Lego Just Shut Down A Brilliant-Looking Bionicle Fan Project After 8 Years

The Lego Group has forced an intrepid squad of developers to unopen down their impressive-looking Bionicle instrumentality project, aft 8 years' work.

Bionicle: Masks of Power was acceptable to person been an open-world enactment RPG inspired by Horizon: Zero Dawn, featuring the fan-favourite masked warriors from Lego's legendary artifact series.

Successive trailers for the crippled had hyped up Bionicle fans for the release, and each looked good from The Lego Group's broadside — until, successful the past month, thing appears to person changed.

In a blog station confirming Bionicle: Masks of Power's daze cancellation, its developers Team Kanohi said that they had precocious been contacted by The Lego Group and told to unopen down the task "in its entirety" and region the crippled "from the nationalist eye."

The developers said they were not fixed immoderate further specifics connected the decision, but speculated that Bionicle: Masks of Power had grown to the constituent wherever it was present "too casual to mistake for an authoritative product."

A now-removed Steam leafage for the crippled was among the archetypal hunt results for "Bionicle game," and contempt disclaimers that it was a instrumentality project, its developers admit the full happening whitethorn person been a unfortunate of its ain occurrence — and opening to look excessively legitimate.

Indeed, newly-published footage meant arsenic a farewell to the task shows a comparatively polished Unreal Engine-powered experience, featuring the Bionicle characters successful a lush jungle world.

Could Lego yet beryllium preparing its ain Bionicle crippled now, and not privation Masks of Power arsenic competition? Or, perhaps, mightiness Bionicle beryllium acceptable to look wrong Lego's heavy integration wrong Fortnite, wherever players tin marque their ain Lego games and worlds utilizing Unreal Engine?

Whatever the reason, this looks to beryllium the extremity for Bionicle: Masks of Power, though its improvement squad has said it volition rebrand and continue.

"Our program is to instrumentality everything we've learned done creating Masks of Power and usage that cognition and acquisition arsenic the instauration of a brand-new, archetypal game," the developers said.

"Currently codenamed Project Rustbound, our squad has already begun brainstorming concepts for a new, archetypal satellite that we get the accidental to physique ourselves."

This volition besides travel with a caller sanction for Team Kanohi, arsenic it leaves the masked Bionicle warriors behind. And that caller name? Unmasked Games. After 8 years and immoderate promising progress, we'll beryllium keeping an oculus retired for what the squad does next.