Lego Shifts Focus to In-House Game Development

Lego is about to bring video game development in-house, according to a statement from the company’s CEO, Niels Christiansen.

“We can say, as long as we’re under the Lego brand, we can cover experiences for kids of all ages, digital or physical. [Games development in-house] is something we’re building up,” Lego’s chief executive told the Financial Times.

As of the time of writing, Lego has a substantial gaming portfolio mostly delivered in partnership with Epic Games, 2K, and Warner Bros., which includes 75 original video games without licensing tie-ins and 42 video games adapting other media properties. Besides that, its ongoing collaboration with Epic Games introduced a Lego mode in Fortnite last year, bringing Lego minifigures into the battle royale universe.

It is worth noting that Lego already used to have its own video game publishing and development division that was active in the late 1990s and early 2000s. At first, it was called a Lego Media division, which was renamed Lego Software in 2000 and then into Lego Interactive in 2002.

This subsidiary was responsible for creating and publishing games based on Lego properties such as Lego Island (1997),  Lego Island 2: The Brickster’s Revenge (2001), Lego Racers (1999), Lego Creator: Harry Potter (2001), Lego Chess (1998) and Lego Stunt Rally (2000).

After Lego Interactive’s closure due to financial losses and the brand’s shift in focus back to its core business, in 2004, former Lego Interactive staff founded company Giant Interactive Entertainment for future Lego game publishing. Following the release of Lego Star Wars: The Video Game (2005), Giant Interactive Entertainment merged with Traveller’s Tales to form TT Games. In two years, in November 2007, TT Games was acquired by Warner Bros. Games, becoming the primary publisher of Lego games.

It is worth mentioning that in March 2025, eleven LEGO titles were added to the GOG Preservation Program.