Lego 2K Drive: Visual Concepts on the challenges of creating a driving game for everyone

Video games are a unique style of entertainment in many ways. One area of this industry that really sets itself apart from the wider entertainment space is how we prepare for a new game, as publishers and developers generally announce a title multiple years before it ever intends to launch. Why? Games take a long time to make, far longer than most movies or TV shows, which is why it's always a welcome surprise when a title manages to mostly evade leaks and be announced either as a launching shadow drop or just a few months ahead of its planned release date.

For the upcoming Lego 2K Drive this has mostly been the case. The game was originally part of a former leak, but was only loosely referred to, allowing it to save face and remain incognito until 2K and Visual Concepts was properly ready to show it off for the first time, something they did back in March. That very driving title is set to make its debut in around a month's time, on May 19, and as we prepare for that launch, I've had a chance to sit down with a couple of the developers behind this game, design director David Msika and lead world designer Jon Dunsmoor, to pick their brains about what it's like to create a Lego driving game that everyone can enjoy.

But before getting into the nitty-gritty, I asked about the reception of the announcement and why they think they've hit the nail on the head with what a Lego driving game needs to offer fans.

Msika replied: "We've seen a lot of very positive excitement coming from the community, both from the Lego fans, the driving game fans and just adventure games and open-world games in general. We get to generate interest in very different groups that overlap a little bit, but we've managed to tap into what makes the game interesting to Lego fans."

"We're focussing on the fact that we're procuring players a new way to think about Lego games, a new way to think about driving, and we're hoping that putting everything aside, the game will shine through with how awesome the gameplay is, how awesome the open-world is, and how engaging it is, so you want to keep going back to it over-and-over again."

Lego 2K Drive is looking to set itself apart from other racing and kart-like games by being a driving experience first and foremost. There will still be countless opportunities to head to a track for a bit of high-octane wacky action, but there's more to this game than simply winning trophies and being the fastest driver on the grid, and this was a core design principle that Visual Concepts framed the game around right from the start.

When asked about when they decided to make a driving experience primarily, Msika told me: "Almost immediately. We didn't want to be within the four walls that regular racers close themselves into. We wanted freedom to do whatever we wanted."

He continued: "We wanted it to be an adventure, we didn't want it to be just a bunch of back-to-back action sequences. It needed to be something that you can immerse yourself and want to go back to, not just to compete with others, but to just have a good time on your own exploring the world. But if you wanted to go into the whole competitive area of our game, you can absolutely do this."

That being said, sticking to this philosophy wasn't always the easiest thing to do, as Msika informed me that the broad scope and wider plans for the game often saw the team trying to do too many things at once.

"One of the things that early on in development we were not very wary of is scope, because we wanted to put everything in there," said Msika. "But we had a small team, so... We had big ambitions and a lot of knowledge and what we needed was the time and the people to do it, and we didn't really cut down on our scope because we knew that there's an expectation when you release a game - especially a game that is AAA - people are going to be expecting certain features, certain game modes, and you can't skimp on it."

"We worked really hard to make a really big game as a really small team, and it shows. I feel we have a really great game in our hands, and it was made with a lot of passion, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, but we're really happy with how it turned out."

"We didn't want to be within the four walls that regular racers close themselves into. We wanted freedom to do whatever we wanted."

Lego 2K Drive isn't just defined by driving mechanics, it's also defined by its themes and its biomes. The game will feature four biomes at release, including the tutorial world of Turbo Acres, the Route 66-inspired Big Butte County, the Wild West-like Prospecto Valley, and the spooky Hauntsborough, with each of these zones bringing new races, vehicles, activities and more.

With Lego having such a wide array of source material, I asked why development team settled on these themes for its biomes, with Dunsmoor adding: "There are a lot of options when you have Lego and trying to break down the themes that you can use for a biome that fit that biome and play into what we have available to us from Lego."

"It gives us more variety in how we set up the narrative elements, all of the story that you come across, the races that you are doing, and the activities and content and how that matches the theme."

"We had a lot of options and I think the building of it came out kind of naturally."

"If there's any tests of if that works for people, my five-year-old has been playing this game as I've been developing it and he loves the 'Halloween' biome. It's good to see the acceptance of it among people who have no skin in the game."

