How to play Lego Fortnite: An easy guide for players and parents

Lego Fortnite has brought the bricks and minifigures to the online game.

Although Fortnite is known for its pop culture crossovers, this is more than just a limited time event. In fact, Lego Fortnite is a fully fledged game within Fortnite proper. Developer Epic Games has even promised to keep updating the game throughout the coming year with new gameplay features and Lego styles.

Landing on December 7, the new mode became an instant smash, helping to attract a record 6.6 million concurrent players to the multiplayer game.

So, what’s all the fuss about? Whether you’re a seasoned gamer or the parent of a young Fortnite fan, these are the basics you need to know.

In short, Lego Fortnite is a free game mode within Fortnite. Instead of battling other players, the focus of the new game is on survival and exploration in teams or solo. Think of it like Fortnite’s version of Minecraft or Lego Worlds. 

Players have the choice between two play styles: survival or sandbox. In the first, adventurers collect resources to build weapons, tools, and structures that can help them ward off the elements, vanquish monsters, and venture to new areas. 

Whereas Sandbox mode is like getting a bottomless bucket of Lego bricks to play with, without worrying about enemies or impediments to travel.

The world of Lego Fortnite is different for each player. That’s because it relies on a gaming technique called procedural generation, where environments, non-playable characters and enemies are created at random by a computer program or algorithm. 

The game is filled with blocky humans and Fortnite characters; animals including tame cows and fierce wolves; villages home to local townsfolk; and, of course, player-built structures.

Jumping into Lego Fortnite is relatively simple, but there are a few ways it differs from other game modes on Fortnite.

Chiefly, you can't just dive into a world filled with other players. Instead, you have to create your own and invite others to join or vice versa.

To get started, just launch Fortnite and choose Lego Fortnite, which should be located in both the first and second row of game modes.

Now, press up on the d-pad to select and customise your world. Here, you’ll be able to essentially lower the difficulty of the game by choosing either survival or sandbox mode, and deactivating things like enemies, hunger, and stamina. Indeed, you can even make yourself invincible by turning off elimination.

Once you’re happy with the settings, just hit start to begin your Lego Fortnite adventure.

You're not going to get much hand-holding in Lego Fortnite – after dropping into your world, you're essentially left to your own devices. Thankfully, the game is a lot more accessible than others in the same mould, but expect to look things up... a lot.

To help out, we've put together a few tips to help amateur explorers get their bearings. From boosting your hearts to growing food, these are the types of things you should check off before venturing further into the map.

You can play Lego Fortnite with seven additional players, and chances are you’ll have more fun with your pals.

To get the ball rolling, you’ll need to invite them to your game. This can be done in one of two ways:

If you plan to let your friends hang around while you are away, you can give them a key that lets them enter your world even when you are offline. You’ll see the option to share a key with whoever you are currently playing with in the Players tab of the Map menu.

You’ll start Lego Fortnite with just three measly hearts, which won’t get you very far in scraps with critters or hostile villagers.

To up your health, you’ll need to make a health charm and equip it to one of three dedicated slots. If you can make do with just one extra heart and +1 defence, you can craft a common health charm using three silk threads, three bones, and five wolf claws. These items can be obtained by defeating spiders, skeletons, and wolves, respectively.

However, we’d recommend the uncommon health charm as it grants you three additional hearts and +3 defence. For this, you’ll need three silk threads, one marble, and one shell. You can find marbles inside caves, while shells are dropped by vanquished rollers.

After just one night in Lego Fortnite, you’ll be left wondering how to use all the bones you picked up from marauding skeletons.

Like most loot in the game, they can be used to make other stuff, from health charms to uncommon tools.

Building a village square will attract villagers to your homestead, who can work and explore with you. 

Once you start adding structures like shacks and houses, you’ll notice that your village level bar will fill up relatively quickly. When it’s completely full, you can upgrade your village by walking up to the square (which looks like a podium) and donating items. This, in turn, will allow you to house even more villagers. 

You can keep going through these steps until your village is maxed out at level 10.

Yes, you can build multiple villages in Lego Fortnite, but they need to be a certain distance apart. 

Trust us, the last thing you want is to erect entire structures, only to find out that you have to tear them down. This will inevitably come up when you’re playing with friends and want to stick together.

To check the appropriate distance you need to be from another village, select the village square from the build menu and keep walking in any direction until you get the green light to build.

Lego Fortnite’s gameplay loop makes it easy to while away the hours hunting, mining, and crafting. During extended spells, you’ll be hit with a message that says: "Server lifetime – The server will restart…" in a set amount of time. 

This is the game warning you that you’re about to hit the time limit for your current session. The message is common in the creative modes that allow you to make levels or maps. 

Whereas Battle Royale ends when there’s one person left standing, there’s no viable conclusion for creative games like Lego Fortnite. And, seeing as there’s a risk some players could keep the game running indefinitely on Fortnite’s servers, the time limit helps to keep things fresh.

Seeing as it can be a hassle to keep foraging for food in Fortnite, you may want to grow your own fruit and veg. This way, you can just pluck those chillies and snow berries before you head to a frosty or hot biome. They’ll also come in handy if you or your village chef want to cook up some hearty grub on the grill. 

Of course, you’ll need some fertisiler to start your own little farm. Just like in the real world, fertiliser comes from the rear end of an animal in Lego Fortnite. You can find it by inspecting the ground near sheep, cows, and chickens. You may not even need to venture far from your village, as these animals tend to graze all over the map.

Now, you’re almost ready to make a garden plot for planting fruit and vegetables, which requires 1 fertiliser and 2 soil. You can grab the latter by using a shovel to dig up the ground. Once your plot of arable land is ready, all you have to do is plant some seeds. At the start of the game, these can be found in chests, so get exploring.

Lego Fortnite isn’t a standalone game or app. The only way to play it is on Fortnite, meaning you have to download the main game on a console, PC, phone, or stream it over the internet.

Fortnite is available on the following platforms: PlayStation (PS4, PS5), Xbox (Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One), Nintendo Switch, and Android. 

For everyone else, including those on iPhone and Mac, you can stream it using a cloud-gaming service like Xbox Game Pass, Nvidia GeForce Now or Amazon Luna.

Although Lego Fortnite is suitable for players aged seven and older, parents can ensure kids are keeping safe by enabling some basic controls.

If your child is under 13, they should already have a cabined account. These are restricted accounts that limit players from certain features, such as voice chat, until they receive approval from a parent or guardian.

For older players, you can manage access to the same features by setting up a PIN for purchases, friend requests, and additional settings.

To do so, open the menu in Fortnite, which looks like three horizontal lines, and select the gear-shaped icon. Now, select Parental Controls from the list.

While here, you should be able to set a PIN and other permissions for your child.

It is important to note that some platforms, such as consoles, may require you to activate additional controls for chat, purchases and more. If you require some assistance, check out our guide on how to set up a games console for a child.