This coming week, toys-to-life franchise mash-up Lego Dimensions will start its second year, and begin rolling out an even larger range of new inclusions than its initial offering.Harry Potter, Adventure Time, Mission Impossible and Sonic the Hedgehog are all headed to Dimensions over the coming months, as well as a surprisingly number of nostalgia-fuelled 80s franchises - Knight Rider, A-Team, The Goonies and Gremlins - to appeal to older Lego fans, perhaps playing with their kids.It also marks a slight change in how Lego Dimensions is being sold - now with complete movies in their own six-level Story Packs - as well as the usual Team, Level and Fun Packs. Dimensions is completely modular - there's no continuation of its Year One story which unified the game's initial range of brands, although this hasn't been abandoned for good."[A story continuation] got teased at the end, and this year isn't the end of anything," producer Mark Warburton told me at EGX yesterday, "it's a continuation..."That said, this year will focus on the idea of Story Packs as a way to provide larger chunks of story than singular levels, for movies such as the new Ghostbusters film, Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts and the Lego Batman Movie
, which will all fit into the Lego Dimensions wrapper. "We wanted to try something different [with Story Packs] and tell the story of those movies. This year is going to be a great barometer of what the appetite is out there, to see if people like our story or want something else. We'll see if the preference is that they want to play the whole Ghostbusters movie or Fantastic Beasts movie. :: Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - new Switch characters, battle mode and everything else we know "There are ideas for continuations of the story, and there are ideas for continuations of the movies [and other IP] through some new free-play areas we've stuck in."Fans with sets from Lego Dimensions' first year will be able to see these continuations in new areas which take advantage of their existing toys. Dimensons co-director Jimmy McLoughlin told us back at E3 there will be new Doctor Who and Back to the Future areas in the game this year for people with those Year One playsets. Warburton says there will be at least one new Portal area, too.
Another big change this year is the arrival of two promotional figurines not available to buy on their own. DC Comics hero Green Arrow has become a giveaway figure if you play Lego Dimensions at an event - and it has been given away a fair amount now, although the only reliable place to find one is via eBay and at a hefty markup. ("We never saw that coming," Warburton drily notes.) The other figurine is fellow DC character Supergirl - and this one is a little different. The only way to currently get her is via new fresh Starter Packs of the game on PS4. It means collectors with the game already must rebuy the game's original portal pack on PS4, or wait for her timed-exclusive status to expire for news of some other way to get her."I keep stressing it's a timed exclusive..." "The exact specifics of that is something for [publisher] Warner Bros. I'm sure there will be more things to come..."TT Games is slowly teasing the figures and sets for the rest of its second year - it recently showed off its Lego Batman Movie story pack due in the spring of 2017, for example, and has announced but not shown franchises such as Powerpuff Girls for around the same time.
Warburton says there have been no changes to the game's three-year plan, which he first mentioned to Eurogamer this time last year.But how about Marvel and Star Wars? Lego Dimensions fans have pointed to the cancellation of Disney Infinity as an opportunity for those franchises to find their way into Dimensions now instead - but it sounds like this won't happen anytime soon, if at all."We talk to them all the time - Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens is out there, we just released new Lego Marvel DLC," Warburton says when I bring up Disney."With my Lego Dimensions hat on?" he smiles. "We have two different streams on the go - Dimensions is one, then we have our Marvel game and Star Wars... We're happy with the trajectory of Lego Dimensions."Some LEGO Marvel’s Avengers DLC is PlayStation Only A new press release from LEGO confirms that there will indeed be content from “Ant-Man” and “Captain America: Civil War” featured in the upcoming LEGO Marvel’s Avengers, but it will only be available as free DLC for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 users, and only for a limited time.
LEGO Marvel’s Avengers will feature content from Marvel’s comics and from eight Marvel films: “Captain America: The First Avenger,” “Avengers,” “Iron Man 3,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Thor: The Dark World,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Ant-Man,” and “Captain America: Civil War.” Arthur Parsons of TT Games has teased that the upcoming Season Pass will feature content from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the TV show. Fans of the Netflix shows Daredevil and Jessica Jones will be glad to know that those characters (plus Luke Cage) will appear too, though they will be based on their comic book equivalents, as the TV shows are not very kid-friendly. The Civil War DLC will be available at the game’s launch on January 26—three months before the release of the movie. This might be our chance to learn a bit more about the film before it hits theaters. Unfortunately, the DLC is just a character pack, and includes no levels. The Captain America: Civil War Character Pack comes with nine playable characters:
“Ant-Man,” of course, came out last June, and its DLC will include both playable characters and a level based on the film. The Character & Level Pack won’t be coming until spring, though. Here are the nine “Ant-Man” characters you get with the DLC:Awww I love that guy. Anticipation and excitement around the next films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are at an all-time high, though you don’t have to wait until May for the series’ next installment with the upcoming release of LEGO Marvel’s Avengers later this month, which will also be receiving free DLC based on the more recent and upcoming films in the mega franchise. A new post on the PlayStation Blog revealed that free DLC for the title will be arriving with new content drawn from last summer’s Ant-Man and the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, with both DLC packs coming exclusively to the PS4 and PS3 versions of LEGO Marvel’s Avengers. The first pack will be the Captain America: Civil War DLC, which arrives on January 26th, 2016 and includes nine additional characters set to appear in the upcoming film: Captain America, Iron Man (Mark 46 armor), Black Panther, Winter Soldier, Falcon, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Crossbones, and Agent 13.