LEGO 2K Drive PS5 Review

LEGO 2K Drive combines open-world exploration, arcade racing and brick-by-brick vehicle construction. Visual Concepts designed it around accessibility rather than realistic driving physics, with drifting, boosting, jumping and destructive shortcuts taking priority over technical racing lines.

The result often reminded me of kart racers such as Mario Kart, Crash Team Racing and Disney Speedstorm. Power-ups, exaggerated vehicle handling and chaotic collisions regularly mattered more than precision.

I had previously played LEGO Racers on Nintendo 64, and LEGO 2K Drive left me with a similar mixture of enjoyment and frustration. Both games delivered an accessible form of LEGO racing, but neither entirely escaped repetitive events and uneven progression.

Overall, I had a lot of fun playing LEGO 2K Drive. Drifting felt satisfying, smashing through the environment actively benefited my vehicle, and the Garage gave me enough creative freedom to spend more time building than racing.

Its problems were still difficult to ignore. Some additional activities became tedious, cutscene audio was unusually quiet, subtitles occasionally failed to appear, and accessing the online features involved a frustrating 2K account setup process.

Drifting and Destruction Make Driving Satisfying

LEGO 2K Drive uses an arcade handling model that is easy to understand without making every vehicle feel completely passive.

Drifting around corners felt incredibly satisfying. Holding a slide through a long bend allowed me to maintain momentum while preparing for the next section of a track.

The handling also encouraged aggressive driving. Smashing into other vehicles and destructible objects replenished boost energy and repaired damage to my active vehicle.

I really enjoyed that relationship. Other racing games often punish contact with the environment, but LEGO 2K Drive regularly rewarded me for crashing through fences, scenery and roadside objects.

That meant destruction served a practical purpose beyond visual spectacle. A successful collision could restore part of my vehicle while providing the boost needed to regain speed.

Jumping added another layer to movement. I could leap over obstacles, avoid hazards or correct my route when approaching the edge of a road.

The controls became easy to manage once I understood the game’s rhythm. Drifting, boosting and jumping all supported the same fast, forgiving style of racing.

This is not a driving system built to resemble Gran Turismo. Vehicle weight, braking points and realistic tyre behaviour are secondary to spectacle and accessibility.

In my eyes, LEGO 2K Drive felt much closer to another Mario Kart, Crash Team Racing or Sonic Racing-style game. Its handling is exaggerated, its races include power-ups, and its collisions are designed to create entertainment rather than simulate motorsport.

Transforming Vehicles Keep Exploration Moving

Every loadout contains a street vehicle, an off-road vehicle and a boat. The game automatically switches between them when the terrain changes.

Driving from a road onto rough ground activates the off-road vehicle. Entering water replaces it with the selected boat.

This transformation happens without sending the player into a menu or interrupting exploration. The system allows the same journey to continue across roads, open terrain and waterways.

I liked being able to move between different surfaces without stopping. Bricklandia felt more connected because water and uneven ground became parts of a route rather than barriers around it.

The transformation system also allowed me to treat much of the environment as something I could drive through. Roads provided the most obvious routes, but fields, hills and rivers created alternatives.

The three vehicle types can be customised separately, so the transformation mechanic also gives players several active creations rather than limiting them to one car.

On PS5, the game supports a road, off-road and water-based driving loop across its open-world regions, while its official description emphasises seamless movement between racetracks, rough terrain and open water.

The Garage Became My Favourite Part of LEGO 2K Drive

I spent most of my time in the Garage.

The building system allows vehicles to be assembled from individual LEGO bricks rather than restricting customisation to colours, decals and preset bodywork.

I found the range of available bricks gave me plenty of freedom to create whatever I wanted. I could begin with a basic chassis and gradually shape it into a car, off-road vehicle or boat.

The menus and controls initially required some learning. Selecting pieces, rotating bricks and moving between different construction tools did not feel completely natural when I first entered the Garage.

Once I understood the interface, however, I found the building system easy to use. Placing pieces became much quicker, and I could concentrate on the design rather than fighting the controls.

That balance between structure and freedom worked well. The game provided enough guidance to stop construction from becoming overwhelming, while still allowing me to make something recognisably my own.

Guided builds were also available for players who preferred to follow instructions. These provided a more traditional LEGO construction process, while building from scratch offered greater creative control.

The Garage can be accessed from the main menu, while Garage locations within Story mode also function as fast-travel points. Official material describes the system as supporting original builds, modifications to existing vehicles and guided construction.

