There are certainties in life. Yes, death, we all know about death, and of course, taxes – unless you’re a celebrity with offshore accounts – LEGO should be the third, though. The certainty of stepping on it. The certainty as a parent of finding bits of it in your pockets. And the certainty that no matter your age, you’re likely within a few feet of a piece of it at all times. It’s like rats, but yellow and less bitey.
If that’s an unusual way to start a Lego game review, that’s only because Lego Horizon Adventures is an unusual Lego game.
Previous licensed games tended to be based on huge properties like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, filled out by Lego’s own brands like Ninjago and Lego City. In a climatic shift, Lego Horizon Adventures is instead based on Guerrilla Games’ Horizon video game series, which thus far has been exclusive to Sony’s own consoles, with a dip of its toes in the frosty PC waters. So, Lego Horizon Adventures presents a lot of firsts, both for Lego, and the Horizon series, and while it’s certainly a step forward, in some places it’s a step back.
Lego Horizon Adventures has been developed by Studio Gobo in partnership with Guerrilla Games, Sony preferring to lean on a relatively unknown team – better known for helping to co-develop other big properties than their own titles – than partnering with longtime Lego developer Traveller’s Tales and Warner Bros. In some ways, that’s a good thing. Traveller’s Tales have produced so many Lego titles, that it feels as though it’s hard to innovate within that space, whether through simply knowing what works, or the weight of expectation. Lego Horizon doesn’t have the same preconceptions, though the average gamer on the street may not see it that way.
Lego Horizon Adventures feels more in line with the Lego movies, and there’s certainly a key intent to mimic the fun and frivolous tone of films like The Lego Movie and Lego Batman. The character animations also align with them, so you find a Lego game that feels suitably modern and up-to-date.
That’s also certainly true in the game’s visuals. Lego Horizon Adventures is the best-looking Lego game we’ve seen, each area packed with Lego-filled detail. It’s a shame then that this beautiful setting often feels so lifeless and repetitive. As you progress through the chapters you’ll encounter new areas, and while they’re initially interesting and exciting, they soon become mundane, with fewer and fewer ‘wow’ moments. They are there – my 8-year-old son marvelled with wide eyes at a train hanging from a cliff edge with a scorpion-like robot clutching at it – but overall, it doesn’t make enough of the original game’s post-apocalyptic setting.
They do at least nail the tone for all the family. The two of us regularly chuckled at the conversations between the characters, though often at different bits. If you’ve played Aloy’s previous adventures you’ll enjoy the way that Studio Gobo poke fun at her – “I’m just a girl with a bow” – as well as the way the other main characters are presented, but not knowing them didn’t seem to hurt my son’s enjoyment either. This is still pure family co-op gaming, and though it’s not refreshingly new, it’s reassuringly reliable.
Lego Horizon Adventures is very linear, which starts to hurt your enjoyment the longer you spend with it. There’s little to none of the light puzzle-solving the previous Lego games have been known for, and while there is building, it’s not useful in any way, beyond firing some studs at you as a reward. Even my son noted that the building and the treasure chests were notably worse than the last Lego game, The Skywalker Saga. And he’s eight.
The only real place that you feel some of that creative magic is in your home hub of Mother’s Heart. The steadily expanding village lets you add a progressively more outlandish array of decorations, while customising and building new houses and plots. Alongside the expected Horizon designs, you can spend your studs on decorations that draw from other Lego franchises, though you’re limited to Ninjago, Lego City and Lego itself. It’s pretty fun seeing Aloy appear in cutscenes as a punk rocker or a hot dog, but it’s more of an fun aside rather than an essential distraction.
Throughout the game, the true focus is on the combat, and Lego Horizon Adventures does at least get that right. Aloy’s bow is accurate and destructive, while other characters like Teersa can fill the screen with exploding chickens. Using your Focus, you can highlight enemies’ weak spots, and hitting them rewards you with a massive dose of damage. Fans of the series will enjoy seeing the different creatures in their Lego-fied forms, and they lose none of their impact or viciousness despite being made of plastic. You can really crank the difficulty up too, and while Normal mode was suitable for an 8-year-old, if you’re coming to it as an adult there’s plenty of challenge to push you to the edge.
