Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West are two unbelievably good games that brought amazing open-world adventure and a strong lead character to life. Both have been trendsetters for two generations of consoles with the good threat of a third on the…horizon.
Puns aside, while we wait for the third to be developed, developers Studio Gobo and Guerrilla have stitched together a go-between game called LEGO Horizon Adventures. While most of the game is built towards a much younger audience than the previous two games mentioned above, there is still some fun to be had with most of the main actors back and a good hefty dose of LEGO storytelling and good-natured comedy.
While the gameplay is repetitive, there are still plenty of lands to explore, achievements in building to be accomplished, and fun to discover. Again, this is built for a younger crowd, so it certainly isn’t going to be as deep and fruitful as the original games Aloy was featured in.
So, sit back, keep your wits about you for giant animal robots, and let’s get this review started right now.
A retooled tale of potential woe
A shunned Aloy grows up under the guidance of her mentor Rost and is destined to help tame a LEGO land of robotic beasts. Her adventure gets upped a notch when an evil man named Helis helps to unleash a dastardly computer-driven Hades on the world, causing the robotic beasts of Aloy’s lands to become dangerous and unruly. Aloy must get help to stop the beasts and eventually make her way to Helis and Hades hoping to stop them for good.
Essentially, this is the re-telling of Horizon Zero Dawn, though not as detailed and sinister as that game. You get to see Aloy’s whacky childhood, experience her trials and tribulations, and get to see some familiar faces with good-natured attitudes and willingness to help Aloy on her quest. As LEGO stories tend to go, they are overly positive with a heavy dose of humor, and what has been done with LEGO Horizon Adventures is entertaining as heck. The game treats the original story respectively but leans in on some of the finer small bits of the first narrative, all driven by Rost’s narration.
At the end of the day, the story is fun, and it is the driving point of the gameplay. Adults and kids alike enjoy a good LEGO tale, and LEGO Horizon Adventures doesn’t disappoint with its narrative delivery. It will certainly satisfy any LEGO fan’s expectations of how a serious story can be turned a bit on its head to create some good humor.
Gobs of gameplay
On the gameplay side of the tracks, LEGO Horizon Adventures is a bit different than most of its other LEGO brethren. While the world of Horizon is known for its giant landscapes and vastly unique environments that are carefully crafted to truly sell the adventure that Aloy goes on, this one doesn’t quite get there.
Most of the gameplay areas are similar to one another. You’ll find some repeating hills, dangerous areas that aren’t too far in design from one another, and some cauldrons that do their best to deliver a bit more variety to the gameplay. The latter of the bunch does separate itself at times from the more repetitive level designs in the open-air world, where you will get a good dose of climbing puzzles and obstacles to traverse, but the beginning and ends typically stay the same.
The repetitive outside levels are just that, where you’ll find yourself going through hills and valleys only to land in fields that are packed with bad guys and beasts. You will see a lot of those designs over and over again, so much that you’ll notice. As an older gamer, this can get a bit drab, but for a younger gamer, they probably won’t complain too much. This was built for a younger crowd, so what the game delivers in level design isn’t too far off from the norm, although the LEGO Star Wars Skywalker Saga proves that wrong, and it’s fine if you’re not expecting a large landscape like Horizon Zero Dawn features.
The big draw for both old and young audiences is probably going to be the collectibles along the way. As usual with a LEGO game, you are asked to collect studs and bricks to progress and unlock material. Both give you some motivation to ignore the level design, as what you collect in levels will help you rebuild Mother’s Heart (a village where the Nora tribe lives) and make you feel like the world you’re in is a lot bigger with a wider variety.
Studs allow you to place structures in designated areas of MH, such as hot dog stands, antennas, and a lot of whack-a-doodle LEGO structures. The latter of the bunch is interesting, as you can unlock non-Horizon structures to place around MH. My oldest and I were shocked to see Ninjago buildings (and people) make an appearance. They are a cool addition to Horizon, though. The more studs you earn, the more you unlock, and the more variety of structures you get to choose from, and most are interesting as they are silly.
On the brick side of the tracks, you can use those to set up main structures that are bigger than what you can purchase with studs, such as Aloy’s home or Mother’s Heart’s main hall. The more bricks you obtain through mission completions, the more you can build out Mother’s Heart, and there is a lot of building to do. Mother’s Heart is huge, so you won’t quickly run out of reasons to keep customizing it. The bigger structures cost a lot of bricks, so you’ll be put to the test with withstanding adventures repeatedly. Changing difficulty settings will help in this potential plight.
