Who are actually fans of Horizon? For the longest time, Netherlands-based developers Guerrilla are known for making shooters. So when they released Horizon Zero Dawn, it’s a big paradigm shift from making so-called Halo killers to a fresh, new IP for an open-world action-RPG.
But there’s an ongoing narrative that Guerrilla’s Horizon series, not to be confused by the Forza Horizon series, where no one’s really a fan of the series. It’s an industry plant. Its releases are always overshadowed by another big action-RPG.
And somehow, this is the third year where a new Horizon release has appeared. 2022 was the big sequel, Horizon Forbidden West. 2023 saw the PS5 and PC-only expansion to it, Forbidden Shores. And in 2024, we have not one but two. Let’s not bother with that unnecessary remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn. Let’s talk about the Lego game.
You clicked to read about Lego Horizon Adventures, didn’t you? So let’s talk about that.
Developed by Guerrilla and Studio Gobo, Lego Horizon Adventures is a family-friendly take on the story of Horizon Zero Dawn, wrapped in that familiar Lego game feel.
In many ways, Lego Horizon Adventures has made the fascinating world of Horizon accessible to a younger audience while still retaining its essence. It’s a Lego game like no other, but it’s not just a silly kids game.
Presentation
Lego Horizon Adventures is a Lego game in the sense that it’s fully dedicated to immersing you in this world made out of plastic bricks. The terrain, building, and even the water are all shaped out of some form of element you can find in a Lego set. A few games with this plastic construction brick’s license have gone all in like this as of late, but it’s still impressive to see fully brick-built worlds. The sci-fi sequences where you explore a Cauldron look even more impressive when you think of how many flat pieces they used to recreate all those angular facades. And for the die-hard Adult Fan Of Lego folks, good news: there’s no exposed anti-stud in sight. A few Lego Master Builders appeared in the credits, and it shows.
Of course, there are clever reuses of assets. You can spot the same derelict police station and theatre being rearranged among different dilapidated building ruins. But since you don’t really interact much with the scenery and it just flies by quickly, it’s fine; they didn’t waste effort making unique assets that most players barely see. But when you keep seeing all these 70 million Lego pieces, it all sort of blends together. I can’t tell if I’ve been in this specific location before or if it’s new within this biome.
The minifigs themselves look authentically Lego. The more I stared at Lego Aloy in the game and the real Lego Aloy minifig from set number 76989, which I happen to own, the less I could tell them apart. The details on the prints, the seams that appear horizontally around the hairpiece, the glossiness of the plastic pieces that contrasts with the painted textures—it’s all accurate. It feels very… Lego.
The Lego feel also goes into the way characters animate. Every person is presented in minifig form, and they sometimes articulate realistically as how minifigs can in real life (look at the long strides they take when these fellas run and jump) and fudge it a bit with smooth arm movements from time to time. It’s very The Lego Movie-esque, not quite stop-motion, not quite rigidly realistic. Certainly playful.
Speaking of playful, the voice cast certainly had fun being able to reprise their roles but now served a more light-hearted script. Aloy’s usual sass is still strong, and she has that serious, loner, introspective character in her. But in Lego Horizon Adventures, she now has a bit more gremlin energy. The way she says “Money money money” as you collect a reserve of studs from the village feels like this is more Tiny Tina than it is Aloy, and I’m down with it.
The rest of the cast have also gone goofier with their roles. Varl is more naive. Teersa somehow has a large role in this game and brings that old makcik and grandma vibes (as a Matriach of the Nora tribe should) and Erand… well, Erand is more straightforward than his usual depiction. It’s unfortunate that the new VA for Sylens has to debut in this game. The one line of joke introducing this character in this game makes more sense if you’re familiar with the late Lance Reddick’s performance, but here the new VA brings a different energy—not necessarily good or bad—but that joke doesn’t work.
The music has also gotten a bit playful. It’s mostly orchestral ambience, but less epic, with more marimba, vibraphone, and banjo in the music mix. The synths and electronica beats do seep in from time to time, but most of it is dedicated to the dance station where it plays non-stop electronic pop. And there’s a little bit of that Horizon theme leitmotif seeping in that soundtrack.
The UI is simple, but there is still that Horizon game font used for title headers in menus, but it’s now wrapped around a cleaner background that befits a Lego game.
Overall, Lego Horizon Adventures looks and sounds good. It nailed the aesthetic choice it was going for: a playful yet faithful take on the world of Horizon, viewed through the lens of Lego.
Gameplay
In Lego Horizon Adventures, orphan Aloy has lived her life outside of the Nora tribe. And now she’s ready to head to Mother’s Nest and ask the Matriarch about who her actual mother is. Things didn’t go to plan; Mother’s Nest is in ruins after some cultists of the sun came by. And that sets her off on an adventure. Along the way, Varl, Teersa, and Erand join as part of the gang to save the world from ever-consuming machines.
