After weeks of internet rumors, Sony’s unusual new game has finally been officially unveiled at Summer Game Fest 2024: LEGO Horizon Adventures. Built brick-by-brick by lead developer Horizon Guerilla in collaboration with Studio Gobo, it looks exactly what you’d expect from a LEGO tie-in: bright, charming, goofy and full of things to smash and spikes to collect. It’s been a recipe for LEGO success time and time again, but this time I’m not so sure. Who exactly is LEGO Horizon Adventures for?
This isn’t LEGO’s first foray into the Horizon universe. The Danish toy company’s fantastic Tallneck set, based on Horizon’s giraffe-like walking towers, is a nearly 14-inch behemoth made of 1,222 parts. If the number of bricks doesn’t give it away, the recommended age for this model is 18+. In the physical world, LEGO Horizon is aimed at adults because adults play the video game series. But one look at LEGO Horizon Adventures and it’s clear that it’s nowhere near the experience we’ve had with the two main Horizon games so far. For existing fans already pining for a new game, this probably isn’t what they were hoping for.
While I wasn’t expecting LEGO Horizon Adventures to simply be a full-on Horizon game with a LEGO aesthetic, I’m surprised that the trailer shows very little of what I consider to be the core DNA of the series. Horizon is all about the tactical tearing apart of robot dinosaurs and animals. Thunderjaw ruining your day? Shoot his rocket launchers. Battling a Snapmaw? Sniper his freeze bag. Each machine is built from components that can be broken and smashed, an idea that is sure to translate beautifully into snapping and scattering Lego pieces. Still, the trailer suggests that the combat in LEGO Horizon Adventures will be similar to previous LEGO games of the Star Wars and Marvel variety – hit something good, just over the head, and they’ll fall apart. I’m not sure how satisfying this will be for long-term fans.
So the answer is obvious, right? LEGO Horizon Adventures is for kids. This is a PlayStation Studios game released for Nintendo Switch, after all. But I’m not sure it’s that easy. LEGO games are so successful with kids because they have historically adapted licenses that kids already love. As a pre-teen during the Star Wars prequel era, I loved the connected LEGO sets, and so the subsequent LEGO Star Wars video games were a no-brainer. But Horizon is no longer loved by kids in its original or LEGO form. And while my six-year-old nephew is as obsessed with dinosaurs as any kid his age, I don’t think an armored t-rex would be a guaranteed magnet. However, he would go wild for a new LEGO Jurassic World game, not least because he already has age-appropriate LEGO sets to play with.
So who is LEGO Horizon Adventures for? I think it’s for families of gamers. It’s for parents who spend dozens upon dozens of hours playing Horizon on PS5 after putting their kids to bed, and who now want to introduce that world to their sons and daughters. All the ingredients are there: as described on the PlayStation blog, LEGO Horizon Adventures is a light retelling of Aloy’s original story that can be played entirely in co-op. It’s a way for an older gamer to share something they love with a kid who isn’t quite ready for something as intense and complex as the full-scale Horizon games.
That’s what I imagine the boardroom presentation was like, anyway. And while I hope LEGO Horizon Adventures finds its niche, I think that niche will be a much narrower niche than would be ideal for Sony. For the parent or older sibling in the co-op pair, I wonder if LEGO Horizon Adventures will be able to translate all the things they love about the original games. Will the battle – the beating heart of Horizon – be good enough? Will it be satisfying to turn the complex Aloy, with all her doubts, problems and internal struggles, into a cartoon character? And for the kid with the other controller, will this bright new world of machines, hot dogs, and (presumably) an environmental message prove attractive enough to sway them away from more established Roblox characters and the like? I fear that the sweet spot for both players will be small.
Historically, The LEGO Project has taken movies that families love, turned them into physical LEGO sets that they can build together, and then reimagined those sets as worlds that can be explored through video games. LEGO Horizon Adventures disrupts this process by being a family game inspired by a LEGO set for adults that is adapted from a video game for more advanced players. So while I really hope it’s a co-op delight, I can’t help but wonder if LEGO Horizon Adventures is built on shaky foundations.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.
