Lego Builder’s Journey is a gentle puzzle game wrapped in shiny graphics

I’ll admit that if Lego Builder’s Journey wasn’t a surprising combination of a low-key puzzle game and modern graphics settings, I might have glossed over it. Yes, that’s a joke about ray-tracing, you’re very welcome. But I was surprised that a Lego game has taken the time to wrap itself in RTX goop, so when it popped up in Steam’s release section I grabbed it.

The game involves plucking and placing the remarkably detailed and clicky blocks around small dioramas. You could be completing a broken building, or gently encouraging a minifig to cross over a raging torrent of blocks. There’s nothing that I’ve encountered that makes me think I’ll need to look up a guide, but I did appreciate the relaxing atmosphere that they’ve crafted block-by-block.

With every setting maxed out, the bricks here look better than in the real-world. The little levels churn with detail, and I found myself wishing there was a way to explore them up close. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to zoom into the action as the trailer shows off. All my prodding of the keyboard caused was random blocks to be selected. Aside from that, the controls are a bit too compact. You seem to do almost everything with the left mouse button, which means a lot of accidental drops or block movement when you don’t mean to.

It’s very likely that you could complete the game in a single sitting, so for £16/$20 it’s not the best value proposition in the world, but it shines in other ways. It’s out now.