Lego Horizon Adventures joins Astro Bot and Helldivers 2 to showcase a new era for PlayStation, which is now seeking to become multifaceted. After years of criticism for being solely a producer of third-person action cinematic games, PlayStation Studios has started diversifying its offerings. Just like Astro Bot showed, platform games and family-friendly titles are also part of their goals, something that Lego Horizon Adventures perfectly embodies.
Guerrilla Games teamed up once again with the LEGO Group to develop a product for fans of all ages, and Lego Horizon Adventures is exactly that – a playful take on Horizon Zero Dawn that can be enjoyed by people of all ages, even those who don’t usually play video games.
A Comical Look at Horizon Zero Dawn
Lego Horizon Adventures offers a very comedic interpretation of the events of Horizon Zero Dawn, Aloy’s original journey filled with drama as she tries to uncover the truth about her origins. The open-world effort by Guerrilla Games is known for its serious, adult storyline exploring deep themes. However, Lego Horizon Adventures is a completely silly adaptation of Aloy’s journey.
From the very first dialogues, with Rost as the narrator, you immediately grasp the intended tone. It’s an adult journey seen from a more comedic perspective, suitable for players of any age and even for those unfamiliar with the original game, with plenty of zany scenes. The humor is well-executed, and the Portuguese voice cast effectively delivers the team’s written jokes.
During the hour we had the opportunity to play Lego Horizon Adventures, we were hooked by the tone as Guerrilla managed to capture the essence you’ve come to expect from other LEGO experiences, now in a satire of themselves, which is equally interesting.
Simple and Fun Gameplay
Playing Lego Horizon Adventures reinforced the feeling that this is an action-adventure experience where Horizon Zero Dawn has been adapted for audiences of all ages and gaming backgrounds, and it also allowed us to discover mechanics and concepts we weren’t necessarily expecting.
Whether playing solo or with a friend, Lego Horizon Adventures offers a simple and refined gameplay experience designed to be immediately enjoyable, without any complications. This is a great compliment as the team adapted the main mechanics of Horizon Zero Dawn into an isometric perspective, in linear scenarios with simplified controls. This means that besides using the bow and the mechanic of charging the arrow for more damage, you can also use the focus to visualize weak points and have various special gadgets to use.
One of the most intriguing elements is the touch of action RPG present here, where Aloy and friends gain XP by completing tasks and missions to level up and unlock buffs, such as more health and increased damage, but there are more intriguing concepts. As if inspired by roguelikes, there are various limited-use gadgets that offer new possibilities.
Most of the time, Aloy jumps and shoots the bow to attack and evade enemy attacks or discover secrets in the scenarios, but you’ll also frequently encounter wacky gadgets. In this session, we saw boots that can be used for a double jump but also shoot fire and can burn enemies or parts of the surroundings, and a hot dog cart that is actually missiles fired at enemies.
Since we’re talking about wacky madness and interaction with the scenarios, the mechanic of hiding in vegetation remains and can be very useful. The game has several difficulty levels, and in the higher ones, you’ll have to use items and scenarios to gain an advantage.
Another element that surprised and impressed was the differentiation from Telltale’s LEGO games in the building element. Unlike Telltale’s LEGO games, which focus heavily on building pieces or parts of the scenarios to progress, LEGO Horizon Adventures is more of a LEGO Action RPG, where building is just a small part of the gameplay. You have pieces of the scenarios to discover and quickly build to earn more coins, but in terms of the main gameplay, it was very rare to have to build something to progress in a level.
Beautiful Visuals to Admire
In this new collaboration with Lego, Guerrilla Games didn’t focus on Aloy’s dramatic journey of self-discovery haunted by the impending new apocalypse of humanity. In this family-friendly adaptation, the focus was on a tone of hope, joy, messages about the environment, and the importance of family and friends. This is noticeable not only in the adapted storyline but also in the approach to the scenarios and visual aesthetics.
Família e Diversão em Lego Horizon Adventures
Horizon Zero Dawn is an absolutely stunning game to behold and Lego Horizon Adventures adapts this world to an isometric perspective that gives it almost a diorama-like explosion of color. There are truly beautiful scenes to admire, whose simplicity still allows you to see immense details in the meticulously crafted environments, enhancing its identity as a “feel good” game.
Amidst the explosion of color and details, the environments are enhanced by the lighting. The characters also exhibit a high level of detail, with numerous visual effects used to simulate a real LEGO figure (such as scratches on the plastic and shine), and scenes have been beautifully designed to behold, like a level in which Aloy tries to reach a Tallneck moving in the background while scaling environments and defeating enemies, whether machines or humans.
Horizon Zero Dawn, Adapted for the Whole Family
Lego Horizon Adventures has the potential to become one of the “feel good” games of 2024, an uncomplicated and easy-to-play action RPG, a super humorous experience that you can play even with people who are not used to gaming. This initial glimpse left the promise of a comedic tribute to Guerrilla Games’ work, but also of a beautiful game to behold, easy to interpret, and with the potential to hook you in. When many talk about branching out from a publisher/developer’s projects and thinking outside the box, Lego Horizon Adventures seems to be a good example of responding to that feedback.
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