Both collectible and important gameplay objects (studs and bricks) help to keep the gameplay more engaging and fresh. I’m not sure how you all feel about this, but I enjoy successfully finding studs in LEGO games and packing them in by the thousands. I also enjoy going off the linear beaten path to search for other goodies, and you get to do that here as well.
You will also find treasure chests with studs and goods lying everywhere in LEGO Horizon Adventures. Some of them require you to burn down vines to get to them, while others are simply hidden in areas that aren’t obvious. You will do quite a bit of brief searching at each level to find these unique paths that typically aren’t repeated structurally. That makes the gameplay a bit more exciting for my 40-year-old gaming brain.
Now, how you get through these lands to find studs and obtain bricks is by using a variety of weapons at your disposal. Aloy has a finite number of bows and tripwires, but each has its fun attribute that relates directly back to Aloy’s leveling. Yes, there is leveling in this game, and, yes, it does matter when it comes to Aloy’s offensive power. The more you accomplish in the story mission, the more that Aloy levels up. While the leveling isn’t quite as complicated and large as Horizon Zero Dawn’s skills tree, it still is nice that it affects how quickly she can take out enemies.
Anyway, getting back to weapons, at your disposal you have bows that can shoot fire arrows, ice arrows, shock arrows, and multiple arrows. You can also obtain traps that you can lay down for unsuspecting enemies, though not quite as extensive as the bow variety. There are also explosive canisters at your disposal and natural weapons like shooting an arrow through a fire pit to set your enemies ablaze. The weapon variety is just the right amount and I’m kind of glad they didn’t over-complicate the choices. What the game brings does work for both old and young gaming audiences. The weapon choices are fun and never boring, especially the multi-arrow shooting bows. That sucker is destructive.
On the enemy side of the tracks, because you must kill enemies to enjoy the weapons, LEGO Horizon Adventures successfully recreates almost all of its baddies, including the gigantic Thunderjaw. That is one pain in the arse robot to bring down. Each enemy has similar attributes and weaknesses to their HZD counterpart and is modeled nicely to visually represent them. I enjoyed seeing the LEGO translations of the bad guys and robots in this game. Even though they were easy to dispose of and not real threats, how they were constructed and presented was a nice tip of the hat to the original game.
All the above laid out comes to about 6-7 hours of story gameplay. Once you take down Hades and achieve a sincerely wonderful ending that I’m not going to spoil, the game opens and allows you to explore the land freely. You can go on longer missions and take your time tracking down studs and bricks to build the rest of Mother’s Heart out. While the main story might be short, the motivation to keep searching, gathering, customizing, and building makes for a longer and richer experience.
Overall, I did enjoy the gameplay despite the repetitive-level designs. There was enough beef in this burrito to make it entertaining for an old gamer like me. And, again, this wasn’t made solely for my age group of old people. My younger daughter adores this game, as does my 22-year-old. Seeing familiar faces, foes, and cool gameplay structures makes the experience entertaining for them.
Presentation – chef’s kiss
While the gameplay in LEGO Horizon Adventures has its limitations on how far you can truly take the game before it starts to repeat, the graphics help to tame some of that repeating with rich character design, fantastic ray tracing, and just a good dose of personality with shading, lighting, and the LEGO landscape. There’s a lot to visually love about LEGO Horizon Adventures, and that seems to be an important piece of the game’s puzzle. The devs did a fantastic job with HZD representation and all the bells and whistles the PS5 can achieve.
On the acting side of the tracks, it was good to see some familiar faces and hear familiar voices. The talented Ashly Burch returns to voice over a very enthusiastic and overly positive, yet sentimental at times, Aloy. We also get JB Blanc back as Rost, who pleasantly participates and narrates the adventure, and John Hopkins returns to voice Erend. It’s always nice to see the lighter side of serious actors who take on serious roles in games. All these actors did a wonderful job of making this story less dramatic and more kid-friendly, which is a departure from the original games which are filled to the brim with drama and intensity.
Anyway, the visuals and acting help to bring the essence of the Horizon series to life in this LEGO adventure. A chef’s kiss on the overall body of work.
On that note, let’s wrap this review up.
Conclusion
LEGO Horizon Adventures from developer Studio Gobo and Guerrilla brings the lighter side of drama from the Horizon series to the LEGO universe. While it is a short and hilarious retelling of Aloy’s adventures, the overall gameplay is repetitive in its level structure but still is very much a LEGO adventure at its core. A younger gaming audience might appreciate this more than an older one.