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A couple months ago, a bunch of classic LEGO×TT Games were on sale on the Xbox Marketplace for 5$ or less per title. Having played and enjoyed many of the games on multiple different gaming consoles, I purchased a few of the games which I had missed along the way.
This got me thinking — how many of these old games are still playable on a modern gaming console like my Xbox Series X? It turns out, basically all of them, but with a few caveats... This led me down a deep rabbit-hole, including a lot of research here at , on , Wikipedia, and around the web.
The result of all this digging is an article I just published that tries to consolidate all of this information into an easily digestible guide for folks who want to revisit some, or all, of these classic games! I do think folks here will find it both interesting and useful, and I also want to hear your thoughts and feedback!
LINK:
In case you do not want to read the whole article, here are a few of the main highlights:
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You really can play all the games on the latest Xbox Hardware, so long as you have the series X model that has a DVD Drive.
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You can't play the original versions of LEGO Star Wars 1/2 or the original LEGO Harry Potter games, but you can play the remastered versions of both, which are nearly identical apart from improved graphics.
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There are two titles which you can only play with a disk-based copy: Lord of the Rings (which I love) and LEGO Dimensions.
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You can also play most of these games on a Windows PC or Steam Deck, but LEGO Dimensions is a console exclusive.
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Other consoles like Playstation or Switch are great, but they have much more limited backwards compatibility.
I also geeked out on how well the LEGO×TT games give us a window into the transition periods when new gaming consoles are introduced. As you can see in this photo, there is a key period right after a new console is released where games are available for both the new and older system. This sems to be about 4 years after the new hardware is released.
I hope you found interesting and useful, and genuinely appreciate feedback of any kind! I am also working on a follow-up article that reflects on the series as a whole, offering more editorial perspective on the best and worst games in the series (acknowledging that even that is subjective).
I also hope to highlight some of the ways that the evolution of LEGO toys influenced the LEGO games, and more importantly, how the LEGO games influenced the LEGO toy products. In particular, I would love to highlight some key examples of a minifigure which appeared in video games but was later included in a physical LEGO set.
Sincerely,
—Tom Alphin,