Lego Horizon Adventures: Lego games have never looked so beautiful

The post-apocalyptic PlayStation game series Horizon meets the colourful world of Lego bricks. What initially sounds like an extremely strange combination turns out to be a perfect match when you think about it. Sony and Lego successfully joined forces two years ago with the creation of the Tallneck set. Now comes the second project from this collaboration, Horizon Lego Adventures.

As a big fan of both the Horizon games and Lego, I was really looking forward to this new title. But after playing it, I’ve got mixed feelings. Lego Horizon Adventures is a beautiful disappointment. That being said, younger Lego fans will still likely enjoy this overly short and simple adventure.

Typical Lego slapstick humour

Lego Horizon Adventures loosely retells the story of the first game, Horizon: Zero Dawn. If you don’t know the original plot, you probably won’t understand what all the strange tribes and killing machines are all about. Here’s what you need to know: the game’s ginger-haired protagonist, Aloy, has to save the world from crazy cultists and robot dinosaurs that have gone wild. She also rebuilds her village, Mother’s Heart, with golden Lego bricks that she finds across four worlds, each divided into smaller levels.

The story is told in typical Lego style with cutscenes full of slapstick moments and meta commentary-laden dialogue. One of my favourite scenes is when Aloy wants to know how many villagers have been kidnapped by religious fanatics after an attack on Mother’s Heart. The leader of the village replies: «I can’t say for sure. You know how difficult it is to count when you haven’t got any fingers». Fabulous.

What’s cool is that most of the actors from the original game return to their roles – especially Ashley Burch as Aloy. However, the recast of mysterious character Sylens is disappointing. He was originally voiced by Lance Reddick, who passed away last year. Unfortunately, no replacement with a similarly deep and distinctive voice was found for Lego Horizon Adventures. It’s a shame, especially as a lot of Sylens’ jokes were about his unique voice.

A Lego game has never looked so good

Lego Horizon Adventures is a stunningly beautiful game. In previous Lego titles, only the characters and individual objects were made of Lego bricks, but in Lego Horizon Adventures the entire world is made of them. Every tree, every stone, even the water and particle effects (fire, electricity, snow) are made out of «real» Lego parts.

The plastic parts sometimes look photorealistic with the atmospheric lighting and realistic reflections – thanks to ray tracing. With the help of subtle tilt-shift effects, the landscapes also look like miniature dioramas. I can’t get enough of this world of plastic beauty. Sometimes I pause briefly and watch a waterfall flowing in the background with its stop-motion animation.

Lego Horizon Adventures also takes a different approach to character models than previous Lego titles. The little people are animated in exactly the same way as «real» Lego figurines would move. Aloy can’t bend her limbs, so she runs around awkwardly with her legs outstretched. The robot dinosaurs also move like authentic Lego models. Sensational, with lots of slapstick potential.

Fights: funny, but too basic

Over the course of the game, I unlock three other characters in addition to tribal warrior Aloy. This nimble protagonist helps me fight tin dinosaurs with bow and arrow. Talented young warrior Varl shoots spears that can pierce a number of enemies. Mustachioed brute Erend smashes monsters to pieces with a huge hammer.

Village elder Teersa is a little out of the ordinary. For one thing, she only played a secondary role in the original game compared to the other characters. And also because her fighting style is pretty bland, throwing improvised bombs at enemies. It looks fun, but is only moderately so due to the sluggish controls.

I can shoot quickly with all the characters by briefly pressing the attack button or aim precisely by pressing and holding. As in the original game, I can target individual weak points on machines that I’ve previously scanned with the Focus device.

Seasoned warriors will find special upgrades to use alongside their primary weapons across levels. For instance, Aloy can shoot fire arrows, Varl can turn his spears into boomerangs and Erend can trigger earthquakes with his hammer. There are also various gadgets to uncover that I can use to inflict immense damage or burn, freeze and shock enemies. Both upgrades and gadgets only have a limited number of charges.

Weapon upgrades and gadgets are fun and add variety to the chaotic battles. It’s a shame that finding items is left completely to chance. For example, I can’t plan in advance if I’ll play a level with ice or fire arrows. I have to hope I’ll find the upgrades I want in chests or that defeated enemies drop them.

Overall, fights are fun but too simple. Characters’ movesets are incredibly limited. I often wish I could also use some of the gadget functions without items, including faster dodging.

On the plus side, small side missions add a bit of complexity to the battles, and they force me to act strategically. Optional mini-tasks give me additional golden stones to rebuild the village. In one mission, I have to defeat a certain number of enemies with electricity, and in another I can only use explosive barrels.

Co-op mode gets the thumbs up

Although the combat system is simple overall, I’m often caught off guard by tin dinosaurs and members of sects, especially when I’m distracted because I’m concentrating on completing a side mission.

Fortunately, I can get help at any time with co-op, either on- or offline. Battles are much easier – and more fun – in pairs. With the right coordination, you can even add a bit of strategy to the carnage by attacking metal monsters from several sides at once.

There are numerous settings to ensure a smooth gaming experience for kids and inexperienced players. For instance, you can activate targeting aids or even make a character immortal. This is great and allows even complete beginners to get started in the Horizon Lego world.

Not much else going on

Apart from the battles, there’s unfortunately little else to discover in the linear tube levels. Just a hidden treasure chest here and a few collectable Lego bricks there. Puzzles? Think again. The levels are very similar in terms of structure. So much so that they sometimes seem interchangeable and procedurally generated.

The missions don’t wow me either. To snag the valuable golden Lego bricks, all I have to do is get to the end of a level or defeat a particularly difficult final boss. The uninspired mission design is much simpler than in other Lego games. I realise that this title is primarily aimed at a younger audience, but we still need to give youngsters more credit than that.

I always return to Mother’s Heart between missions, where I unlock new skills with the Lego bricks I’ve collected and festoon the village with decorations. While I do enjoy adorning the village to start off with, it’s ultimately a trivial game mechanic that’s got no effect on gameplay. The fact that most of the decorative elements come from other Lego sets, such as Lego City and Ninjago, makes them uninteresting and replaceable.

I also treat myself to new costumes for my characters in the local shop. As with the decorations, many of the outfits aren’t from the Horizon world. It’s fun to be an oversized hot dog and beat up tin dinosaurs and sneak through the jungle as a ninja. But here, too, I quickly lose interest in the generic designs.

To be fair, I’m not the target audience. Kids who play with the likes of Lego City and Ninjago will certainly enjoy the unlockable decorative elements and costumes more.

As well as side missions for the battle, I also find side missions for decorating the village on the notice board in Mother’s Heart. These involve repainting a certain number of houses or building certain decorative elements in order to get more golden bricks. This at least partly makes up for my lack of intrinsic motivation.

About eight hours later, I can already see the end credits for Lego Horizon Adventures. The platinum trophy gives me all the golden bricks, and I spend another six hours on the game. That doesn’t seem like enough. Don’t get me wrong. I like short and sweet games. After all, Astro Bot is one of my favourite titles of the year. But when games are so compact, they have to offer lots of variety and put on a show in the short playing time. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with this simple, repetitive design in Lego Horizon Adventures.

Lego Horizon Adventures is available from 14 November for PS5, PC and Switch. Sony kindly provided me with this game for testing purposes.