Every LEGO Star Wars game ranked, from the one that invented the formula to the one still selling

It wins on every measure we use. Highest Metacritic in the series on its headline platforms, the biggest launch any LEGO console game has had (Warner Bros. Games' own statement, April 2022: 3.2 million sold through worldwide in two weeks, records on every platform and region), the fifth best-selling game of any kind in the US in 2022, and the only LEGO Star Wars game with a live Steam audience in the hundreds four years later.

It also changed the most. Forty-five story levels across all nine films, five per film instead of six; an over-the-shoulder camera for blaster characters and real combos for saber ones; 23 planets you can wander between and start from any trilogy you like. The complaints are fair and worth knowing before you buy: there is no character creator, the first mainline game since 2005 without one, and the levels are shorter and fewer per film than the old games. The game was also built on a new engine under conditions Polygon reported in January 2022 as years of crunch at TT Games, which is part of its record too.

If you own one LEGO Star Wars game, own this one. Steam lists it at $49.99; the Switch cartridge has been under $25 at most US retailers for a year, and that is the price to pay.

The best twenty dollars in Star Wars gaming, and the reason the first two games do not rank higher. The Complete Saga takes LEGO Star Wars II's engine and improvements, the character creator, the better camera, the vehicle handling, and rebuilds the 2005 prequel game inside them, then puts all 36 levels behind one Cantina door. It also restores the two levels cut from the first game, so Episode II finally has six like the others.

It is the only way to play the first two games' content on a modern PC at all, it is on Steam and GOG at $19.99, it is Steam Deck Verified, and its Steam user rating is 96% positive across more than 14,000 reviews, the highest of any LEGO Star Wars game on the platform. Around 200 people are in it on any given evening, nineteen years after the levels were built.

Why not first: the 80 is two points under The Skywalker Saga, the audience is a quarter the size, and it is a 2009 PC port of a 2007 compilation that looks exactly like one.

By the critics' measure this is the best game in the series. Its headline Metacritic is 81, but that is the Xbox 360 version; on PC it scored 86, on Xbox 85, on PS2 and GameCube 84. It won the BAFTA for Best Gameplay in 2006, sold 1.1 million copies in its first week by LucasArts' own count and 8.2 million by 2009 by the LEGO Group's, more than any other game in the series that has a published figure.

It introduced the character creator, riding creatures, proper vehicle levels and the option to import your whole LEGO Star Wars I roster from an old save. Eighteen levels, six per original-trilogy film, and a Mos Eisley hub that is still the best in the series.

It ranks third because of how you have to buy it. It was never on Steam. The version on PlayStation 4 and 5, added to PS Plus Premium in June 2024, is the PSP port rendered up, not the PS2 or Xbox game. Xbox One and Series play the 360 disc through backward compatibility, and that is the best current-hardware version. Everyone else plays it inside The Complete Saga, which is the point of The Complete Saga.

The one that invented the formula. Studs as currency, no game over, drop-in co-op, Free Play after you clear a level, ten minikit canisters hidden in each one: every LEGO game since, Star Wars or otherwise, runs on rules Traveller's Tales set here in March 2005. It shipped two months before Revenge of the Sith did, which is why the Episode III levels play out to original-trilogy music; the new score did not exist yet.

Seventeen story levels, 56 characters, and one Episode II level short because the Zam Wesell chase was cut for time. It sold 6.7 million copies and was a top-ten US game for 2005. It has never been sold standalone on a digital store. Its levels live on inside The Complete Saga, rebuilt on the sequel's engine, and that version is better in every way that can be measured, which is why the original sits here rather than higher.

The experiment. LEGO Star Wars III is the only game in the series not based on the films: a prologue in the Geonosis arena, then the animated Clone Wars series. It added ground battles where you build turrets and command squads, vehicle levels you can land from and fight on foot, and a "scene swap" mechanic that splits your team across two locations and has you flick between them. Two hubs, a Republic cruiser and a Separatist flagship, each selling its own side's characters.

Critics landed at 75 and said the same two things: repetitive, and difficulty spikes in the battle modes that felt aimed at the player. No publisher ever put a sales number on it, which is telling next to the games either side of it. On Steam it peaked at 826 and has about 60 people in it now, which is more than The Force Awakens can say, and its Steam rating is 94% positive. The Clone Wars fans who like it really like it.

The critics scored it 78, higher than LEGO Star Wars III and level with the 2005 original, and IGN gave it a 9. The players did not agree, and the players are the ones we can measure. Its Metacritic user score of 7.0 is the lowest in the series; its Steam rating, 77% positive, is the lowest of the four Steam games by a wide margin; and its live audience, about 25 people on an evening, is the smallest despite a launch peak of 2,385 that beat The Complete Saga's all-time high.

The reason is in the design. One film stretched to a full game, padded with invented bridging chapters and a season of DLC that sold the rest of the story back to you, including the level that explains C-3PO's red arm. The new systems, cover-based Blaster Battles and Multi-Builds, were fine. There was just not enough Force Awakens to build a LEGO game around, and the players noticed before the critics did.

It was the last LEGO game on Wii U, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and the last with its own handheld version. On Steam it is $19.99 base, $29.99 with the season pass. Buy The Complete Saga instead.