If you played Horizon Zero Dawn, the original PS4 game, or the recently released remaster, you’ll find that the story beats in Lego Horizon Adventures are similar in the broad strokes.
The main gameplay loop of Lego Horizon Adventures is simple. From the hub world, Mother’s Nest, you go to a level entrance and begin an adventure. Adventures are simple, linear levels with very little exploration (there’s no collectibles). You can jump (double jump is locked to a gadget) and use your character’s unique weapon (all four playable characters’ weapons behave differently). And usually you’ll drop down into an open area where you initiate combat. You can be stealthy and take your time to set up by navigating through tall grasses. You know you’re hidden when the character itself morphs into tall grass. You can use the power of the magical Airpod, i.e., the Focus, to highlight weak points, and from there, you must take them on, man or machine. Every enemy has a health bar; there’s damage numbers at play. You can disengage by hiding under tall grass again. You can collect a weapon that behaves a little different from your base weapon, as well as gadgets that can range from double jumps to summoning the elusive Hot Dog Guy. Clear the room, and you proceed to the next area until you reach the end, when a golden brick awaits, and you head back to the hub.
It’s incredible to see how the essence of what makes a Horizon game has been distilled into its purest form in Lego Horizon Adventures. When fighting, the power fantasy here is not being able to overpower your opponents. Rather, the power fantasy here is overcoming terrible odds by fighting scrappy and improvising as you go along. The amount of reactivity the enemies and the environment have, the emergent gameplay potential, is impressive. I accidentally made those charging bulls ram each other, taking themselves out. I can kite cultists that do those spin attacks like it’s Lego Ninjago’s Spinjitsus to hit their own allies to death. I accidentally freeze enemies in frozen water puddles, the water being so because I missed my shot when aiming for an enemy from the constant running around. And then I accidentally stepped into the same puddle and frozen myself.
A lot of these moments are just chain reactions to attacks and elemental damage, and it’s quite chaotic. And I feel like it’s even more chaotic than the Horizon games. You can set the tall grass on fire. Some combat arenas have spike traps, but they only appear if something steps on them. It can damage you; its main purpose is probably that, but you can weaponise this to get men and machines to step on the trap and get hurt, Geneva Convention be damned. You can pick up and throw barrels, but if you get hit or fall down too far and land face-first, well, the barrel will explode. Wouldn’t it be convenient to just carry one and get close to a group of Grazers?
The game is has a top-down view with no camera control (likely so you can play this with a Joy-Con, this game is also on Switch), and with limited view, you can’t really snipe that far, and without a one-hit-kill ability you are not expected to play this like a stealth game.
The gadgets you pick up can be game-changers. The double jump gadget also deals fire damage from the thrusters used to propel your chosen character up high. The Tripwire, a quintessential Horizon weapon where you set a rope between two points to trip machines, is just as fun to use in this game. The potential chaos that can happen here is astounding.
But it’s not without faults. I found the combat sequences to be punishing. At first, I thought it was from me bumping the difficulty up above the Adventurer (normal) level. But when I turned it back to normal, I still sometimes struggled to get through encounters cleanly. Sure, you can have six or seven hearts of life, and the hearts can be segmented into quarters. But at the end of the day, I still feel like most encounters can be survived by a maximum of three hits. The machines in later levels deal so much damage. Too much.
Also, machines can feel too damage-spongey. You can aim for their weak points, which disables some of their attack just like other Horizon games. But even the weak points are way too strong, to the point that I only manage to detach them when it’s the last hit to defeat them.
And there’s one infuriating attack that I really, really didn’t like: homing projectiles. It’s not the massive AOE attacks that are all clearly telegraphed; it’s the homing beams of a Watcher that track really, really well and can only be dealt with by shooting a projectile directly at them, kiting them so they will hit a wall or some obstruction, or just running away for about 10 seconds or so until it fades out. And shooting the projectiles can be finicky. And I really don’t like that these homing projectiles won’t hit any other enemy, disobeying the established rule where almost every attack by enemies can be friendly fire.
Playing solo can be a little infuriating, as when you’re out of health, there’s no way to revive; you’re loaded back to the beginning of the area. If you collected studs around the area before the encounter, those aren’t saved. It’s understandable to stop players from mindlessly grinding them, but having to gather them again over and over when you’re stuck at an encounter is not awesome.
