An formidable and celebrated fan undertaking primarily based on the cult franchise Bionicle has now been pulled by Lego – however the group is continuous.
Three years in the past, we reported on a long-awaited fan undertaking that aimed to rework the favored Bionicle figures from the early 2000s into a contemporary open-world role-playing sport. A playable demo was speculated to be launched this 12 months, however that may not occur, because the rights holder Lego has determined to scrap the sport. But it surely’s not fully over but.
Makes an attempt had been made to adjust to Lego’s pointers
What sort of sport is it? The undertaking was referred to as Bionicle: Masks of Energy and was speculated to be obtainable for followers to obtain without spending a dime. The motion role-playing sport follows the story of the Toa, who got down to discover the Masks of Energy to free the island of Mata Nui from the evil Makuta.
Masks of Energy was developed in Unreal Engine 5 and needed to ship you into an open world modeled after the lore of Bionicle with six completely different Toa.
Lego steps in: Lego nonetheless owns the rights to Bionicle, although the franchise has been dormant for a few years. Nevertheless, Masks of Energy apparently grew to become too massive for the Danish toy producer, and Lego requested the event group to discontinue manufacturing. Naturally, they complied.
Unmasked Video games has issued a public assertion on Steam saying that the demo is theoreticallyin its ultimate levels and only some bug fixes and ultimate touches areleft to finish it. It was initially scheduled to be launched as a shadow drop on August 10, 2025.
To acknowledge the onerous work that has gone into the sport, a whole walkthrough of the demo in its present state has been launched as a two-hour video on YouTube.
Precautions had been taken: Unmasked Video games goes on to write down that each effort was made to adjust to Lego’s truthful play pointers No cash was ever requested, and there have been quite a few indications that Masks of Energy was a fan undertaking. Sadly, the Lego Group’s angle towards fan-created media appears to have modified.
Though the group by no means acquired a proof for Lego’s choice, they think that it might have been simply confused with an official undertaking.
On the time of writing, the Steam web page for Bionicle: Masks of Energy seems among the many high outcomes when looking for Bionicle sport on Google. A median individual seeing our sport for the primary time might simply suppose it was an official sport – and no quantity of clear disclaimers or disclaimers on our half might change that impression.
Bionicle followers don’t need to throw within the towel simply but, although. One other promising fan undertaking is at present within the works that might fulfill all of our editor Fabiano’s childhood goals.
For Unmasked Video games, the journey is simply starting
Till Bionicle: Masks of Energy was discontinued, the builders had been generally known as Crew Kanohi. The group is now utilizing its expertise and achievements to create a brand new sport with its personal IP. This was adopted not solely by a reputation change, but additionally by the conversion of the Steam web page for Masks of Energy to a brand new undertaking.
There you’ll now discover the upcoming sport Challenge Rustbound. The connected photographs are nonetheless from the Bionicle undertaking. It may subsequently be assumed that improvement will not be ranging from scratch. Maybe there’ll even be a non secular successor to Bionicle. It stays thrilling!
Issues are additionally transferring ahead at Lego. After the toy producer posted file earnings once more in 2024, the corporate now desires to take a position extra closely within the online game market.
