Eager to knock blocks out of Minecraft’s digital game empire, Burbank’s Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Lego Group launched a test version of computer game “Lego Worlds” today.
Playing Lego Worlds on a PC looks a lot playing with the original plastic bricks, except the building blocks are digital. Players can use digital bricks in the game to create worlds, structures, vehicles or any other object they see fit.
The launch of Lego Worlds comes after Minecraft, another game where players can construct digital worlds using virtual bricks, was sold to Microsoft in September for $2.5 billion. That game took the physical brick building play that Lego pioneered and digitized it; now Lego is trying to catch up.
Lego Worlds is initially only available for purchase on testing platform Steam, but is intended to go wider, with several features familiar to players of Minecraft.
Warner Bros. and Lego have collaborated before. The two teamed up for “The Lego Movie,” which made $258 million at the box office in 2014, and the video game “Lego Dimensions” due out this September.
Warner Bros. reportedly has three more Lego Movies in the works.