Image: PlayStation Studios
Guerrilla Games’ new Horizon game takes Aloy on her cosiest adventure yet.
The Horizon franchise has begun to spread its wings. After Horizon Zero Dawn proved successful enough to propel its bow-slinging protagonist Aloy towards becoming a PlayStation mascot, developer Guerrilla Games wasted no time at all in putting out a sequel (Horizon Forbidden West) and a VR spin-off (Horizon Call of the Mountain). That’s not all, though; a live-action TV series and MMO based on the franchise are also in the works.
However, the most unlikely entry in this booming franchise expansion launches this very week: Lego Horizon Adventures, a spin-off that painstakingly rebuilds Aloy’s adventures brick by brick. What could’ve easily been a simplistic parody of the Horizon games however, has wound up giving me some of the most fun I’ve had in gaming this year. If you’re looking for a fun co-op game to burn through over Christmas, I can think of few titles better than this.
I built this [player hub] brick by brick
Lego Horizon Adventures is a reinterpretation of Horizon Zero Dawn, remixing events from the original game with a splash of Lego’s trademark tongue-in-cheek sense of humour. This is fairly similar to the franchised Lego games we typically get from developer Traveller’s Tales, the latest of which was 2022’s Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Traveller’s Tales isn’t at the helm of this game, however. Instead, series developer Guerrilla Games has teamed up with Studio Gobo to make a game that feels much less ambitious but nonetheless charming than its Lego-fied peers.
This game puts returning Horizon players in very familiar territory: an outcast named Rost is put in charge of raising a baby he names Aloy, whose origins remain a mystery to everyone they know. Parenting is a rather difficult feat to pull off in post-apocalyptic Earth, where robot animals (and dinosaurs) roam the planet and man-made civilisation only persists in the form of rubble and rust. This depressing reality is actually rendered quite adorably in-game, with brick-built textures applied to character and weapon models, as well as environmental milieu.
Much like other Lego games, the story takes place across multiple ‘worlds’ filled with an assortment of levels. Lego Horizon Adventures is a much smaller game (despite its $60 price point, which is bound to be a subject of discourse), and as such only contains four different worlds featuring different biomes, machines, and bite-sized levels. It’s a fast and breezy experience, with some levels taking closer to 10 minutes to complete if you’re playing with a partner in multiplayer co-op.
Lego Horizon Adventures’ campaign refuses to take itself seriously, twists its characters into shapes that barely resemble their original counterparts, and yet, miraculously, comes off utterly endearing in the process. Aloy herself has never been more peppy and energetic, bolstered by yet another incredible performance from Ashly Burch, who sounds like she’s having the time of her life here with a higher-pitched, Tiny Tina-leaning take on the adventurer.
Other returning characters, like Varl, Erend and Teersa are also playable here, with different abilities to compliment Aloy’s sharpshooter playstyle.
The way this game reinterprets iconic moments from the original game – like the first Scrapper appearance and Deathbringer fight – in extraordinarily detailed brick-built environments is always fun, but it’s the little twists added along the way that make this story worth experiencing for fans. There is some genuinely touching writing here, tucked in between the silly jokes and slapstick humour, and a touching ending harkening back to the original to cap things off.
Classic Lego shenanigans
Lego games are dear to my heart. Some of my fondest memories revolve around playing Lego Batman, Lego Star Wars, and even Lego Harry Potter (I missed the boat on Lego Lord of the Rings, unfortunately) with my younger brother in local co-op, so I’m always going to be down to play a new Lego adventure – no matter the franchise it’s elected to poke fun of. Compared to the aforementioned games however, Lego Horizon Adventures is a relatively grounded affair.
This game takes around seven to eight hours to beat, depending on whether you want to take on some optional machine hunts or completely deck out the player hub in hot dog-themed furniture.
Each level takes roughly 15 minutes to complete, but they can get repetitive very quickly as they follow a similar structure – exploration, followed by machine hunts, followed by treasure chests – the elements of which are repeated or rearranged, but never swapped out for something new. These levels aren’t very big and only rarely offer more than one path to explore. Two players will make short work of them.
What does change are the game’s biomes, of which there are four, and a variety of featured machines. Much like the original game, players will have to use their Focus to highlight the weak spots of these robotic animals – but combat works slightly differently here. Instead of being able to rotate the camera to target specific weak points, players have to dart around enemies using tank-like controls (with more mobility) to get at their weaknesses. In most cases, the isometric fixed camera serves this style of combat surprisingly well, allowing opponents and interactive objects to remain clearly visible in the game’s large combat spaces.
Changing up Horizon Zero Dawn's combat loop and multiplayer woes
This combat might seem more simplistic than the original games’ at first glance, but it also allows this game to stand on its own two feet. Players still have plenty of tools to work with, with each playable character wielding different weapons – from throwable bombs to melee hammers – along with a swathe of handy gadgets to fling at enemies. These range from gravity bombs to brick separators, all of which are an absolute blast to use in combat. Given that players can’t simply swap between different characters like in other Lego games, they’ll have to rely on these gadgets to switch between close and long-range playstyles.
This game’s combat loop has the bones of a rock-solid dungeon crawler, despite its glaring omission of a dodge button. In a game as fast-paced and chaotic as this one, the dodge button is relegated to a limited-use gadget players have to be lucky enough to pick up. With multiple enemy machines spewing projectiles, jumping around and tossing out AoE attacks, its absence is sorely felt. But make no mistake – despite appearances, this game can and will test your skills on higher difficulties. All I'm saying is that a dodge button would have been nice.
This game also suffers from an age-old co-op problem: it’s balanced around multiplayer. The complete lack of AI companions makes certain combat scenarios feel a lot less fair when taken on solo. Badly placed checkpoints can also be a point of frustration. I would enter an area filled with chests and studs (in-game currency) and collect everything, only to wipe out in the following combat encounter and be placed at the beginning of the previous area.
This means that if you bump into a particularly challenging enemy encounter, you will find yourself caught in a very annoying time loop of collecting studs, dying and collecting the same studs again.
While this might not be the most ambitious Lego game made yet, it might actually be the best-looking. Environments are immersive and tactile, thanks to detailed representations of Horizon’s sci-fi universe in Lego form – from blocks of flowing water to the individual bricks that make up its machines. There’s great joy to be found in spotting all of the game’s little visual flourishes – from subtle snow deformation to flammable grass being slowly eaten up by individual orange Lego bricks.
Verdict
Lego Horizon Adventures is perfectly timed for the holiday season, as its charming brick-built visuals, polished combat and endearing slapstick humour all but guarantee a fun time in co-op multiplayer. While the game’s frustrating checkpoints, repetitive level design and lack of a dodge button can sour a few otherwise engaging combat encounters, its short-and-sweet campaign and surprisingly great boss battles will keep players glued to the screen anyway.
This game does beg the question, though: what PlayStation franchise is Lego planning to get its hands on next? If they’re taking requests, let’s throw Bloodborne into the ring and see what happens.
Lego Horizon Adventures launches on November 14 on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and PC. We received a copy of the game for this review.
