The way traditional Lego games have seemingly vanished has come as a surprise to me. We recently saw the launch of Lego Fortnite from Epic, and Lego Horizon Adventures is on the way this fall from Guerrilla, but Traveler’s Tales made more than 30 Lego games between 2005 and 2022. However, it’s been more than two years since the studio released a Lego game, and with no announcement of what’s next, there’s no guarantee it’ll be another Lego project. This follows reports that making the most recent game in the franchise, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, demanded “extensive crunch.”
That’s troubling for the studio’s staff, but it also means there’s a void to fill for families and players who enjoy the way Lego games routinely reimagine pop culture through a kid-friendly lens. Funko Fusion could comfortably fill that role when it arrives later this year.
I recently played several hours of Funko Fusion, spanning levels that re-imagined Jurassic World and Hot Fuzz, which do a great job expressing how varied the IP involved in this game will be. Even if you aren’t a fan of the recent movies, Jurassic World is massive, which makes the addition of Hot Fuzz cool and unexpected. It’s a cult classic, not a blockbuster, which means that in this way, Funko Fusion fulfills a role the Lego games never could, as they were always focused exclusively on top-tier franchises.
In gameplay terms, however, it’s much like Traveler’s Tales’ decades of output, though it’s most of all like The Skywalker Saga, as Funko Fusion is similarly played from a third-person over-the-shoulder perspective. Each level drops you into a cartoonish take on the IP, meaning the Jurassic World levels had me running around the park as Chris Pratt’s Owen, Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire, and others, defeating hostile dinosaurs or rescuing friendly ones. The Hot Fuzz levels took me to the fictional Sandford, where I patrolled the streets as a big-headed version of Simon Pegg’s character, Nicholas Angel.
Funko Fusion’s playable characters include several for each IP. I don’t have any affinity for the kitschy vinyl dolls in my life, but I admit that as a video game, they look lighthearted and fun. Their absurd dimensions also help the game lean into humor, like when Claire’s big Funko Pop head gets stuck in a doorway as she runs away from a pack of dilophosaurus, and when enemies are defeated, they break into pieces like a real-life figure would if it were dropped from a roof.
The moment-to-moment gameplay is bright and fast, with button-mashy melee combat that players of all ages can quickly learn. There’s a lot more shooting in Funko Fusion than in most Lego games, but customizable aim assist should allow even less experienced players to flourish here, too. I don’t love that when the guns are fired, the bullets land as small red dots, seemingly made to look like vinyl niblets, which has the potentially unintended effect of looking like blood. That made me uncomfortable about a game I am otherwise excited to play with my kids. If those projectiles were multicolored, it would make them easier to stomach.
When not defeating enemies, players are free to explore each hub world, smash up the environment to collect gems reminiscent of Lego studs, and solve minor puzzles. The Lego team always called these “nuzzles,” as in “not puzzles,” given their lack of complexity. Funko Fusion adopts a similar approach most of the time, though there were others that I actually found to be trickier than I expected, like a collection of water valves that needed to be returned to their pipes across a jungle level. These seemed to all be tied to a maintenance room I found, but because I never located the final valve, I don’t know what secret the puzzle would’ve revealed to me, though I’d guess it was a crown.
Like the comically small crown the brand’s mascot, Freddy Funko, wears at all times, crowns are effectively the game’s primary collectible and a currency used for progression. A counter suggests there are hundreds of crowns in the full game. You can beat a level to unlock a crown, but by sticking around to do a level’s optional side activities, you can earn many more, with about a half-dozen available in each level I played. These crowns allow you to unlock other levels in the game’s hub world, so there may be times when you’ll need to replay some earlier missions with a keener eye to unlock some of the later levels.
I hesitate to use the brand’s name so repeatedly, but surely Lego fans can see how this all sounds familiar. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t mind it. Funko Fusion is standing on the shoulders of a particular giant in the family gaming space. Still, because of its wider swath of franchises to pull from, I’m most excited of all to see some rare and debuting video game versions of popular IP, like Universal Monsters, Shaun of the Dead, and even Jordan Peele’s Nope.
The franchises announced for the game so far lean into horror quite a bit, so I’m curious, but largely unconcerned to see how this game’s framework handles that. It seemingly can’t help but sanitize pop culture landmarks such as Jaws, The Thing, and Child’s Play, and as a big believer in gateway horror, I love that idea.
Though my preview time with the game prevented me from playing co-op, the full release offers four-player online co-op, though no local play, unfortunately. That’s too bad, as it means families will need to play in separate rooms, if at all, and many families have just one console or PC anyway. I saw one example of a puzzle that is doable in solo play, but just barely, whereas in bigger teams, it would’ve been much simpler, suggesting there’s good reason to bring a friend or three each time you play.
That works for me, as I do subscribe to the adage that many or perhaps most games are better in co-op. Funko Fusion feels like it’ll be such a game, and its lengthy tree of unlockable levels and characters means my family and I may be playing it for a long time to come.
