I admit, when LEGO Horizon Adventures was announced earlier this year, I wasn’t sure where it was coming from or who it was for. The franchise didn’t strike me as the sort of lighthearted, “blockbuster movie” fare that most LEGO games draw from. The kooky tone of the original trailer looked so far removed from the vision I’d gleaned from a distance. Sure, there was that one LEGO set, but what else did these two things have to do with each other?
Since that announcement, we’ve heard how much the team at Guerilla Games adores LEGO (even prototyping the earliest pre-production robots out of Duplo), and now, having actually put this unlikely spin-off through its paces, I get it.
LEGO Horizon Adventures reimagines Horizon Zero Dawn in full, glorious toy form. Players follow the legendary hunter Aloy from her humble origins, her story recounted in the LEGO games’ “slightly bending the fourth wall” style; Teersa, Varl, and Erend are also playable, with their unique weapons. The original plot is greatly smoothed over for younger audiences to process, turning the broody outcast of a protagonist into a cheerful heroic type that would fit right in with The LEGO Movie‘s cast.
It was easy to sink into the story as it was presented. Comparing it to the original, this is undeniably a more kid-friendly experience—easier to understand in its own right and steeped in other LEGO-branded iconography.
“Part of me missed the open-world approach of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, especially when LEGO Horizon Adventures‘ formula got a little predictable, but the approach here is still captivating in its own right.”
The more I played, the smaller the tonal disconnect between the source and the adaptation grew. LEGO-Aloy has an infectious enthusiasm; Ashly Burch nails a nigh-polar opposite of her original performance that perfectly suits the brick-ified setting and invites the player to immerse in this new world. Maybe this is easier for me to say with no skin in the game with Horizon, and longtime fans may disagree; I can see some grumbling about its irreverent sense of humour and inconsistency with the source material.
Tone aside, LEGO Horizon Adventures may be familiar to anyone who’s played a crossover title from the toy juggernaut before, like LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Unlike that last game, Guerilla Games’ reimagining has a tighter level-based format instead of Skywalker Saga‘s wide-open, free-roaming galaxy. Luckily, it also looks freaking gorgeous; both games supplement the basic LEGO look with some immaculate environmental and textural details, like the way light cascades through certain areas.
Players start from the hub world, Mother’s Heart, and hoof it to the next world’s gate to embark on missions. These missions follow a loose format: the first screen gives you a chance to swap your playable character, and at some point, you’ll likely encounter a Wandering Trader who has goods to offer before ending up in a combat scenario with giant robots and/or cultists. Along the way to combat encounters, you can explore the environment, wandering off the beaten path to discover LEGO Studs.
Those combat encounters often have Aloy dropping into a large arena and fending off waves of human and robot enemies. At first, stealth is feasible, but more often than not, you’ll need to rely on your character’s weapon of choice, whatever gadgets you accrued on the way, and helpful things in the environment. Clearing a stage’s boss typically rewards Aloy with one of the things she’s currently chasing for the plot, like part of a giant robot.
Compared to Skywalker Saga‘s multiple classes with unique skills, LEGO Horizons Adventures only really differentiates between the four playable heroes and their weapons of choice. The plethora of weapon and tool power-ups revolve around elemental damage (fire, ice or lightning), but a few of the others add useful effects, like the Gravity Bombs or Boost Boots.
It took a little time to get accustomed to LEGO Horizon Adventures‘ sensibilities and stop trying to smash every object I saw. However, getting used to its level structure and nigh-roguelike power distribution came much easier. Part of me missed the open-world approach of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, especially when LEGO Horizon Adventures‘ formula got a little predictable, but the approach here is still captivating in its own right.
Open-world suits the Star Wars universe and the “real” Horizons, with their biggest focus on exploration; LEGO Horizons Adventures, however, was wise to pursue well-crafted stages instead. Each path and combat arena feels very intentional in its design, from the placement of environmental hazards. The combat may lack that super-flashy design of the original, but the interplay between dodging and knowing when to attack—even how to attack, between bow and tools—is stimulating in its own right.
“To its credit, LEGO Horizon Adventures has several different difficulties, allowing youngsters to see the whole tale without getting frustrated or veterans to really crank up the challenge and test their skills.”
LEGO Horizon Adventures does have a couple of flies in the ointment. The stealth gameplay feels pretty irrelevant; you almost always drop into a combat situation directly in a bush, where Aloy and friends automatically hide until they make themselves known. This is a great idea in theory, but in practice, stealth rarely pays off in full. Typically, most threats will pace off the screen; there’s no way to move the camera, and using the Focus to identify threats only gives a general sense of where they stand.
So you can either wait who-knows-how-long, try to give chase, or launch an arrow from where you stand; after either of those last two plans, your stealth will be lost, and it’s damn hard to get it back. Being able to adjust the camera just a little with the right stick would mitigate it all.
There are a few smaller balancing issues as well, like enemies who took sizable chunks of the health bar all too easily—outpacing the final boss on DPS. To its credit, LEGO Horizon Adventures has several different difficulties, allowing youngsters to see the whole tale without getting frustrated or veterans to really crank up the challenge and test their skills.
Outside of the levels, players can customize the hub town of Mother’s Heart in a variety of ways. More buildings are unlocked as Golden Bricks are accumulated, and there are five different themes to swathe your settlement in, mixing and matching to your content—and the same goes for character wardrobes. LEGO fans will surely appreciate the wide variety of self-expression, with some familiar elements from brands like City and Ninjago in the mix.
Ultimately, removed from the larger context of the original game, LEGO Horizon Adventures is a novel romp that might have stood on its own two legs without the branding. The changes from other LEGO games were refreshing, and there’s a good amount of content here—about 10-12 hours on normal to clear the story and a handful of challenges, and probably pushing 20 to complete everything else. Like any game based on this toy line should, it aims to put a smile on the faces of players aged 9 to 99 while testing their reflexes and brains.
Perhaps better still, LEGO Horizon Adventures proves that a LEGO game needn’t be based on either LEGO-owned imprints or the biggest IPs in the world to be a fun ride.
