The presentation of the LEGO Horizon game itself was always meant to be delightful. LEGO games have historically been well-regarded for their self-referential humor and family-friendly gameplay, and Horizon: Zero Dawn was a contender for Game of the Year when it came out in 2017. With LEGO Horizon Adventures, it’s like someone in Guerrilla called everyone from Zero Dawn in the room, pointed to the game, said, “Hey, let’s make a stupid one.” And then, when everyone agreed with this ridiculous idea, they proceeded to treat this stupid thing with the same level of craftsmanship and care, with which applied to the other Horizon games.
LEGO in video game form has never looked so wonderful or so satisfying to tear apart. Aloy kicks up little footprints of LEGO dust as she walks. The barrels she shoots with her trusty bow shatter into tiny LEGO pieces. NPCs’ cloth capes are patterned in striking detail, while sunlight glints off brick water and strands of LEGO grass burst into translucent LEGO flames when struck with a fire arrow. Sure, it’s great that we can see the pores of Aloy’s skin in Horizon: Forbidden West, but Horizon Adventures is a great reminder that interesting stylistic choices—like creating an entire world out of LEGO—can also be visually stunning.
LEGO Horizon Adventures casually – and I mean casually – follows the Zero Dawn story and pokes fun at it at every opportunity. For example, you may remember the Zero Dawn intro featuring a child Aloy finding her Focus in an Old World ruin. In Horizon Adventures, Rost simply hands it to her in hilarious mockery of its supposed rarity. Aloy, played by Ashley Burch in full goblin mode, revels in the self-aware script: she’s obsessed with finding out who her mother is and is convinced that it will solve all her problems. You know, just like in Zero Dawn. The best part is this character change works, perhaps because Aloy never took herself too seriously. She and JB Blank (Rost) are clearly having a great time with these lines, and I’m told that most of the original voice cast were up for the challenge of reprising their same roles, but with the goofiness dial turned up to 11. And the LEGO humor also extends to visual entertainment. I laughed out loud when I realized that Aloy in stealth mode hiding in tall grass just transformed into the grass bricks themselves.
Horizon’s dino-hunting mechanics translate well to LEGO’s simpler, family-friendly style, and it helps that its monsters were already made up of a bunch of breakable components early on. Aloy can use her focus to identify an enemy’s weak points, then fire at those specific bricks for greater damage. All of her basic attacks use her bow, but she can find limited-use power-ups while exploring that will allow her to vary the fight, such as allowing Aloy to set things on fire. Some of these attacks are practical, but others are goofy, like one ability I discovered that allowed me to build a hot dog stand that damaged the enemy.
Anachronistic LEGO-themed nonsense is rampant in Horizon Adventures. Like a kid playing with a LEGO toy room set, I occasionally came across pieces that didn’t quite belong, like some random generic LEGO NPCs that appeared among a group of Nora villagers. Nowhere is the customizable LEGO presence of it all more evident than in Mother’s Heart, Aloy’s home base, where buildings can be customized with everything from Thunderjaw heads to dino-themed coasters. Outside of Mother’s Heart, there isn’t as much of an emphasis on building as I’ve come to expect from other LEGO games, although there are some structures in the desert that you can assemble as you go, for a bit of flavor and in-game currency rewards.
Aloy herself can play dress-up with a wide variety of outfits, ranging from Horizon-themed costumes to completely unrelated members of the LEGO cast. And any member of Mother’s Heart can be thrown into the dressing room and fashioned in the same way. If you want a Mother’s Heart full of little LEGO cowboys, for God’s sake, you can have it.
While I played the solo tutorial, half of my demo took place in co-op mode where I played as Aloy Varl’s friend. Almost anything Aloy can do, Varl can do too. He wields a spear that functions very similarly to her bow, and while there are some distinct bonuses to each, they’re both equally good at taking down dinosaurs. Co-op can get a little chaotic with two players in the mix, especially once you start setting things on fire. But I’m excited to have this option at all, available both in couch co-op (which I played) and online.
With my back-to-back demos at Play Days last weekend covering LEGO Horizon Adventures and Astro Bot, I briefly felt like I’d stumbled into a meeting with Nintendo by mistake. Sony apparently wants to i play and LEGO Horizon Adventures presents a massive toy box to tinker with, mess with and most importantly laugh with. The Horizon series may be mechanically complex and about (among other things) the very serious and real dangers of humanity destroying itself. But to Guerrilla’s immense credit, Horizon is no better off being lovingly disassembled, brick by brick, by its own creators. So much the better for us that the result is such a joyous, family adventure.
Rebecca Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