Vehicle performance still places some limits on complete freedom. Weight, acceleration, handling and other characteristics are affected by the selected parts and overall build.

Those restrictions were useful because they made construction part of the driving experience. I was not only making something that looked interesting. I was creating a vehicle that still needed to function during a race.

Unlocking Vehicles Gives Progression a Reward

Story progression unlocks additional vehicles, drivers and building pieces.

I enjoyed expanding my collection because every new vehicle gave me another design to drive or modify. Additional bricks also increased what I could create in the Garage.

Brickbux serves as the principal earned currency. Races, quests and optional activities award Brickbux alongside experience and other rewards.

The currency can be spent on vehicles, drivers and construction pieces through Unkie’s Emporium. The store also includes Coins connected to real-money purchases.

During my original playthrough, I accumulated approximately 18,000 Brickbux after spending considerable time across the available modes. Some desirable purchases cost a substantial portion of that amount.

That made progression feel slower than I wanted. The presence of purchasable currency made the limited rate of normal rewards more noticeable, particularly in a game aimed partly at younger players.

I cannot establish why the economy was balanced that way, so I would not claim that every reward was deliberately restricted to force purchases. I can say that the relationship between slow earnings and prominent paid currency left a poor impression on me.

Unlocking vehicles through regular play remained enjoyable. My frustration came from how long certain purchases could take rather than from the idea of progression itself.

Bricklandia Offers Variety Without Consistent Depth

Bricklandia contains several open-world regions connected through Story mode progression.

Each area presents a different visual identity. Roads, deserts, fields and waterways give the transformation system opportunities to move between street vehicles, off-road builds and boats.

The world is filled with races, quests, collectibles and short activities known as ON-THE-GOs. World Challenges and quests can award experience, Brickbux, building pieces and complete vehicles.

The open world looked colourful and inviting, and I enjoyed discovering new routes while testing different vehicles.

However, the quantity of events did not always create meaningful variety. Several activities repeated the same basic ideas with different locations or time limits.

The game often gave me something nearby to complete, but not every marker led to an activity I wanted to repeat.

That distinction became important during Story mode. Optional events were enjoyable when I selected them voluntarily, but they were less appealing when progression encouraged me to complete more of them than I wanted.

Timed Events Gave Me Simpsons: Road Rage Flashbacks

Some of the timed challenges gave me flashbacks to The Simpsons: Road Rage.

The comparison came from the pressure of rushing between objectives while navigating an exaggerated open world rather than from identical mission design.

ON-THE-GOs can involve smashing designated objects, jumping as far as possible or completing another short task before time expires. They award different medals depending on performance.

I thought these additional events were fun in smaller doses. They gave me a reason to experiment with drifting, destruction and routes outside the main races.

Repetition became the problem. Once I had completed several similar activities, later versions did not always introduce enough to make them feel new.

I found some of them tedious and occasionally boring. A short event could be enjoyable once, but repeating comparable objectives for experience or currency reduced its appeal.

The side content therefore worked best as an occasional break from racing. It was less successful when it became part of a progression requirement.

The Story Knows It Is a Cliché

Story mode follows a rookie racer attempting to rise through Bricklandia and eventually defeat Shadow Z for the Sky Trophy.

Clutch Racington acts as a mentor, while a robot companion named STUD helps guide the player through the campaign. The journey spans four open-world zones and includes regular races, rival encounters and Grand Brick Arena events.

The plot is deliberately predictable. Shadow Z is presented as an obvious villain, and many scenes play with familiar racing-story clichés rather than trying to avoid them.

I had a lot of fun with the quirky one-liners and deliberately clichéd moments.

The humour understood the tone of the wider game. Characters were exaggerated, dialogue was silly, and serious racing drama was regularly undercut by a joke.

That approach suited LEGO 2K Drive much better than a more earnest story would have done. I was not invested because I expected a complex narrative. I enjoyed the campaign because it knew how ridiculous its characters and situations were.

The writing could not completely hide the repetitive progression between major races, but the humour made the journey more entertaining.

Cutscene Audio and Subtitles Were Unreliable

The presentation had one particularly noticeable audio problem during my playthrough.

I found the cutscene volume unusually low compared with the rest of the game. Dialogue that should have carried the humour was sometimes much quieter than racing audio and other sound effects.

Increasing the overall volume was not an ideal solution because the rest of the game could then become too loud.

