It’s time to return to LEGO City and now you can bring a friend.
It’s been over 4 years since LEGO City Undercover debuted on the Wii U. On April 4, the game will be available on the Nintendo Switch with some enhancements. I recently got some hands-on time with the PlayStation 4 version of the game.
The basic content of LEGO City Undercover is unchanged. Players will once again jump into the shoes of police officer Chase McCain, and help him capture the devious criminal, Rex Fury. There are 15 chapters to complete in the story mode, and the adventure is filled to the brim with pop culture references, calling upon anything from The Shawshank Redemption to Titanic. I recommend checking out Neal Ronaghan’s review of the Wii U version to get a more detailed description of the adventure.
The biggest change to the game is the inclusion of a brand new, local co-op mode where each player gets a vertical slice of the screen. On the Switch, players can control the action using either the Pro Controller or a pair of Joy-Con. TT Games tested the use of a single Joy-Con to control the action, but found the lack of camera control from a second analog stick was detrimental to the gameplay. While I only spent a short time playing co-op, it was a great deal of fun racing police cars through the city with another person, and it’s always easier solving puzzles with two people on the job.
Load times in the original Wii U version of LEGO City Undercover were at times excruciatingly long. One of the development team’s goals was to improve load times in the updated version. While I can only attest to quicker load times in the PlayStation 4 version, all versions, including Switch’s, are expected to have snappier loading. The development team also made an effort to improve the framerate across all versions.
With a dearth of Switch retail releases, LEGO City Undercover will be a welcome sight on store shelves next month. As someone who only briefly visited LEGO City with a rental, and then quickly left because of the load times, I’m looking forward to the new version.