Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
A Familiar Formula with a Robotic Twist
LEGO games are a special phenomenon. At its core, it’s brilliant if simple entertainment and a guaranteed recipe for success – simply take a popular brand, convert it into bricks, simplify the story as much as possible and fill in any plot shortcuts with a generous dose of timeless humour and pop culture allusions. The result is usually an entertaining affair that both small LEGO fans and fans of the original LEGO set can easily enjoy. And this is no different with LEGO Horizon Adventures.
Reimagining Horizon Zero Dawn for a Younger Audience
This is a remake of the 2017 action-adventure Horizon Zero Dawn from Guerrilla Games, in which we take the role of a young adventurous woman named Aloy to the distant future. Here, however, humanity is not enjoying futuristic conveniences and scientific inventions, for due to the global apocalypse, humans are technologically at the level of prehistoric times and, ironically, fully autonomous robotic animals roam the landscape freely. The basic premise of Horizon, in short, is still utterly fascinating. The story of the aforementioned Horizon Zero Dawn is told very loosely here, and it interprets many of the key scenes in exactly the same way as the other LEGO games, rather in its own way. So, if you’re a fan of the prequel and are looking forward to reliving your favourite emotional moments, prepare to either get them enhanced with a good dose of humour or, for dramaturgical purposes, fundamentally reworked.
Lighthearted Storytelling with LEGO Charm
As with most LEGO games, though, I didn’t mind too much. The story flows nicely, there’s no shortage of humorous moments and it’s simply a nice entertainment where you can relax and unwind. However, for hardcore fans who treat Horizon Zero Dawn as an untouchable idol, I’d recommend treating LEGO Horizon Adventures as a completely separate work. The gameplay is inherently simple. You’re given a mission to embark on from the Mother’s Heart village, and then alternate between exploration and combat passages in visually beautifully designed levels. Taking a page from the Horizon series, there’s the typical rock or wall climbing in general, platform jumping and simple environmental puzzles.
Linear Levels with Limited Exploration
It should also be noted, however, that unlike the open world of Horizon Zero Dawn, in LEGO Horizon Adventures you’ll encounter exclusively linear levels, where the maximum level of exploration means turning off the main path a few metres and opening a chest full of LEGO bricks. So the developers could have played around a little more with the structure of each level, although visually they captured the atmosphere of Horizon Zero Dawn almost perfectly.
During your quests, you collect money, experience and special gold and red bricks. You can then use these items to unlock skills for playable characters, stacks of skins and optional costumes, or you can expand Mother’s Heart with new buildings and enhance the local area with new decorative items. In Mother’s Heart you’ll also find a board with optional side quests and challenges that you can complete, perhaps in parallel during story missions. This is a nice additional activity in itself, it’s just a shame that you can’t actively track your progress in each challenge. So if you’re wondering how far along you are in a challenge, you have to go back to the message board after returning from the wilderness and find out for yourself which is a bit annoying. Sure, it’s nothing major, but I’m still a bit baffled that the developers didn’t think of it.
Diverse Combat Mechanics and Character Abilities
The combat system, however, is much more well thought out. You can play as a total of four different characters – Aloy, Varl, Erend and Teersa, each with a different fighting style. Aloy relies on her trusty bow, Varl uses a throwing spear, Erend uses heavy hammers, and Teersa likes to throw explosive objects and other inventions.
You can switch between these characters quite easily, and it’s up to you to decide which way of fighting suits you best. Personally, I spent the most time with my beloved Aloy, but Varl and his throwing spear weren’t bad either. Your enemies consist of a variety of robotic prehistoric type animals and several types of human opponents. Like in Horizon Zero Dawn, the mechanical monsters have weak spots scattered around their bodies, which you can hit to take a decent amount of health. However, while exploring locations or even during the actual fights, you can pick up other special items such as hot dog carts, fire boots, throwing sharks, and other inventions that can make quite a mess on the battlefield.
Elemental Interactions and Boss Battles
The fights are not particularly difficult in terms of gameplay mechanics, but they are fun and well crafted. Shooting a bow or hitting robotic dinosaurs with a hammer is nicely complemented by playing with the elements, for example, shooting through fire to ignite your arrows for extra damage, while the same can be done with a small pool of electricity, which you can use to make lightning arrows. And if you shoot these arrows into a body of water, for example, you can make an effective electric trap out of it.
These tricks then come in handy during more challenging boss fights, when you’ll have to knock down their bulky health bars with all the means at your disposal. Make no mistake though, this is by no means LEGO Dark Souls. However, if the difficulty is beyond you or your children, or too trivial for your abilities, it can be adjusted at any time in the settings to suit your needs.
Isometric Perspective Enhancing Co-op Play
From the previous text, it may seem like LEGO Horizon Adventures is just another typical LEGO game, but the opposite is true. In fact, compared to its predecessors, Horizon has made a significant change – namely, it has gone from a full 3D camera to a camera fixed in one position. This means you’re looking at the game from an isometric perspective, and it has to be said, it works well. This change is definitely most noticeable in co-op play, where you can now see both characters beautifully at once. So you no longer have to worry about a confusing camera in tight spaces, or limited visibility on a split screen like in previous LEGO titles.
The only downside, however, is that because of this, the two characters now have to stick relatively close together during co-op. As soon as the guest player starts to move away, the other player is automatically transported to them. In normal level traversal this doesn’t bother so much, but during duels or boss fights it can sometimes be really annoying. Despite this criticism, however, from my point of view this change of view is a great decision on the part of the developers and is undoubtedly to the benefit of the cause.
Nostalgic Visuals and Engaging Audio
The graphics in LEGO Horizon Adventures are excellent, whether it’s the lighting, shadows, character animations or overall aesthetic. In fact, the game world this time around is completely composed of LEGO bricks (including the water surface, the ground, etc.) and it looks absolutely familiar, to the point where I couldn’t help but get nostalgic while playing, thinking back to my childhood when I used to build my own worlds at home and try to make the most of all the bricks. The audio-visual treatment is nicely complemented by solid sounds and dubbing of individual characters, which you’ll enjoy especially during the hilarious cutscenes.
About LEGO Horizon Adventures
Title: LEGO Horizon Adventures
Type of Game: Action-Adventure
Developer: Guerrilla Games, Studio Gobo
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Release Date: November 14, 2024
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Windows
Where to Purchase:
- PlayStation 5: Available on the PlayStation Store
- Nintendo Switch: Purchase from Nintendo Store
- Windows (PC): Buy on Steam or the Epic Games Store
