The premise is that years ago, a team of four minifigures went on a great journey to seek the last essence of pure Imagination: Doctor Overbuild, Duke Exeter, Hael Storm, and Baron Typhonus.

After having found it on the mysterious planet Crux, the greedy tycoon of the expedition, Baron Typhonus, was pulled into the source, fusing with it to create a maelstrom of chaotic dark energy.

However, even though Doctor Overbuild plugged the hole, the stress caused Crux to explode into thousands of other worlds.

Here, a disaster involving Paradox has infected Avant Gardens with Maelstrom and released a beast called the Spider Queen.

At that point, the players can travel to Nimbus Station if they pay for membership, where they choose which faction to join.

Also there was a rocket pad to Frostburgh [valid December - February 2010 / 11] near Christmas, the portal to Starbase 3001, and the Lego Club Door [near Red Blocks].

The only tameable pet here was the Skeleton Dragon which was tamable as part of the main story line on Crux Prime.

A battle against Lord Garmadon in the fire temple was planned (and advertised) to be added into the game, but was not rolled out as a result of the server shutdown in January 2012.

The player assumed the role of a Lego minifigure and travelled to various themed worlds, each with different enemies and challenges.

Players could collect and earn gear that might be worn and fought with to aid them in achieving a wide range of set goals.

[8] The accessible full worlds were the pirate-themed Gnarled Forest, faction-oriented Nimbus Station, green and festive Avant Gardens, high-tech Nexus Tower, Maelstrom based Crux Prime, Ninjago's world Ninjago Monastery and the ninja-based Forbidden Valley.

[10] Throughout the game players could collect Lego pieces that can be used to freely build models on their personal properties.

[13] In November 2009, a website for the fictional "Bradford-Rant Institute for Cosmic Kinesis" was linked on the Lego Universe web page.

The institute was supposedly tracking seven Lego "Pods", which landed in various parts of the United States and Europe.

After all of the Pods were found, a new trailer for Lego Universe and the tagline for the game, "Answer the Call: Save Imagination," was released.

[15] On June 15–17, 2010, the Lego Universe Team hosted an event at the 2010 E3 Gaming Expo, where attendees could play in the Beta.

It was during this event that the global distributor of Lego Universe was announced, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, along with the official release date.

[citation needed] In January 2010, Lego announced that, at the Consumer Electronics Show, there would be a demonstration and sign-ups for beta testing.

[17] The February issue of the Lego Universe newsletter, released soon after, also contained a link to the Beta sign up page for Lego Universe, wherein subscribers were able to sign up for a chance to be in the Beta Test for PC only (though a Mac version was released later on during testing.)

In March, the Lego Universe website featured a link on an article directly to the Beta sign ups.

[18] Lego Universe beta invites were sent out to the first round of non-alpha testers on March 10; the beta test then ended on September 26 at 7:59 PM EDT (September 29 at 1:00 PM EDT, on the German Server) to prepare for the "Founders" launch on October 8.

The Normal Order shipped with only the Lego Universe DVD and one month of free game time, though promotions did occasionally arise which provided additional exclusive items.

You could take part in the fight against the Spider Queen and have temporary gear which involves armour and weapons for each Faction.

There was a button that asked players if they wanted to become a full member, where they would gain access to every location in the Universe, alongside more missions & achievements.

[citation needed] On Monday, January 30, 2012, precisely at midnight, the Lego Universe servers shut down, and the game is no longer available to play.

Jesper Vilstrup, Vice President of Lego Universe, stated, "Unfortunately, we have not been able to build a satisfactory revenue model in our target group, and therefore, have decided to close the game.

[19] A newly titled 'Lego Minifigures Online' MMORPG was released on June 29, 2015, as a successor game until its closure on September 30, 2016.

[21] On October 3, 2021, Darkflame Universe announced that they will be abandoning their private hosting of a server and going open source later in the year, due to being unable to reach a legal agreement with the LEGO Group regarding public online play.