimagining of Luke’s first experience with a lightsaber, where the chosen one very nearly takes one of his eyes out with his new, dignified weapon. In all these little moments of gentle ribbing, you can feel the love from the developers shining through.

Travellers Tales

It’s not long before we’re heading out to Mos Eisley (another open world area with lots to discover) and into the iconic cantina (full of Easter eggs, of course), triggering a series of events that sees the player taking out Stormtroopers as Luke, Han, Obi-Wan and the droids while Chewbacca tries to fix up the Millennium Falcon.

This allowed us our first real taste of lightsaber combat, which felt the same as ever to be honest — but we did see a video of a different part of the game, where Anakin fights Count Dooku in Episode III, which showed that actual duels between multiple lightsaber wielders have gotten a bit more complex (you have to block, dodge and do Quick Time Events rather than just slashing your foes a few times).

Force powers have had something of an upgrade, too, with Obi-Wan being able to use his Jedi mind trick on Stormtroopers to distract or confound them, even in the heat of battle. This, again, gives you multiple options regarding how you want to play. A nice touch.

Soon enough, after plenty of Stormtrooper killings and a few little ship-fixing puzzles on the side, the Falcon jumped to Hyper Space and triggered the cut-scene where the gang learns of Alderaan’s destruction. There were a few flashes of humour here, including Luke flailing about and endangering everyone while learning his lightsaber skills with the training remote, but they didn’t distract us for too long before the Falcon was pulled into the Death Star’s tractor beam.

Our hour-long slot with the game ended shortly after our arrival on the Death Star, but we saw enough to know that there were more gags, puzzles and fun little segments to be found in this section of the story. It’s been a little while since we felt so engrossed in the original Star Wars film, and it was really fun to revisit it in this fresh and funny way.

Here’s hoping that, when the world at large plays the whole game, this loving and farcical retelling can help to rekindle our collective love of the saga. Maybe it can heal a few wounds and bring the fans back together. Certainly, it’s been a while since a film-based Star Wars product has felt this universally appealing and downright fun. We shall watch its career with great interest.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga launches on 5th April 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch.