Also on: PS5, Nintendo Switch
Publisher: PlayStation Publishing
Developer: Guerrilla Games/Studio Gobo
Medium: Digital/Disc/Cartridge
Players: 1-2
Online: Yes
ESRB: E10+
LEGO Horizon Adventures is a LEGO game that doesn’t look or play like any other LEGO game that I’ve ever played. It’s based on Horizon: Zero Dawn, but the similarities between that game and this one are few and far between. Mash the two together, and you have the ingredients for one of the strangest games I’ve ever played.
Somehow, I don’t think “baffling…?” is what Sony was going for when it decided to LEGO-ify one of its most popular current properties. I have to assume there were some vague ideas about broadening Horizon’s audience and opening up new revenue streams. It’s possible, too, someone saw open-world LEGO games, thought, “Hey, Horizon: Zero Dawn is an open-world game!”, and then made some kind of jump.
The thing is, that line of thinking doesn’t apply here, because LEGO Horizon Adventures is decidedly not an open-world game. It’s a fairly linear game where you have a series of small, relatively bite-sized levels, tied together by the fact the game dumps you back in the hub world – a tiny version of Mother’s Heart – at the end of each.
This is bizarre for a couple of reasons. First, given that Horizon is an open-world game and LEGO has occasionally strayed into that realm before, it’s not as if recreating Horizon would’ve required a huge jump from games like the LEGO Batman and LEGO Marvel games or LEGO City Undercover, even if the developers would’ve had to scale things down considerably. Sure, LEGO Horizon Adventures is a little less cartoony and a little more detailed than your typical LEGO game, but it still feels like a missed opportunity to make LEGO Horizon but not embrace the open-world aspect that was a huge part of its allure.
Secondly, all those bite-sized levels are largely lacking in replayability, which is strange when you consider that LEGO games are usually all about giving you reasons to go back and uncover hidden secrets and areas to uncover. In LEGO Horizon Adventures, by contrast, it just feels like there are a handful of slightly hidden chests and one or two things to build, and that’s about it. Given how short and how small most of the levels are, it’s not as if the game could’ve been packed with fun little side quests, but that’s hardly an excuse for how little there is to do here.
However, the most annoying thing about LEGO Horizon Adventures has nothing to do with its small levels or its lack of replayability. Rather, it’s how little it feels like a LEGO game. One of the most enjoyable things about LEGO games has always been how breakable the world is; you’re constantly encouraged to smash everything around you to gather more bricks, which you then get to use to buy upgrades. In LEGO Horizon Adventures, there’s barely any of that: you can smash a few barrels and the odd payphone, but for the most part you just have a static, unbreakable world. To be sure, it’s not as if you need bricks all that much – unless you really want to make cosmetic upgrades to your hub world, I guess – but not being able to run around smashing things means that this game is missing out on one of the core aspects of any LEGO game.
Having said all that, it’s not as if LEGO Horizon Adventures is completely devoid of charm. Even if the world feels too static and sterile, it still looks nice. And while it’s undeniably a short game, at the same time, given how much time it takes to beat Horizon: Zero Dawn, it’s kind of fun to get through the whole thing (albeit in a very condensed version) in a fraction of the time. And, most of all, the voice acting definitely gives the game a feel of its own – LEGO Horizon Adventures is obviously much more light-hearted than the original, so it’s nice to have that reflected in how the characters are portrayed. (Admittedly, this means the game kind of neuters Aloy’s origin story and the game’s broader message, so your mileage here may vary.)
Which is to say: yeah, even the good things about LEGO Horizon Adventures still come with some major caveats. As someone who loves Horizon: Zero Dawn and who loves LEGO games, I was really hoping that a combination of the two would be something special. Instead, we have LEGO Horizon Adventures, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why it exists.
PlayStation Publishing provided us with a LEGO Horizon Adventures PC code for review purposes.
