Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins producer talks open worlds, Grand Theft Auto, and working with Nintendo

Screeching around the final corner and racing up the proverbial home straight is TT Games's imminent 3DS title Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins.

It's an open-world action-adventure game in the famed block-building universe, featuring car chases, robberies, and stunts aplenty. Oh, and it looks pretty spiffy.

I wanted to find out more about this handheld prequel to the recently released Wii U game Lego City Undercover, so I spoke with Tim Wileman, producer at TT Games, to do just that.

During the interview, Wileman explains why his game isn't just 'Grand Theft Auto: Lego'; why it couldn't have been made for other platforms; and the differences between Lego City Undercover on Wii U and this 3DS prequel.

Tim Wileman: The new story is set two years before the events of the Wii U game. It follows the tale of fresh-faced rookie cop Chase McCain, as he sets about ridding Lego City of all its criminal activity.

I don't want to give too much away regarding the specifics of the plot. Let me just say, though: by the time this chapter of the story has finished, Chase is the dynamic crime-fighting machine you see in Lego City Undercover on the Wii U.

Chase is a cool, stand-up guy dedicated to cleaning up the Lego City streets. He's totally charming, charismatic, and 100 percent dependable.

We are used to having very strong lead characters in our games due to the IPs that we draw on, e.g. Batman, Obi-Wan, Indy. So, it was really important to have such a strong lead character in Lego City, as well.

The whole story revolves around Chase, so he needed to have a great personality to which everyone could relate. We recruited an excellent voice actor for the role, and he really brought him to life as an action hero in his own right.

Because the story was always focused around a single main character, we decided that this should be a single-player experience. A second player would always simply be tagging along, so we'd rather just make sure the single-player game was absolutely perfect.

There are also so many more complications when trying to make this sort of game work for two players. So many, in fact, that I think we would have been working on it until the end of time to try and catch all the problems.

That said, we do have a very cool StreetPass feature in the game that enables you to share lots of the cool collectibles dotted throughout the game.

From the outset, we wanted to make Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins and Lego City Undercover on Wii U two very different games.

Both games take place in the same locations, but they have completely different stories. Furthermore, both are packed full of very different features.

New characters, alternative combat styles, reworked vehicles, and handling are just some of the unique features you can expect to see in the handheld version.

For us, it was very important that the world in Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins felt as immersive and as close to a living, breathing, beautifully crafted metropolis as technically possible.

Citizens pound the pavements; traffic moves around realistically; and street lamps, fire hydrants, and newspaper stands all break apart in typical Lego fashion when hit.

We've really pushed the 3DS hardware as far as it will go, and I think players will appreciate being able to drive around a full open world on their handheld systems.

Furthermore, the 3DS version takes place two years prior to the Wii U game. Because of this, various locations have been intentionally modified to give them a slightly newer feel. That said, both worlds are remarkably similar in terms of their overall appearance.

Players of the 3DS version will be able to explore and appreciate many of the same locations present in the Wii U version, all in a fully open-world setting.

Both games are open-world, sandbox-style games, sure, but I personally think that's where the comparisons end.

TT Fusion has created an original story set in an open world, and underpinned it with the gameplay and humour fans have come to expect from our previous games. It's very unique and very, very funny.

The Nintendo / Lego collaboration was, for us, a fairly obvious one. Both are obsessive about quality, both hold a special place in people's hearts... young and old alike.

There are also the unique design opportunities both the 3DS and Wii U hardware bring to the table.

In terms of the 3DS, features such as the touchscreen, gyroscope, and 3D capabilities gave us a lot more creative freedom regarding the game's gameplay and presentation. Lego City: Undercover: The Chase Begins would definitely lose something on other platforms.

I think the Nintendo game-playing population is relatively young and interested in the mass market, so we're reaching our target demographics of 6- to 12-year-olds and casual gamers by delivering titles on 3DS, Wii U, etc.