Welcome to Imagining LEGO Universe!



In 2006 the vision of bringing the iconic LEGO brick to the virtual world of MMO gaming - started some years earlier by key members of The LEGO Group - began to take shape with the partnership of a small and little known Colorado based video game development studio called NetDevil.

During the five-plus year journey of development, the team at NetDevil was faced with many difficult technical and design challenges in order to bring LEGO play to the virtual space. Working along side the designing minds and programming wizards, the LEGO Universe art team, lead by Art Director Phillip Atencio, molded a visual style unmatched in the world of MMO gaming, seamlessly melding existing LEGO themes with original story developed in-house by the minds of NetDevil developers who also happened to be life long fans of the timeless plastic toy.

The conceptual design team tasked with bringing the vision of LEGO Universe to life boasted some of the most incredible talent the video game industry has to offer. Lead Concept Artist Jim Stigall guided a team of seven concept illustrators during the life of the project. Along with the help and incredible visions of Jerry Meyer, Dave Kang, Brett Nienburg, Kyle Wheeler, Richard Tran, Peter Coene, Nathan Storm, and Mike Rayhawk many many worlds and literally thousands of drawings were explored to assist the world builders, animators, character modelers, and visual effects artists bringing the three-dimensional world of LEGO Universe to life.

Millions of fans logged in daily and assumed the identity of their Minifigure avatar, virtually interacting, building, and exploring with their friends in the LEGO Universe.

Sadly, in January, 2012, after little over a year since its initial public launch, LEGO Universe was closed for good.

This blog is for you, the fans. It is a place where we, the Concept Art Team from LEGO Universe, can share with you the passion and love that was put into this wonderful game - much of it never seen before, some never meant to be shown.

Please enjoy Imagining LEGO Universe...

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Pirates!

Here are some images of the entire island known as "Port Plunder." There were many areas of gameplay associated with this island in addition to the pirate town and dig site. There was a racetrack, a faction camp, a player property zone and other areas to explore.







Swagger Town was a pirate encampment entirely composed of pirate-themed buildings surrounding a loading dock with a giant pirate crane. The crane would be loading goods onto a pirate ship that were recently pilfered from a sacred dig site. Pirates being the way they are, didn't give a rat's pitootee (I've never typed that word before) about desecrating the native holy landmarks. Players would either play the pirates and extract the goods, or play the natives that have to defend their territory. Good times!













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1 comment:

  1. jamessterMarch 21, 2012 at 9:16 AM

    I absolutely love the fifth image, the colored island. Really awesome stuff. :D So if this world was pirate themed, did Gnarled Forest not exist yet? Was it replaced by Gnarled Forest?

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