The complete history of LEGO Star Wars video games to date

From the first TT Games title in 2005 right up to the sprawling Skywalker Saga in 2022, here’s the complete history of every LEGO Star Wars video game to date.

It’s hard to imagine a time when it wasn’t possible to play a LEGO Star Wars video game, having been spoilt (as we have been) with over 20 years of interactive galactic brick-based titles. From stud-collecting and minifigure character-unlocking to assembling minikits and picking up elusive gold bricks, so many of the key elements of what we now expect from LEGO Star Wars games simply didn’t exist a quarter of a century ago.

The prime developer behind most of those titles has been TT Games, with the Maidenhead-based company having been formed in 2005 ahead of the release of LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game in the same year. Founders Tom Stone and Jonathan Smith were part of what was then known as LEGO Interactive in the early 2000s, before leaving to form Giant Interactive Entertainment in 2004.

The company was integrated into Traveller’s Tales in 2005 to become TT Games, which in turn was purchased by Warner Bros. Entertainment in 2007, becoming part of its video game division, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (now known as Warner Bros. Games).

Granted the exclusive licence to create official LEGO video games for nearly 20 years, TT Games now faces stiff competition from other developers, as well as the LEGO Group itself having invested in Epic Games in order to create LEGO Fortnite.  

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of LEGO Star Wars, we’re taking a look back at every single video game release based on the theme to date, from 2005 to the present day. So join us as we dust off our joypads, fire up our consoles and journey back to a galaxy far, far away and a long time ago…

LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game – 2005

The initial idea for what would ultimately become LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game originated with Tom Stone, who would go on to become Managing Director of TT Games until 2020. That was while Tom was still working at LEGO Interactive with future and current TT Games Strategic Director, Jonathan Smith.

“We went over to the Lucasfilm offices soon afterwards to present the first concept,” said Jonathan in a 2022 interview. “All the action from Episodes I, II and III, in a new LEGO way. The team there just got behind the idea, straight away. It was very exciting.”

When the LEGO Group closed its interactive division in 2004, Tom, Jonathan and a small team of employees left to form Giant Interactive Entertainment. LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game was first revealed at San Diego Comic-Con in 2004, with Traveller’s Tales announced as developer and Giant Interactive Entertainment and LucasArts co-publishing the title. Initially released on PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC and Game Boy Advance on March 29 of 2005, the Xbox version followed in April, with Eidos Interactive acting as publisher.

LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game offered fans a third-person action-adventure experience like nothing they’d experienced before. The game encompassed the full prequel trilogy, with family-friendly gameplay, a two player ‘drop in, drop out’ mode, puzzles to solve, multiple collectibles to find, three types of shiny studs to pick up and spend, 59 characters to unlock, a free play mode and tongue-in-cheek humour that would be a hallmark of all TT Games’ licensed titles to come.

LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game was a huge hit with players worldwide, going on to sell more than 50 million copies by 2019. The game earned favourable reviews as well and a raft of awards following its release, but TT Games was just getting started and the best was yet to come.

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy – 2006

Arriving just a year after the first game, LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy launched on PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PC, Mac, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable in 2006. The sequel took the title to the next level, with a follow-up that encompassed Episodes IV, V and VI, building on everything that the developer had learned while creating the first game.

The playable character line-up gained a boost too, with 68 familiar (and not-so familiar) faces included in the roster, now giving players the option to create and customise their own characters.

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy featured a similar set-up to the original title, with players heading out on their adventures from a central hub location, with the Mos Eisley Cantina replacing Dexter’s Diner from the prequel game. Red Power Bricks also made their debut, allowing players unlock extra abilities and bonuses, from invincibility to stud multipliers.

“We were really on secure ground with the classic trilogy movies that everyone on the team knew intimately,” said Jonathan Smith in a 2023 interview. “We had such affection for it, and that comes across in the storytelling scenes and the character animations as well. We had iconic scenes to play with on the level design. I think we also started to get a sense of how far we could push the dramatic experience in a LEGO game.”

“If you look back at LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game, there’s lots that’s really nice and cute about it, but with LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy we have Hoth as a level and you get into an AT-ST and you stomp around in it. That was the moment that certainly on the team we realized that the game experience in a LEGO game can be about much more than running around as a minifigure and being in a minifigure level in a world full of minifigures.”

LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy would go on to be a huge success, both commercially and critically, garnering its own share of awards and acclaim. The game sold over 1.1 million copies in its opening week and by 2009 had shifted more than 8.2 million copies.

