LEGO has a long and storied history in the world of videogames. While most are familiar with the high quality and nostalgia provided by the dozens of Traveller’s Tales titles, the franchise has dipped into every genre and licence imaginable over the years.
It did racing with the older Lego Racers titles and more recently with 2K Drive, there was the attempts at Minecraft in LEGO Worlds and the current partnership in Fortnite, it did the whole toys to life thing with LEGO Dimensions and the full list of LEGO games is staggering.
Despite this pedigree and adaptability, the reveal of Horizon Adventures was still met with scepticism.
Made by a combination of Horizon’s creator Guerrilla Games, as well as Studio Gobo, Horizon Adventures was a new, co-op focused, family-friendly adventure set in a brick-based version of this world.
Aloy, and a cast of playable characters from the two main games, are in a new LEGO setting where the perspective is now isometric instead of third person and the gameplay has been mixed up to be more on the side of arcade action.
Looking at trailers for the game, embedded below, and you’re met with stunning visuals and the fact that this may be the best looking LEGO game ever made. The two studios cut no corners and every single piece of terrain, as well as the machines are all built out of LEGO pieces.
As LEGO fanatics here at Hypertext, we can confirm that any given screenshot from any point of the game is fully able to be replicated in the real world with actual LEGO bricks. They only “cheating” here is that some pieces are shown in colours which LEGO hasn’t produced them in yet, and some messing around with scaling. The combination of the “realism” and the high fidelity make this game a real looker and and endless treat for LEGO fans.
Despite how good it looks and how much we were excited for it, LEGO Horizon Adventures launched on 14th November across PC, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch to decent enough reviews, but unfortunately middling sales.
Low player numbers were also met with negative users reviews on platforms like Steam where complaints stretched past just the gameplay, but also to many technical issues and the continual poor decision to force PlayStation Network signups on PC, the same issue that kneecapped the growth of Helldivers 2 earlier this year.
With all of that in mind we still wanted to give LEGO Horizon Adventures a go. We were provided a copy of the game on the Nintendo Switch and began our journey.
Two things are immediately apparent on start up: the first is that the trailer didn’t lie and this game looks amazing, even on the small screen and lower horsepower of the Switch. The second is that this game actually has great humour. The writing of the main story as well as the little lines of dialogue from the characters themselves actually got a lot of legitimate laughs out of us.
Humour is very subjective and we can see some of the dialogue becoming annoying for some, but we had a great time. What really adds to this is the sincerity of the voice actors in how they deliver the jokes. None of it is snarky or “too good for the material” and it seems like the cast were secretly laughing to themselves when doing some of their lines.
The gameplay itself is simple but has some depth that is fun to explore, especially on higher difficulties. We played through on the second highest of these difficulties and, for most encounters, that meant two hits would kill us. This was annoying at times, especially because death undoes some exploration prior to the fights, but it was a great way to make the game more engaging instead of simply tanking our way through encounters with extra life.
There’s some light levelling up to do and RPG mechanics, but they work in a weird way. Levelling up is done individually per character, but there are also universal upgrades you can buy with the game’s currency, studs (this currency cannot be purchased for real money). The characters you and co-op players you can play as include: Aloy (charged, long range bow), Varl (thrown, piercing spear), Teersa (thrown explosives) and Erend (short range hammer).
The extra characters outside of Aloy are unlocked as you play so there’s time to choose your favourite after experimenting with the gameplay nuisances of each. It’s best to pick a favourite early, especially if you’re not in co-op, so all your experience can go to that character. Switching back later in the story will have you with a lower level character and a much more difficult time.
Aside from the differences in the characters and their main weapons, LEGO Horizon Adventures also mixes things up with Gadgets and Rare Weapons. Gadgets are secondary weapons and tools with a variety of effects, while Rare Weapons are upgraded forms of your main attack. Both of these are balanced out by a charge system so they can only be used a certain number of times.
Charges can be earned through finding them in exploration, through a merchant or by damaging hostile machines. Like the main Horzion games, you can locate weak spots on machines and break them off in combat. Here this results in Gadget and Rare Weapon charges, instead of any crafting material. There is no crafting or other RPG mechanics here.
After a short while the gameplay loop of LEGO Horizon Adventures will reveal itself: go out on a mission, choose optional exploration routes for studs / charges, defeat hostile machines and then return to Mother’s Heart. At your home base you can unlock new structures which grow your little community of LEGO people and give you a sense of progression as you fight back the bad guys and the machines.
There’s a decent amount of customisation available too, with the buildings in the village being chosen by the player down to their colours. The four characters can be outfitted in your choice of costumes too, with the game pulling not just from the Horizon titles, but also from LEGO’s themes like City, Ninjago and more. Ever wanted to hunt dangerous robot dinosaurs while dressed as a giant hotdog? You can do that in LEGO Horizon Adventures, and there’s even a reward for doing so.
Once common complaint we saw about the game is that this loop can become a bit too repetitive and predictive. You definitely can tell that the designers were rigid in this and, if you’re playing the game often, you will feel that.
While we can agree to some extent, there are remedies to that. For example, in the middle of Mother’s Heart there’s a job board with optional objectives. These objectives will change how you play as you’ll need to go out of your comfort zone to complete them. On top of that, after a few hours of gameplay, a new type of mission will unlock where you need to hunt down stronger Alpha versions of the machines.
Even with these options we can agree that the game becomes too predictable. We wish there was one extra layer of complexity to shake things up, such as an overworld map that you can explore between missions or if the buildings in the village had minigames to enjoy.
Despite the odd placement of the checkpoints and the some predictability, we still had a shockingly good time with LEGO Horizon Adventures and we can recommend it readily for both a singleplayer experience or in co-op. With the holidays here we can see the co-op being a lot of fun with friends and family and almost anyone can play regardless of their age. We can see a copy of this game being a great present too.
As we watched the credits roll we couldn’t help but feel a bit sad that LEGO Horizon Adventures was received so poorly and didn’t get its chance to shine. If you missed the game at launch for whatever reason, this is your call to action to give it another look. It’s just about unmissable for both LEGO and Horizon fans and all we can hope for now is this game has some second wind later in life because we’d love to see a sequel.
