Lego shut down a Bionicle fangame 8 years in the making—1 year later, its developers are back with something legally distinct and arguably cooler

It's always heartbreaking when fan projects get axed—but one sorrow from last year was Bionicle: Masks of Power, which was shut down by Lego after it had peacefully co-existed with it for eight whole years. The project, a fully-fledged third-person action game by Team Kanohi, had attempted to thread the needle by playing nice with Lego's rules on fan-made media.

Unfortunately, eight years is a long time—and as Kanohi said back then, "the Lego Group's stance on fan-created media has changed." It was some genuinely impressive work, and you can see a full two-hour gameplay walkthrough of what could have been below.

But there's still hope for that original vision. Team Kanohi has rebranded to the appropriately-ti...