Lego City Undercover
Lego City Undercover is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by TT Fusion and published by Nintendo for the Wii U. It was re-released for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in 2017. Based on the City-themed toyline by Lego, the narrative follows police officer Chase McCain as he returns to Lego City and pursues escaped crime boss Rex Fury. Gameplay features McCain both exploring the open world hub of Lego City, and completing self-contained levels featuring puzzles and combat.
After satisfactory technical advancements and the completion of other Lego video games featuring existing IPs, the first prototypes for Lego City Undercover were produced in 2010, with development beginning in 2011 after Nintendo approached parent company TT Games about developing for the Wii U. At the time production began, it was to be the first Lego video game featuring voice acting, and it was the first in the TT Games Lego series not to rely on a movie or comic license. The script, written by Graham Goring, made extensive use of parody and references to various media. The Lego City hub was based on multiple real locations. Nintendo was generally hands-off with the development process but would receive updates and suggest changes.
The game was originally announced at E3 2011 as Lego City Stories for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Additional info was shown at E3 2012, where the game was also officially renamed to Lego City Undercover. The 3DS version became a standalone prequel, titled Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins. Lego City Undercover was released in most regions in March 2013, with Japan following in July. The remastered version, which included local two-player multiplayer, was announced in 2016 and released in April 2017. The game received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the story, humour, and evolved gameplay formula, but criticized the lack of co-op options and varying technical issues, such as long loading times. The original Wii U version sold over 1.15 million copies worldwide as of 2022.
Gameplay
Lego City Undercover is action-adventure game in which the player controls undercover cop Chase McCain, who is tasked with detaining the criminal Rex Fury. Chase can perform various moves such as swinging across poles and performing wall jumps. The game is set in Lego City, which serves as an overworld that contains levels set in different environments split up in 20 districts. Each level has a set of linear objectives that must be completed to reach the end, which can involve solving puzzles, building and breaking Lego bricks, and platforming challenges. Chase engages in combat with criminals that require button combinations to fight them. As the game progresses, Chase learns new abilities in the form of "disguises" that replicate occupations and personas; the abilities from the disguises are used in levels and exploring previously inaccessible content and areas in the overworld. For example, the miner disguise can smash through boulders with its pickaxe and grabs a dynamite out of the dynamite machine, and the criminal disguise can break through doors with a crowbar and can crack safes open. Besides disguises, the player can also create customized characters or play as other characters once they are unlocked.In the overworld, puzzles and collectibles are also hidden, such as timed challenges and car chases. The player is allowed to use any vehicle in the environment to reach their location, including boats, helicopters, and the vehicles of other citizens. Lego studs serve as the game's currency, and can be found in the environment or by solving puzzles. Studs can be used to purchase new vehicles that can be summoned and used at the player's discretion. A rarer form of currency, Lego bricks, often require more difficult platforming or puzzle-solving to collect. Lego bricks are used to complete "superbuilds", which vary in use when completed, such as a structure to summon vehicles or stunt ramps. The Wii U GamePad is used to further progress with multiple features, including scanning for Lego brick locations, taking photo evidence, and listening to private conversations. When these features are not being used, the GamePad displays a map of the environment. The 2017 re-release of the game added local multiplayer.
Plot
Police officer Chase McCain returns to Lego City after being exiled two years prior. He learns from Mayor Gleeson that notorious criminal Rex Fury, whom Chase helped to arrest, had recently escaped from prison. Chase is joined by dim-witted rookie Frank Honey and assisted by police technician Ellie Phillips in pursuing Rex. However, his return is not welcome news for Natalia Kowalski, Chase's ex-girlfriend, who was forced into witness protection program after he inadvertently revealed her as the witness in Rex's trial, nor Marion Dunby, the city's new Chief of Police, who had Chase sent away because of this mistake.After dealing with a number of minor cases, Chase manages to gather clues that lead him to encountering Rex at Bluebell Mine, but is defeated before he can arrest him. Dunby sends Chase undercover within a limousine company owned by Chan Chuang, head of a crime gang. He works as a driver for billionaire Forrest Blackwell, gains acceptance with Chan's business partner, Vinnie Pappalardo, and steals a Moon buggy for Chan. Chan captures Natalia while investigating his connection to her father's disappearance; Chase rescues her, causing her to accept his help in finding her father, but angering Dunby when Chan goes into hiding.