The fact that I dedicated so many words describing the combat should tell you something; the rest of the gameplay is just… there. Exploration isn’t that fun due to the way the levels are designed, which will be made clear when you finish the story. Platforming is simple; you can find some jumping and climbing sections in the Cauldron levels, and it has a lot of those “wait until the platform stops at the right place and then jump on it” moments. The building ability feels like it’s a corporate mandate as it’s just there for the sake of it. And barely any puzzle solving.
If you can vibe better with the combat than I did and don’t care if there’s not much adventuring and platforming, Lego Horizon Adventures’ gameplay is really solid. It’s brilliantly designed, though I have personal gripes with two elements, which I’ve explained: the homing projectiles and how you respawn back after a failed combat encounter. It’s a fun game to turn off the brain a bit and just mess around and find out what works and what doesn’t.
Content
Lego Horizon Adventures’s story should last about 10 hours, spread across four different biomes with five levels each. Interestingly, you don’t get to replay the story levels; when the story’s done, it’s done. Rather, you’ll unlock Apex hunts, boss battles if you will, against tougher enemies. And once you’re done with that, you’re free to explore the level, which feels more like a roguelike on the account that the level isn’t predetermined. Every time you transition to the next part of the level via a loading screen, the game loads in a random tile set based on the chosen biome.
The story is adapted from Horizon Zero Dawn but simplified and explained to a 5-year-old. Some of the twists hit differently, and unfortunately kids are not ready to learn about how evil techbros can be, and as such, the whole Zero Dawn plotline was skipped. One particular character was revealed much earlier as well.
But the character arcs are familiar. Aloy still struggles with herself as she is suddenly entrusted with the role of the main character in this story. And as much as the Lego humour tries to keep the story to be all smiles, there are moments of sadness and introspection that are treated with respect. One character has to make an exit, and it hits the right tone of sadness—and silliness—that it made me feel something.
There are also side objectives from the community board that you can complete. These objectives can range from “wear a specific costume” to “defeat enemies in a specific way,” as well as some to encourage you to decorate Mother’s Nest. There’s a lot more costumes and decorations to unlock by completing everything there is to offer, so expect maybe an extra 5 more hours of play for you completionists.
For Lego fans, you can kitbash Mother’s Nest with not only custom Lego Horizon decorations (there’s a non-zero chance that these will be proper sets sold separately in the future), but also from the Lego City and Lego Ninjago lines. Have one of the four playable heroes dress up as Johnny Thunder a Jungle Explorer? Have at it. Want to cosplay the Nora villagers into police officers, crooks, and the main Ninjago cast? By all means. And there’s sillier costumes as well. Turn the whole village into Hot Dog Guys and have them all on the dance floor as DJ Sylens plays his set. Or make your own custom costume by combining different minifig parts.
Or just pass the time by throwing them off cliffs. That’s always fun.
The roguelike structure does mean that anyone who wants to game a bit can hop in and do an adventure for about 10-20 minutes, perfect to co-op with a non-gamer or folks who are only starting to game.
Personal Enjoyment
I have mixed feelings with Lego Horizon Adventures. I don’t mind the Lego humour, though I expect that to be what’s going to split the room. Rather, I find the game is focusing on the wrong things for me to fully enjoy it. For a platformer, the exploration is too basic for me. The combat system is brilliant, but it’s too punishing even at normal difficulty to really have fun with.
But I like the idea of Lego Horizon Adventures. The idea of a robust system where you can utilise the environment, and even the enemies themselves, to fight enemies is awesome. Being able to throw just about anyone off a cliff, all while they’re shouting it’s an illegal move, is the right kind of overpowered move to have in such a game. Seeing the chaos ensue as you just move around the combat arena all while evil men and machines pop off all their attacks and see all those dealing damage among themselves is peak.
But the game missed its mark in the nuances, in the execution of this idea. Which really robs a lot of my enjoyment.
Still, I had a fun time, and this gripe is something within the realms of a post-launch update kind of fix, should the team have the opportunity to do so.
Verdict
Lego Horizon Adventures is an enjoyable Lego game as well as a great representation of what a Horizon game is. It should be more fun with a friend, and as a game designed for a younger demographic, it’s a triumph.
The exploration aspects may be too simple, but it captures the essence of what makes Horizon’s combat so unique, all while carrying that Lego Movie energy of self-aware, 4th-wall-breaking humour and zaniness. For a Horizon game that doesn’t take itself so seriously, it’s a fun time and a fun new entry point to the cyber-tribal post-post apocalypse world.
Played on base PS5. Review copy provided by the publisher.
Lego Horizon Adventures
Lego Horizon Adventures is an enjoyable Lego game as well as a great representation of what a Horizon game is. It should be more fun with a friend, and as a game designed for a younger demographic, it's a triumph.
- Presentation 9
- Gameplay 7.5
- Content 8
- Personal Enjoyment 7