Roundtable: Next Property For a LEGO treatment

Emmett Watkins Jr. – Umbra Witch/Big Stepper

LEGO Bad Boys

We’ve had, just, so many LEGO games over the last few decades, and most of them are great. But one reason most people only play one or two of them instead of trying to play the entire series is that they all play super similar to one another. Ever since LEGO Star Wars, pretty much every game in the series has been a pretty simple beat em up. Sure, Ninjago added more Arkham-like combat and the open world iterations added vehicles, but fundamentally they have all been melee based. Well, with the recent release of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, they’ve introduced some light 3rd person shooting into the mix for the first time, complete with a cover system and location-based damage. This got me thinking of media franchises that would translate well into a cute shooter with the LEGO aesthetic, and Bad Boys was instantly the one that made my mouth water the most.

2019’s Bad Boys For Life was very clearly trying to set up the series to be a full-on franchise going forward, so the brand will likely have relevance long enough for a game to make sense. And additionally, some of the most most fun aspects of LEGO games is seeing how they kid-ify these slightly more adult franchises. Well, Bad Boys is all R-rated, so seeing how they’d playfully dull the edge of the extreme violence and some gratuitous sexuality would be hilarious to see. Plus, Mike Lawery and Marcus Burnet are such classic archetypes, that this could be a perfect opportunity for Traveler’s Tales to try out the silent comedy of older titles.

And none of this even mentions how awesome the gameplay of this could be thanks to the bombastic setpieces of the series. Imagine playing through the chase scene from the opening of Bad Boys II, dodging cars on the freeway and watching the studs fly. Or the shootout in the cathedral in the third film, where you could shatter colored glass and have it drop down on enemies. And imagine how intense the “thread the needle” scene from the end of Bad Boys 1 would be if you got to be behind the car yourself. This idea has a lot of potential and considering TT games already has experience with cop comedies with Lego City Undercover, I think this game could truly be something worthwhile.