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga – 2007

Following the response to the first two releases, TT Games debuted LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga in 2007, with all six episodes combined into one sprawling adventure. The game’s graphics received an update too, taking advantage of then current video game platforms, as well as the addition of new levels, characters and costume elements for customisable characters.

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga launched on November 6, 2007 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and Nintendo DS, with PC, Mac, iOS and Android version released at later dates. In total the game boasted 36 main story levels, 20 bounty hunter missions and six bonus stages, as well as an Arcade Mode that allowed players to battle it out in various arenas, plus there were now more than 120 playable characters to unlock.

The game once again scored highly with reviewers and by 2017 was the best-selling Star Wars video game of all time, with sales of over 15.29 million. In addition, LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga also managed to make it in to the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition 2009 as the 23rd greatest video game of all time.

LEGO Star Wars: The Quest for R2-D2 – 2009

In 2009, director Peder Pedersen’s animated short film, LEGO Star Wars: The Quest for R2-D2 premiered on Cartoon Network. Produced by M2Film for the LEGO Group and CN, the five-minute short celebrated the LEGO Star Wars theme’s 10th anniversary, with voice actors from The Clone Wars series reprising their roles for a tongue-in-cheek adventure aimed at younger viewers.

In October of 2009, LEGO Star Wars: The Quest for R2-D2 was released as a free-to-play online tie-in game from developer Three Melons, arriving on the official LEGO and Star Wars websites. Players could choose from one of four different characters, each with their own unique weapons and abilities, with completion of levels rewarding gamers with crystals based on their overall scores.

LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars – 2011

TT Games was back with a bang in 2011, unleashing the highly-anticipated LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, which represented a four-year gap between releases. The wait was worth it though, with the game taking its cue from the characters, ships and storylines seen in the first two seasons of The Clone Wars animated series and movie.

LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars launched on March 22, 2011 and was available on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS and 3DS, PSP, PC and OSX, although development on the latter version was handled by Feral Interactive.

New gameplay features added to LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars included split-screen scene swap levels, where players switched characters to complete certain objectives, real-time strategy stages, such as commanding large ground armies in battle, and the ability to switch flagship hub areas.

Console versions of LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars included a whopping 115 playable characters, with many fan favourites from the original and prequel trilogies, and an upgraded game engine allowing for more than 200 moving units or objects to appear on-screen at any given time.

“You could see your forces of ships, vehicles, and ground forces battle in the most epic way,” said Jonathan Smith in 2013. “That’s on top of all those brilliant-looking, fun story levels with replay depth in the huge, spectacularly explorable hub of the ships in space. Plus, you had all the bonus content with bounty hunter mode and all the good guys and the bad guys that were there to collect. LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is remarkable in lots of ways.”

Although LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars wouldn’t go on to reach the giddy heights of previous titles in the series, there were plenty of positive reviews for the title and as of May 2012 it had sold over four million copies worldwide. LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars was also the first LEGO Star Wars video game to have a special collector’s pack, with some retailer exclusives including free Bobble-head or plush characters.

LEGO Star Wars: The New Yoda Chronicles – 2014

The LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles animated series was produced by Lucasfilm and Wil Film ApS for the LEGO Group, with the first season airing on Cartoon Network in 2013 and the second on Disney XD in 2014.

Aimed at a young audience, the show was promoted with a mobile game for iOS devices and on the official LEGO website. LEGO Star Wars: The New Yoda Chronicles was released on September 4, 2014 and allowed players to quest with either the diminutive Jedi Master or Darth Vader. The game featured a variety of levels and starship battles, as well as minifigures, vehicles and Holocrons to collect.

LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens – 2016

For its next LEGO Star Wars outing, TT Games handed development reigns for the title over to its sister studio, TT Fusion. In a departure from previous games in the series, LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens focused primarily on just one film, with Episode VII having been released the previous year. The game arrived on PlayStation 3/4, Xbox One/360, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita and PC on June 28, 2016, with OSX, Android and iOS versions dropping later that year.

This time around, fans were treated to several initial stages based around Return of the Jedi, before launching into the events of The Force Awakens itself. The latest game included a nifty feature that allowed players to destroy certain brick-built objects and then rebuild them in different forms, as well as the ability to duck and cover, before popping out to engage enemies in fast-paced blaster fire.

LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens also boosted its playable roster to over 200 different characters, plus numerous full-size and microscale ships, with open worlds of Jakku, Takodana, D’Qar and Starkiller Base acting as hub locations. In addition, a total of 12 DLC packs were released for the game, with The Phantom Limb being a PlayStation exclusive level, and eight of the packs featuring additional characters from various Star Wars media.

