Bringing characters from a variety of pop culture franchises together in LEGO form has served Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, LEGO and TT Games (Traveller’s Tales) well this past year. Showing that there is still some life in and demand for the toys-to-life genre of gaming, the companies have confirmed that LEGO Dimensions will be expanded by a variety of new content in 2016 and beyond.
They plan to provide a new expansion pack assortment which adds 16 “fan-favourite” universes to the current line-up, which will broaden the complete selection in LEGO Dimensions to 30 different brands. This will begin on September 27 2016 with the Ghostbusters Story Pack, Adventure Time and Mission Impossible Level Packs, Harry Potter and Adventure Time Team Packs, and The A-Team Fun Pack.
Additional expansions will be released over subsequent months, based on upcoming films including Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The LEGO Batman Movie; in addition to other properties including The Goonies, Sonic The Hedgehog, Teen Titans Go!, LEGO City Undercover, Knight Rider, The Powerpuff Girls, Gremlins, Beetlejuice and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. These will be released in multiple waves, bringing development up to around mid-2017. Where they will go from there is anybody’s guess.
All expansion packs provide players with continued compatibility to use everything from waves 1-9 interchangeably, anywhere throughout the game. The good news is that there is also no need to buy another base game, as all content is being developed for the original release. Presumably all content will be rolled out through future game updates.
Continuing to build upon the LEGO Dimensions gameplay mechanics, work is being done on all-new battle arenas, offering competitive split-screen local gameplay for up to four players. LEGO minifigures included in the wave 6 through 9 expansion packs will come with special, golden Toy Tags which unlock a Battle Arena within the Free Play Adventure World of the corresponding entertainment brand. Each Battle Arena has four different gameplay modes and comes with its own traps, special powers and interactive environments that make every battle arena unique.
Tom Stone | Managing Director at TT Games
We’ve built upon the existing LEGO DIMENSIONS Starter Pack to expand the gameplay possibilities with entirely new LEGO experiences that can’t be found anywhere else. We can now provide players with even more customization and mash-up opportunities, and all are compatible with the existing game and packs. Battle Arenas also introduce a fun new way for friends and family to join the action together and battle as favorite characters, which is an exciting innovation for LEGO videogames.
David Haddad | President of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
LEGO DIMENSIONS is a significant part of our LEGO videogames portfolio, and we are excited to offer fans many more iconic entertainment franchises combined with new, enhanced ways to play. TT Games continues to innovate and expand the game experience, which gives players breakthrough digital and physical gameplay with an amazing amount of world-class entertainment properties connected together.
Niels Jørgensen | Vice President Digital Games at The LEGO Group
We are excited to continue our partnership with TT Games and WBIE and bring even more characters to life through LEGO DIMENSIONS. The videogame has allowed our fans to extend their LEGO play experience in a whole new way and the new expansion packs will create even more play possibilities through exciting properties.
I’m glad we don’t have to buy another base game. I think that’s one of the reasons why a lot of toy-to-life games are dying.