Lego 2K Drive builds on the tracks laid by Mario Kart and Forza Horizon

polygon.com:

“Yeah, the Mario Kart and Forza Horizon comparison, I’ll take it,” says Brian Silva, director of the upcoming Lego 2K Drive, during a preview for Visual Concepts’ new racing game. The comparison was the first thing that came to mind after getting hands-on with about three hours of Lego 2K Drive’s open-world driving hijinx and races full of power-ups, boost pads, and a whole lot of drifting.

However, being an officially licensed Lego game, Lego 2K Drive appears to have the building blocks to be more than just its influences.

The setup for Lego 2K Drive is fairly standard fare: You’re the new kid on the block and must raise your reputation by winning races and completing side quests, eventually gaining enough notoriety to challenge the big-name characters in the story and open up new areas of the map. It’s how the stage is set for these types of games, but the key lies in what only Lego can offer.

If you’ve played any of the Lego action-adventure games or seen the Lego movies, you’ll be familiar with the brand’s tongue-in-cheek humor. That same lighthearted goofiness works as the foundation for Lego 2K Drive to contextualize the open-world driving adventure. The story’s in-universe broadcasters narrate game events with an irreverent self-awareness, poking fun at the absurdity of what’s happening. Nearly every character’s name appears to be a cheesy car-related pun, and side missions task you with running silly errands for NPCs — though I think I’ve done one too many quests helping cops do their damn job and now I’m part of the problem, but that’s on me.

Lego blocks themselves are integral to gameplay and the way the open world is designed. “Everything you see made of Lego in the game can be built in the real world with