Special editions of LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens came with a FINN (FN-2187) minifigure or 30278 Poe’s X-wing Starfighter polybags, while a Deluxe Edition of the game also added collectible 3D graphic art, a season pass to access all of the DLC releases and an early release character pack.

As well as going on to become the biggest selling video game of 2016, LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens is also notable for being the very first LEGO Star Wars game to feature spoken dialogue, as opposed to the mumble-speak of previous releases in the series.

LEGO Star Wars Battles – 2021

Fellow sister studio TT Games Brighton hopped on board to develop LEGO Star Wars Battles, a real-time player-versus-player mobile game published by Playdemic in 2021. Featuring locations from across the Star Wars galaxy and an array of characters and vehicles, the game allowed players to craft their own armies and take on enemy forces.

LEGO Star Wars Battles also gave players the chance to master both the light and dark sides of the Force, unlock different towers for defence, collect and upgrade units, unleash unique abilities and explore a variety of worlds such as Naboo, Hoth, Scarif and Geonosis.

Despite only being launched on Apple Arcade, in the App Store and on Google Play, there have been few updates for LEGO Star Wars Battles since then, although it is still available to download for free.

LEGO Star Wars: Castaways – 2021

Arriving in the same year as LEGO Star Wars Battles was another mobile title, this time created by Gameloft. Released on Apple Arcade and the App Store on November 19, 2021, LEGO Star Wars: Castaways was a social action-adventure title that allowed players to explore a mysterious new planet, meet and interact with a variety of characters, build their own minifigures, solve puzzles, race Microfighters and much more.

Several updates were added to the game since its initial release, including events based around The Mandalorian and The Clone Wars, both of which added new playable characters and ships to LEGO Star Wars: Castaways.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – 2022

The most recent LEGO Star Wars video game to be released is also TT Games’ biggest success story to date. Following various pandemic-related delays, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was unleashed on PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch and PC on April 5, 2022.

The sixth instalment in the long-running series, the game was also the most ambitious to date, adapting all nine saga films, with additional content based around other Star Wars films and TV shows, built from the ground up with a new engine. The result was the biggest game of the developer’s history so far, debuting at No. 1 in the UK charts and breaking the record for the biggest launch of a LEGO game in the country.

In LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, players were free to tackle the game’s episodes in any order they liked, hopping from each episode at will. A total of 45 levels were available to tackle, as well as numerous explorable planets accessed via a galactic map hub. A new combat system was also introduced, with character-specific combos, Kyber Bricks could be collected and the game was once again packed with secrets and Easter eggs galore.

As well as familiar locations such as Tatooine, Coruscant, Yavin 4, Hoth, Dagobah and many others, large-scale ships such as an Imperial Star Destroyer and both Death Stars also functioned as their own levels. The character roster in LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was also similarly ambitious, with over 400 fan favourites, including those available as part of seven different DLC character packs available post-release. It was also possible to purchase in-game Core Upgrades to enhance the abilities of each character, enabling them to grow over time, giving the title an almost RPG-like element. 

“As fans, we were always going to go big!,” said Jonathan Smith in a 2020 interview with the official Star Wars website. “With the conclusion of the Skywalker saga in Episode IX, and 15 years since the first LEGO Star Wars, it really felt like the right time to aim as high as possible; to create a LEGO landmark.”

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga went on to sell over 3.2 million copies within the first two weeks of its release and more than five million copies as of June 2022. In addition, multiple accolades for the sequel included Best Multiplayer Game at the Golden Joysticks 2022, Best Game at the British Academy Children’s Awards 2022 and Best Family Game at the 19th British Academy Games Awards in 2023.

Multiple special editions of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga were made available at release, such as the Deluxe Edition complete with 30625 Luke Skywalker with Blue Milk minifigure and DLC character packs. Some retailers even added in their own pre-order incentives, with GAME and Best Buy offering a Han in carbonite steelbook, Smyths Toys had 30384 Snowspeeder and GameStop gave away 30278 Poe’s X-wing Starfighter. The Galactic Edition of the game then arrived on November 1, 2022, featuring all 13 of the previous DLC packs, wrapped up in one final version of the game.

With other developers such as 2K, Thunderful, Gameloft and Light Brick Studio having created their own LEGO video games in recent years, the future of any potential new LEGO Star Wars titles is currently a little uncertain.

Despite reports of issues at TT Games during the creation of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, what we do know is that the company is currently actively working on a new LEGO video game based on a major IP, so more interactive adventures in a galaxy far, far away may well still be a possibility.

To find out everything you need to know about this year’s LEGO Star Wars May the 4th event, be sure to head to our dedicated deals page right here.

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