Lego Horizon Adventures Review - A Lego Icon

Lego has been a staple of gaming for as long as I can remember. From the early days on the PC with games like Lego Island, to the more modernized takes we see today based on popular franchise IPs such as Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, there’s no doubt Lego continues to thrive.

Their latest adventure cozies up to Sony’s own Horizon Zero Dawn, focusing on a video game story rather than an existing movie or TV show. We know that the idea first came from Lego’s people, so it’s interesting to see that they were the ones who wanted to explore doing something with Horizon beyond its own game and existing Lego sets.

Thus, we have Lego Horizon Adventures, developed in partnership by both Guerrilla and Studio Gobo.

When I first saw this game, I couldn’t help but ask myself: just who is this for? Is it for fans of Lego? Is it for fans of Horizon? After getting a chance to play it, I’d say the answer is something more in between.

Similar to Horizon Zero Dawn, Lego Horizon Adventures tells the story of a machine hunter named Aloy, who has to set out, gather a crew of characters, and discover her past. All of this is framed by a world settled in the far future – and most importantly, Lego bricks.

Lego Horizon Adventures is at its core a new spin on the existing story we know from Horizon Zero Dawn, but truncated and retold with Lego’s typical sarcastic and oftentimes whimsical humor. Whether or not that works for you is going to depend a lot on how much you connect to Aloy and her friends, and want to see them in a more humorous environment.

On my end, I thought it was a cute way to get those who have played the original Horizon up to speed, but also fun to see these characters break out of their more serious setting. While Aloy and friends lean into a lot of jokes, the antagonist has also been exaggerated to a comical degree, which is to be expected from Lego's usual brand of humor. My only gripe is that they did cut out a lot along the way of adapting the story for a different format. Perhaps that won't be too much of an issue for newcomers.

As for how everything else works out, Lego Horizon Adventures sheds the original game’s open world, and in its place is a series of linear levels that must be completed to advance the story.

Each level consists of a different type of environment, such as mountains, a desert, or the jungle, and Aloy, or one of her companions selected at the beginning of each mission, will be allowed to explore it. You can even hook up another controller and play on-screen co-op, which allows more than just a single character to interact with the set pieces.

These linear levels are structured so that the characters can platform through them – climbing up bricks, destroying objects to collect a currency known as studs, and building structures such as ziplines or the iconic Horizon towers.

Scattered throughout each level, Aloy will come across various enemies, and these all have their own special gimmick to them. With a variety of weapons and gadgets at her disposal, highlighted weak spots on each enemy in yellow will help Aloy take them down quickly.

There’s actually a good amount of variety here, which surprised me. This isn’t like Lego Star Wars where you spent most of the time slapping someone with a lightsaber. In Lego Horizon Adventures, there are a lot of different weapons you can play with, and those playstyles extend to the other characters as well. For example, Aloy can equip a flame bow that causes elemental damage, or a bow that fires multiple arrows. The variety helps mix things up when different enemies are about.

While I found myself using Aloy often for her witty banter and access to ranged items, Varl’s ability to use spears was fun for a pure melee approach. It helps break up some of the monotony too, because largely, the linear level approach remains the same throughout.

Aside from that, Lego Horizon Adventures features the Mother’s Heart location from the Horizon games as a sort of hub. Here, you can regroup after each level, and purchase items using the stud currency to build and customize what a lot of this area looks like. The neat thing here is you can purchase classic Lego items too from Ninjago and Lego City, just to name a few.

There are also smaller quests here on a notice board Aloy can pick up, which amount to things like killing so many of a type of enemy, defeating them using elemental abilities, and more. They’re just little extra tasks that can earn more currency, which Aloy will get in loads anyway from simply playing the game.

Additionally, Aloy can take on Apex Machines – further side quests that involve powerful enemies and help break up the pacing of the story. These quests are still available after completing the main quest, so there’s no real pressure to collect everything at once.

I think what impressed me the most with Lego Horizon Adventures, was the presentation. This is far and away the best Lego has looked to date, with plenty of colors, and the material of the characters and environments looks exactly how you expect Lego to look in real life. Everything is voiced with many of the voice actors returning - it's a solid effort.

It’s clear the development team put a lot of thought into how everything should look, and much of what people loved about Horizon is recreated here seamlessly. The machines are probably my favorite part – what with real kits for some of them already out there. It’s pretty easy to see why this game got the greenlight.

Whether you're a big Horizon fan or not, Lego Horizon Adventures can at least provide some entertainment for both crowds. It's a different way to get into the series for sure, but if you're already a big fan, there's a lot to be had with these characters and the Lego brand of humor. If anything, they've certainly provided a strong template for future Lego games, Horizon or otherwise.

TechRaptor reviewed Lego Horizon Adventures on PlayStation 5 with a code provided by the developer over roughly 8 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.