Game Review: LEGO Party!

LEGO Party is a party video game developed by Australian developer SMG Studio and published by Fictions. The game released on September 30th 2025 across Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S with a Nintendo Switch 2 version dropping a year later on July 30th 2026.  Upon release, LEGO party garnered a fair portion of praise from critics with OpenCritic noting the aggregated score at 79.  I sadly couldn’t find any official sales figures listed online for the game during my research so it’s impossible to note whether the game was successful on a commercial front.

There’s no narrative portion behind LEGO Party as the game elects to throw you right into the gameplay through the lens of a live audience game show.  You and three other contestants will play to compete in a range of game modes, all viewed and commentated by the energetic and comedic hosts Ted and Paige. As you play through the many game modes available, Ted and Paige will provide constant narration to guide players and add the LEGO brand of humor to the show. At the end of every game mode Ted, Paige and the studio audience will rally together to celebrate the announcement of the winner of the respective game mode.

Challenge Zone is the primary game mode that LEGO Party proudly touts and in it you’ll be presented four dedicated game boards.  Similar to Mario Party, you’ll be tasked with navigating the board, winning minigames and using the studs you collect to purchase gold bricks.  The player who comes out of the mode with the highest number of gold bricks is designated the winner.  The main thing that stood out for me in this mode specifically was the maps.  While it’s a shame there’s only four of them, SMG clearly did their best to make each map as fun and engaging as possible.  Each map will have a unique function and theme that will make navigating around it consistently different each time through. You can definitely tell SMG wanted to realize the unique design of these boards with every space you land on. This in turn makes running through these boards memorable as you’re unlikely to have the same playthrough each time. As well as the plethora of spots you can land on and the functions they offer, you also have the benefit of a range of varied power-ups which you can utilize to give yourself a leg up on your opponent.

When you’re not running through the board though, you and your fellow players will be thrown into the game’s selection of minigames. LEGO Party consists of over 60 minigames which I will admit is smaller in comparison to the majority of Mario Party games.  All of the minigames on offer provide a varied level of challenge which becomes way more engaging dependant on the number of human players you are running with. Like with the boards as well, the minigames spend every opportunity to showcase the LEGO franchise in wonderful fashion. I do feel the limited range of minigames does sadly let the game down somewhat though as you will find yourself playing through the same minigames regularly after you play the game a few times over.  Like with the number of board game maps, it just feels like the game’s content is limited in scope which does ultimately leave you yearning for more from the game.

Outside of the Challenge Zone mode the other game modes on offer in LEGO Party primarily rotate around the minigames themselves.  You’ll be able to play Minigame Rush, a game mode where you’ll compete with other players to win back-to-back minigames. The player who wins the most minigames by the end of the playlist is the winner; a fairly basic mode on the whole. You can also play minigames in free play which simply allows you to pick particular minigames and practise them over and over. The last game mode is the Scorechaser, where you’ll play score-based minigames with the intent of racking the highest score by the end of it. Once again, while fun, these other secondary modes don’t offer nearly as much content to justify your time in and they too contribute to the limited offerings the game has.

There’s a nice level of customization to LEGO Party at least, as unlike Mario Party where you’re picking particular characters to play as; you’ll be able to customize your Minifig character with a whole range of outfits.  Every game mode you win in LEGO Party will reward you with Carrot currency which you can use in the in-game shop to purchase outfits you can wear in the game modes. On top of that is also a tier-game pass for each game board which rewards you with new unlockable based on the theme and design of those boards. I appreciate the game pass is there to encourage regular play on the modes in the hopes of unlocking more content, but again with how limited the content in the game is, even a game pass and unlockables can only do so much in justifying you replaying these modes as much as the game requires. I imagine if the game worked out the way SMG planned, you’d be unlocking these outfits to show off in online play, but from my time playing the game, the servers are well and truly dead which is unfortunate.

On the presentation front, LEGO Party looks phenomenal and the overall design goes out its way to remind you it’s a LEGO-themed game at every opportunity.  Everything from the Minifig character models, to the environmental design on the game board is filled to the brim with detailed animations and charming visuals. While I do love the visual design of the game’s own themes, I do think there’s a missed opportunity in LEGO Party to utilize some licensed IP’s within the game design like Star Wars, Batman or Harry Potter.  I appreciate the cost of the game’s development budget would skyrocket if they were paying out to use these licensed properties, but I do feel these properties have become synonymous with LEGO and the overall design of the game does feel lacking without them being there.

LEGO Party is a brilliantly realized party game on the whole.  It recognizes the core functionality behind the party game genre and does everything it can to add its own unique spin to avoid being labelled as a simple cash grab.  I think where LEGO Party does let itself down though is in the lack of substantial content to justify its asking price. With only four game boards and 60 minigames, the game quickly ends up becoming repetitive. I had hoped post-release updates might have added more maps or game modes but the game sadly became stagnant with SMG only really fixing bugs and adding custom rules as a feature to play around with. If you can grab the game on sale and don’t plan on playing it regularly, LEGO Party will likely keep you engaged whenever you do come around to it.  I do hope if SMG ever do a sequel, they try to ensure the content on offer is more substantial next time around.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