Bluey: The Videogame

I'll be straight with you: I spent an evening with this one because my nephew was visiting and he'd sooner cry than watch me play anything rated above E. Bluey: The Videogame is a local co-op sandbox adventure built squarely for the preschool-to-early-primary crowd, and within that target, it mostly does what it sets out to do. You pick one of the four Heelers, Bluey, Bingo, Bandit, or Chilli, and up to four players can share a couch session at once. The story threads through four episode-length maps spanning the Heeler house, a playground, a creek, and a beach, all tied together by a treasure hunt that Bandit hid years back. It is not a long game. One hour gets you through the story. Three hours gets you to 100% completion. That runtime versus the launch price is the single biggest argument against buying this at full cost. The controls are stripped to the studs: left stick to move, two buttons to run and interact. No mouse and keyboard support on PC at all. You need a controller, full stop. The minigames lifted from the show, Keepy Uppy, Ground is Lava, Magic Xylophone, and the original Chattermax Chase, break up the light puzzle-solving and collectible hunts, though they are mechanically shallow and a couple of them feel undercooked even by the standard of a children's title. The sandbox side is more forgiving. Kids can open cupboards, bounce on beds, pick up crabs on the beach, water plants to bloom sticker collectibles, and dress any Heeler in butterfly wings or a viking hat using the cosmetic unlock system. There is also a co-op griefing mechanic where Bluey or Bingo can jump on a parent's shoulders and hijack their movement until the parent button-mashes them off, which produced the only genuine laughs of my evening. On the production side, the team clearly had real access to the source material. The art replicates the cartoon's flat, warm style with reasonable fidelity. The original English voice cast, including David McCormack as Bandit and Melanie Zanetti as Chilli, recorded new lines, and the writing lands occasional jokes that parents will catch. Post-launch updates have added new playable characters including Muffin and Uncle Stripe, new NPC quests, expanded minigame challenges, and meaningful bug fixes. Characters getting stuck on geometry was a recurring complaint at launch, and those reports have largely dried up. The game is noticeably more stable now than it was in November 2023. The honest problems are structural, not cosmetic. The camera during four-player co-op can get combative when players spread out. Sticker book popups interrupt flow with a slow dismiss timer that was still present last time I checked. The co-op camera was one of the more consistent complaints across reviews, and it has not been fully addressed. And the runtime, even padded by the post-launch content additions, is still thin if you are coming in as an adult gamer expecting something that meets you halfway. Critics landed mostly in the 40-to-65 out of 100 range, with the negative end coming from adult reviewers and the positive end from parents playing alongside very young children. That split basically tells you everything about the target. If you are shopping for a child who watches the show and is just starting to learn what a controller is, this is close to the best version of this type of licensed game available. The presentation is genuine, the co-op loop is functional, and the free-roam sandbox gives young players the freedom to just exist in a world they recognise. For anyone else, it is a short, technically imperfect product that does not hold up under adult scrutiny. Wait for a discount. At a reduced price the value calculation shifts considerably. Fred, Scout Team