Having always been a fan of the LEGO toys (the new Soundwave kit is truly amazing) and video games, I’m always curious to see what’s next for the franchise. While my wife and I have enjoyed playing the licensed big-time titles in the series together, their smaller releases have also tended to be excellent. In the case of Voyagers they’ve gone in another new direction with a more humble title that requires co-op play, but that’s focused on exploration, periodic platforming action, and a wide variety of puzzles. While my wife and I absolutely had a good time with it, that isn’t to say it doesn’t have some weaknesses though.

Starting with what’s positive, there’s no question that it opens with a more light and family-friendly vibe. This mostly involves getting you familiar with the game’s controls and mechanics, helping you understand your capabilities and limitations as simple LEGO blocks. You can jump, attach yourself to studs and other pieces, and move between a locked-in movement style that’s convenient for tight situations, and a more free-roaming style for simply getting around. There’s a certain silly charm to the movement, though you’ll quickly discover that falling off of platforms will happen with great regularity, but thankfully there’s really no penalty for this, since it will quickly put you back where you were last almost every time. Assembling blocks does work well enough to be functional, but it can also make for a confusing struggle at times, since precision absolutely won’t always be on your side… but you do get better at coming up with patterns that will help you be more successful more quickly the further you go.

In terms of the downsides, they span a few different areas and can generally be overcome, but they can also be discouraging. I think my biggest issue was often problems with depth perception, especially as much as the game insists on you making jumps involving the things you construct. Feeling where you are in 3D space in relation to other things can be really tricky, and lead to frustrations for sure in places. In particular, when the camera has the need to pull out further it can be very challenging to feel where you are at times. Another issue is that the lack of any narrative direction being provided can sometimes make it very hard to divine what the game wants you to do. There are situations where you’ll each need to simply trial and error attempt different things, hoping one is the trigger for what happens next. 

The last concern is a double-edged sword, as my wife and I appreciated the complexity of some of the puzzles we needed to work through and solve, but because of them I’m not sure it will work out to play it with less seasoned gaming companions like younger kids. At the beginning they could likely keep up just fine, as it tends to be more focused on exploring and enjoying getting around creatively in a LEGO world. The further it gets though, you’ll need to do some brainstorming to work out how to get past specific obstacles and situations. Even knowing what to do, there can also then be spots where you’ll need to be very in sync with each other and each possess a fair degree of platforming precision to get by. In general, I appreciate that this is another successful LEGO title, but be warned that it has some rough edges to consider.