LEGO Gets Its Own Board Game Studio

LEGO is officially back in the board game business. This week, LEGO Group and Asmodee announced they've entered into a multi-year partnership to create high-quality LEGO board games for "all types of players". As part of this partnership, the two companies have formed a new game studio called Dotted Games, which will be based in Denmark and will focus specifically on developing new LEGO board games. The first game in this partnership is the previously announced Monkey Palace board game, which will be released later this year.

LEGO has dabbled in board games before, with many of the games utilizing LEGOs to build both figures used in gameplay and the board itself. Games like Minotaurus and Magma Monster were popular at toy stores, with players typically using LEGO bricks to build paths over obstacles while rolling dice. However, it's been over a decade since we've gotten a LEGO-branded game.

The new Monkey Palace game is described as a light strategy game for 2-4 players that contains both collaborative and competitive elements. Players work together to build the aforementioned Monkey Palace, trying to score the most points and generate the most income. Notably, the Monkey Palace at the heart of the game will change with every playthough, guaranteeing that the palace will be unique each and every time.

The new game studio is the first announced since Asmodee announced plans to split from its parent company Embracer Group. As part of the three-way split (which divides Embracer Group into an AAA-video game division, an indie and mobile game division, and Asmodee), the company took on 900 million euros in debt, although the company's leadership said it could handle that debt load and planned to be aggressive in acquisition and creating new game studios.