This doesn't mean that these themes were always set in stone from the get-go, however, as Msika then proceeded to unveil a little about how the Big Butte County biome changed to incorporate the game's freer and more accessible nature, and let it's tri-vehicle traversal system, which automatically changes your vehicle when you start driving on a new terrain, shine.

"For the Big Butte biome, originally, we were going to have the boat getting unlocked at a later point in the story, so we wanted to have an environment that wouldn't be great with water - so desert came to mind immediately. But then we realised, 'why remove one-third of your traversal ability from the get-go?' So, we did add water eventually to Big Butte, but it's mostly arid, it's mostly deserted just because we wanted to tap into that unlocking of the gameplay elements."

Dunsmoor then elaborated further: "It's been so many years working on it that trying to recall... some of the things that we changed because we wanted to give the player a lot more freedom and we wanted to open up stuff a lot more earlier, so that you wasn't waiting to get to this very important part of the game."

As for how Visual Concepts has designed the open-world to keep players entertained, Dunsmoor also gave an insight into the process of building Bricklandia to make sure that there's always something new to find and explore.

"Everything is kind of on top of each other. We could've done a hub world that launched you into content and then you came back to your hub world, our world can do that, if we wanted to, we could do the instant content and go outside of the world, but our races live in the world, our content lives in the world, and outside of that content, it's still got to be fun."

Lego is a very unique product and brand because it isn't designed for children or adults alone, all ages can appreciate and marvel in its wonder. With that expectation in mind, I asked how the team approached making a game appealing and engaging to not just younger fans but older audiences as well.

Msika took me through the stages of this process: "That's one of the hardest challenges for any game. Typically, when you start a game you define the range of people that are going to be playing it because that will inform how you are going to be designing it. Because we're a Lego game, we need to do what Lego does, which is to appeal to everyone. So, how do you make a game that everyone can play, that everyone can enjoy but on different levels?

"From a storytelling standpoint, it's not something new. You see... like Shrek, for instance, is a great example of a movie that kids and adults are going to watch it and going to laugh, but not for the same reasons. That's what we're trying to do in our game as well. The folks, the people you talk to, the storytelling, that can be understood on different levels, so everybody can find something amusing or entertaining.

"In terms of the gameplay itself, we want the whole game to be super accessible. A six-year-old can play it and still be able to finish the game by beating all of the races and minigames and all of that. What we have is a system in the game called the Race Difficulty Assist, which changes the difficulty based on how you perform. If you're having a really hard time, we're going to reduce the difficulty so that it becomes easier and easier for you to compete, and if you do really good, then we crank it up a little bit so that you keep getting challenged."

Msika concluded the point with: "Our game is really easy to pick up, really hard to master because there is a lot of gameplay layers that you don't see at first."

"It's very difficult to do a game that everybody is going to have fun with, but I think we have struck a really good balance in terms of the gameplay and the storytelling."

Dunsmoor then chimed in to add: "If you've seen the Lego movies and you know that tongue-in-cheek style of stuff, it's kind of really easy to set those up and know who you're playing to."

"It's a good place to be, we're not having Grand Theft Auto's problem of being that explicit."

As a final thought about the upcoming launch of the game, I asked the pair about what they are most excited for fans to experience for themselves in Lego 2K Drive, to which there were some varying answers, even if the creation suite where you can build your vehicles by using hundreds of different Lego blocks (known as the Garage), is a clear favourite.

Msika started with: "The Garage, obviously. But also to see how competent as a competitive racing game it is, as well. It's up there with the best of them, and on top of that, we have the open-world."

Dunsmoor then picked up and concluded with: "It works great in multiplayer. When we're playing multiplayer that's some of the best times, when you're not playing against AI, you're playing against people, and utilising all of those skills that you have and seeing that play out in a multiplayer experience will be great. But also, the customisation. Being able to create stuff is Lego and that's going to be this amazing part of it because it's going to be so crazy."

"The stuff that has been made, nobody makes the same thing and the amount of quality that you can come out with is crazy. I want to see other people playing that and I want to see other people having fun playing against each other and not just worrying about a blue turtle shell."

A big thanks to Visual Concepts' David Msika and Jon Dunsmoor for taking the time to talk with Gamereactor. Lego 2K Drive will be coming to PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch on May 19, and for a further look into the game, you can read our recent preview right here.