I was also annoyed that subtitles sometimes did not appear. When quiet dialogue and missing subtitles occurred together, it became more difficult to follow a scene.

These issues did not damage the driving mechanics, but they directly affected one of the game’s strengths. The story relied on jokes and one-liners, so inconsistent dialogue presentation reduced their impact.

The 2K Account Setup Was Needlessly Frustrating

Local and online multiplayer are handled differently.

Two players can use local split-screen in Story, Race and Cup Series modes without treating online play as the only multiplayer option. Online modes support races, Cup Series events and Shared World exploration for up to six players.

Online access requires a linked 2K account, an internet connection and the appropriate console subscription. Shared World allows players to explore available Bricklandia regions together, although quests and minigames are not included in that mode.

I was extremely frustrated by the requirement to create and link a 2K account before accessing those online features.

Initially, I found setting up the account far more troublesome than it should have been. A feature intended to connect me with other players instead created a barrier before I could use it.

I later managed to get it working, and once it did, the process did not seem quite as bad. After that, I was able to play online and download content.

The eventual functionality does not erase the initial frustration. Account creation should be straightforward, particularly when it controls access to important advertised features.

PS5 Presentation and Features

The colourful environments, reflective plastic surfaces and large quantities of destructible objects gave LEGO 2K Drive an appealing visual identity on PS5.

My original article described the PS5 experience as running at 60fps, but I did not record formal frame-rate or internal rendering-resolution measurements. I would therefore present 60fps as my observed play experience rather than claim an independently verified technical benchmark.

The PlayStation Store confirms support for the PS5 version, DualSense vibration, one to two local players and up to six online players.

LEGO 2K Drive PS5 Feature	Details
Reviewed platform	PlayStation 5
Observed frame rate	Approximately 60fps during my playthrough
Internal rendering resolution	Not reliably established
Local multiplayer	Two-player split-screen
Online multiplayer	Up to six players
Online play	Optional
PS Plus	Required for online console play
DualSense vibration	Supported
In-game purchases	Optional
Cross-platform online play	Supported on PS5, PS4, Xbox and PC
2K account	Required for online features

I found the driving responsive, and the frame-rate presentation supported the speed of the drifting and boost mechanics.

The visual design was strongest when large sections of scenery collapsed into individual bricks. Destruction created movement across the environment while also connecting directly to boost and vehicle repair.

The game’s bright colours and exaggerated characters suited its intended audience. It looked like a LEGO world rather than a conventional racing environment with LEGO objects placed on top.

Online Services Will Close in 2027

2K has announced that LEGO 2K Drive’s multiplayer servers will close on 31 May 2027. Online functions will no longer operate after the shutdown.

This will affect online racing, Shared World, community features and other content that relies on 2K’s servers.

Story mode and local split-screen do not depend on online matchmaking, so the game will retain an offline component after the closure.

That future loss is important because online access and downloadable content formed part of my original PS5 experience. It does not change how the game played in 2023, but it reduces the long-term value of features that required the account setup I found so frustrating.

LEGO 2K Drive gave me an accessible arcade racer with satisfying drifting, entertaining destruction and one of the most enjoyable construction systems I had used in a driving game.

The Garage was its standout feature. Its range of bricks gave me enough freedom to build vehicles from scratch, and the controls became easy to use once I understood the interface.

I also enjoyed unlocking vehicles, exploring Bricklandia and listening to the story’s quirky dialogue. Crashing through objects to restore boost and repair damage made destruction feel useful rather than cosmetic.

Its weaknesses held it back from becoming an essential arcade racer. Side activities became repetitive, the currency system felt slow, cutscene audio and subtitles were unreliable, and the 2K account setup created unnecessary frustration.

My original 7/10 rating still reflects that balance. LEGO 2K Drive delivered plenty of fun, particularly in the Garage and behind the wheel, but repetitive content and avoidable service-related problems prevented it from making the most of its strongest ideas.

LEGO 2K Drive Quick Facts

Developer

Visual Concepts

Publisher

2K

Reviewed platform

PlayStation 5

Release Date

19 May 2023

Genre

Open-world arcade racing

Game Modes

Single-player, local split-screen and online multiplayer

Local players

1 to 2

Online players

Up to 6

2K account

Required for online features

DualSense vibration

Supported

Reviewed performance

Approximately 60fps

Internal rendering resolution

Not reliably established

Current online status

Active, with server closure scheduled for 31 May 2027