Before and during the 2019 New York Toy Fair last month, LEGO previewed a new mobile game app that boasts interaction via augmented reality with a new line of sets coming out this year. This is “LEGO Hidden Side,” a fun if horror-themed AR game experience for gadget-using LEGO fans.
LEGO has announced that “Hidden Side,” both in terms of app and tie-in sets, will not arrive until the middle of the year. But the game’s Senior Product Lead Murray Andrews, in interview with Brick Fanatics, reveals that aside from the first batch of Hidden Side tie-ins, more sets are already planned for next year.
“The range is launching in August but we already have plans to release new sets next year,” says Andrews. He adds naturally that nothing can be revealed yet, but promises that more info on the sets, game app and in-universe history of “LEGO Hidden Side” will be shared in time.
Game-related LEGO products have been attempted before. One might recall the console title “LEGO Dimensions” from WB Interactive and Traveller’s Tales. Launched in 2015, it ran alongside regular releases of “packs” with special LEGO minifigures and props, until the product line was cancelled in 2017.
“LEGO Hidden Side” follows two friends (controlled by players) who transfer to a school that transforms into a haunted nightmare town at night. Using a strange phone app, they must contain the ghosts that show up in-game and change the spooky buildings back into their regular forms; the tie-in LEGO Hidden Side sets do transform between mundane and haunted looks.
Murray Andrews assures LEGO fans that the “Hidden Side” game app will also be regularly updated to add more gameplay features and activities, even as more tie-in sets are released. We can see this for ourselves when LEGO Hidden Side arrives later on August 1.