Forget 2017; today I’m going to ask you to think back to 2010, when the folks behind LEGO decided it would be a great idea to release an MMORPG based on the building block universe but make it super unwieldy and hypervigilant with a weird business model that didn’t make much sense to the families likely to play it. Now fast-forward to 2011, when the team gave up on the so-named LEGO Universe because it had “not been able to attract the number of members needed to keep the game open,” sunsetting the title in 2012, only to see Funcom take a stab at the IP with LEGO Minifigures Online in 2014. It closed last September for pretty much the same reason.
So if you have a craving for some classic LEGO MMO gameplay and aren’t enthused about MineCraft and Trove and their ilk, maybe this’ll grab you: Former players under the banner of Darkflame Universe are bringing back the original LEGO Universe, with closed alpha set to begin on January 31st, the fifth anniversary of the closure.
The game doesn’t have a formal website just yet, and it remains unclear how legal the spinoff is (the developer did not answer a direct question about the music’s copyrights, for example), but it appears to be a developed emulator using assets from the original game, complete with the awesome “master builder” creation style.
https://t.co/qrhyqYRL3z
Join the fight to take back imagination this January on Darkflame Universe!— Darkflame Universe (@darkflameuniv) January 1, 2017
