Lego reportedly forced the closure of a fan-made Bionicle game after eight years of development, but the team has returned a year later with a new project designed to avoid using Lego’s intellectual property. The case highlights how fan developers can lose long-running projects to trademark and copyright enforcement, while also showing how their work can be adapted into an original game.

The new title retains elements that made the Bionicle-inspired project appealing, including a mechanical fantasy aesthetic and action-focused gameplay, while using legally distinct names, designs and lore. Its developers have used the setback to build a standalone concept rather than abandon the work entirely, and the article suggests the result may be more ambitious than the original fan game.