LEGO Has The Perfect Blueprint For an Animal Crossing-Like Game

Highlights

• LEGO has a rich history in video games, but has yet to venture into life-simulation games like Animal Crossing.
• Still, LEGO Island laid a strong foundation for a potential Animal Crossing-like life-sim with colorful NPCs and world themes.
• With LEGO experimenting with popular genres via its Fortnite mode, a LEGO life-sim could be the next step in the brand’s gaming evolution.

LEGO has had a surprisingly lengthy career in the video game landscape, beginning all the way back in 1995 with the release of LEGO Fun to Build, a Japan-exclusive puzzle game for the SEGA Pico. Since then, LEGO has experimented with a wealth of genres, from its long line of action-adventure movie adaptations to racing games to tycoon simulators. But LEGO is still yet to try its hand at making an Animal Crossing-like life-simulation game.

Though it was far from the first life-simulator to hit the gaming market, the Animal Crossing series has remained a gold standard for the genre, delivering vibrant and charming worlds filled with colorful characters and a compelling checklist of daily activities. With LEGO Fortnite being quite the successful departure from the company’s usual video game output, it seems likely that it would want to continue experimenting with other popular genres, and an Animal Crossing-like LEGO life-sim already has some old foundations to build on.

LEGO Island Laid Great Foundations for a LEGO Animal Crossing-Like Game

A Brief History of LEGO Island

Only the second game that LEGO released, 1997’s LEGO Island was an extremely ambitious PC game that attempted to deliver a fully-explorable open-world long before it became a regular occurrence in the industry. Taking control of the pizza delivery boy Pepper Roni, players are tasked with exploring the titular world, talking with its citizens, completing various side activities, and ultimately putting an end to the evil Brickster’s plans to harm the island. Far ahead of its time, LEGO Island lets players freely explore the island via a range of different vehicles including a car, jet ski, ambulance, and helicopter.

In 2001, Silicon Dreams would produce a sequel to the 1997 classic. Titled LEGO Island 2: The Brickster’s Revenge, this PC and PS1 title essentially took the solid foundations of its predecessor and improved upon them in every way. Rather than exploring just one area, LEGO Island 2 gave players three distinct worlds to roam, each one based on an iconic LEGO theme, such as Castle, Adventure, and Space. Players could once again freely explore each area and interact with a variety of colorful NPCs, including beloved LEGO characters like Johnny Thunder.

Just a year later, Silicon Dreams would release Island Xtreme Stunts, the final game in the LEGO Island series. This third and final installment once again allowed players to explore the island in a non-linear fashion, but this time players can participate in filming various stunts for an in-universe action movie. Though the vehicle controls are still simple, Island Xtreme Stunts does offer some Tony Hawk-like trick mechanics, which makes traversal feel a bit more engaging.

How LEGO Island Could Evolve Into a Life-Sim

Though the LEGO Island games were mostly vehicle-oriented open-world exploration games, their DNA actually lays some pretty strong foundations for a hypothetical LEGO Animal Crossing-like life-sim. For instance, LEGO Island‘s emphasis on colorful NPCs and their humorous interactions would work perfectly in a LEGO life-sim game, as would their link to a uniquely-themed world. Players could take control of Pepper Roni once more and venture out to each of these themed worlds, meeting new characters, furthering social relationships, completing menial tasks, and bringing home some resources to craft some new items of furniture to customize their home or build new vehicles and tools that would make island exploration easier.