After rescuing Natalia from a group of mysterious men and partially reconciling with her, Chase later discovers that Vinnie is working for Rex himself. When Vinnie learns he won't be paid for his work and is ordered to steal more items for his buyer, he instructs Chase to steal from Blackwell. After breaking into his mansion but failing to secure any valuables due to being pursued by Blackwell's security forces, Chase returns to Vinnie's ice cream parlor, only to find it overrun by Rex's thugs and Vinnie locked in a freezer in retaliation for going against Rex's orders. Chase manages to save Vinnie from Rex's thugs and, after interrogating the thugs' leader, takes their place to learn what Rex is planning.
Chase manages to infiltrate Rex's hideout and overhears Natalia's father, lunar scientist Henrik Kowalski, being interrogated by Rex. He discovers that Blackwell himself organized the crime wave and had managed to kidnap Natalia to coerce her father to work on his plans. Rescuing Kowalski, Chase calls Ellie with what he has learned, whereupon she informs him that Blackwell had recently been in the news with promises that he had plans that would change Lego City forever. Proceeding to Blackwell's mansion, he searches it to find evidence of Blackwell's crimes and locate Natalia. Chase soon discovers that Blackwell originally had plans to build an apartment complex and shopping mall in Bluebell, but was stopped by Lego City due to the presence of a rare and endangered squirrel species in the park. Humiliated and enraged at being denied, Blackwell began a new plan to build a colony on the Moon and converted his high-rise Blackwell Tower into a rocket, which Chase discovers will burn Lego City when it's launched. Chase quickly has Henrik and several members of the police department build a force field to prevent the rocket's engines from destroying the city.
Learning that Blackwell still had Natalia with him, Chase chases him via a space shuttle. Blackwell leaves both Chase and Rex behind, destroying the shuttle. Chase defeats Rex in a final battle, whereupon Blackwell sends both into free fall towards Earth. Skydiving towards Natalia's prison within the rocket's command module, Chase rescues her by triggering the module's parachute. Once back in the city, Gleeson congratulates him for saving Lego City, while Dunby offers Chase the honor of overseeing Rex's arrest. However, Chase turns it down, claiming Natalia is more important to him now, and they rekindle their relationship, leaving to start a new life together.
Development
The development team at TT Fusion had been wanting to create a video game based on the Lego City theme for some time, as did the Lego franchise, but the available technology and the fact that most staff were working on existing IPs limited their ability to create such a game. Prototyping for what would become Lego City Undercover began in 2010, and lasted roughly twelve months. In 2011, Nintendo approached the company and showed them the Wii U hardware, asking whether they would like to develop a game for it. Having already had good experiences with Nintendo with successful ports of their previous titles and liking the platform's specs, the team agreed to work with Nintendo. Developing a game not tied to a movie license gave the team a degree of freedom previously unavailable, while also presenting difficulties with multiple aspects including the story, gameplay and general mechanics of the game. Due to the high compatibility between the team's concept and its prospective hardware, ports to other consoles were not seriously considered, until a few years after the game was released. They were also able to integrate the GamePad functions into the game, making part of Undercovers world. Nintendo generally left the team to develop the game as they pleased, though they received regular updates on the project and would notify them if they saw anything as a problem. Development was split between TT Fusion studio and the Traveller's Tales Knutsford headquarters.As they did not have a solid idea of what the game would be, the team began with creating a small environment with drivable vehicles and Lego buildings. Various ideas for gameplay were considered, one of which was a city builder similar to the SimCity series, and a fixed camera angle was also quickly abandoned. One of the early gameplay challenges was the combat, which needed to fit into the story context of the lead character being a policeman. Instead of a simple brawling style, the team designed the battle system to allow for defensive gameplay and not involve an equivalent to lethal take-downs. While many critics made comparisons between Lego City Undercover and the Grand Theft Auto series, Goring insisted that the series never played a role of inspiration in the game's development, and the elements instead came from exploring new ideas for a Lego video game and ways of using the Wii U GamePad. Pre-existing open-world video games were never used as inspiration for their overall darker tone. According to lead designer Lee Barber, the goal of the game was to accomplish the opposite, which featured open-world gameplay and exploration but had a positive and upbeat style, which was instructed by the Lego City franchise itself. To follow this pattern, criminals and the crimes committed weren't serious ones, and the undercover disguise was implemented so Chase could commit criminal acts but for a morally justified reason.