‘LEGO: The Hobbit’- News, Facts, and Interviews

April 8, 2014 is a date which fans of LEGO and The Hobbit movie trilogy have to mark in their calendars. The LEGO: The Hobbit video game will be released for Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii U, and many other gaming platforms. These days, more and more facts, images, and interviews are released, giving an inside look of what we can expect from the game.

In a recent interview with worthplaying.com, Executive Producer Nick Ricks talked about dwarves, new features, and the developing process. Just like the LEGO: The Lord of the Rings video game, the LEGO: The Hobbit will be a game based on Peter Jackson’s movies rather than the books. The reason for this is because they believe most young gamers, the target audience of the game, will be more familiar with the movie adaptations which. Moreover, Nick Ricks explains that the main intention was to create a game for young gamers and their families playing together: “If a younger gamer is finding something a little more challenging, they can drop out and have someone sitting next to them help them through it.” For that very same reason, there won’t be any online multiplayer option available in the future.

While there are many familiar features from LEGO: The Lord of the Rings, LEGO: The Hobbit has several new features to offer:

You’ll see throughout the game that there are numerous times when different characters, who all have their own unique abilities, combine these abilities to overcome the obstacles and adversities that we put in front of them. That’s what’s at the core of LEGO The Hobbit. I call it dwarves, dwarves and more dwarves. Everything you do is all about the dwarves.

In other words, we will be able to play with each main character of the movies, including everyone from Thorin’s Company. In Goblin Town, for example, Thorin and Company will be split into two separate groups. While we will be able to pick an individual character, the game will automatically swap between the two key points of exploration. Throughout the game and not just during battles, teamwork is the key to success. On once occasion, gamers will have to stack four dwarves like a totem pole as a way to climb and reach a new area.

In earlier games, characters were mimed, but similar to LEGO: The Lord of the Rings or Lego Batman 2, the new video game will also feature real voices for the characters. Using the voices from the movies for their Lego counterparts is not only challenging, but brings new ways of representing humour and jokes:

There is a certain irreverence and charm to the miming characters. There was a lot of humor layered into that. If you’re presenting the theatrical dialogue, that does present a significant challenge. The plus side is that you obviously can evoke a lot more drama, a lot more emotion, when you have these world-class actors like Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee or Ian Holm delivering their dialogue. There is an inherent humor in that if Gandalf is calling to you, “RUN!”

One of the new features in the game is a feature called ‘Instruction Builds.’ This new feature allows you to build objects using Lego pieces in the game. In the following video, Time Wileman, assistant producer of LEGO: The Hobbit, explains how this works:

Ricks gave no explanation as to why LEGO: The Hobbit is being released before the third Hobbit movie is released, meaning that the video game will only feature the first two movies of the trilogy. He did explain, however, that there are exciting ideas we can look forward to in the second LEGO Hobbit game.