I'm hiding in the long grass, a deer-like Grazer machine in my sights and my bowstring taught. Aiming directly for my quarry's weakpoint, I shoot - just as my Lego Horizon Adventures co-op partner flings an explosive barrel in the same direction. The two attacks land at once, blasting the Grazer into the distance. It's just one moment of several in my Lego Horizon Adventures demo that surprises me in its ability to capture something of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West's worlds, despite this unlikely blocky setting.
There's little denying that Lego Horizon Adventure is a peculiar pitch. There are few, if any, other modern PlayStation franchises that you would dream of adapting into something so family-friendly; imagine God of War or The Last of Us sanitized via the medium of plastic blocks. While Horizon is the most likely contender for that fate, that's only because it falls slightly short of the distinctly adult nature of the rest of Sony's line-up.
And yet despite my initial impression that Lego Horizon Adventures existed almost by default, I quickly found myself in a game that managed to substantially reimagine the original while somehow capturing much of what was recognizable about it. Aloy's story is simplified for a younger audience but never trivialized. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the quality of the physical Lego Horizon Forbidden West: Tallneck set, the blocky machines are faithful recreations of the robots they're based on, losing little of the main games' animalistic tendencies.
Block bots
Perhaps that faithful recreation should come as no surprise, given the pre-existing link between these two companies. "There was definitely a passion to do something with Lego," Guerrilla narrative director James Windeler tells me. After all, the studio has already collaborated with the iconic toymaker on a Horizon set, and "there are many devs who have rooms full" of the stuff. But for all the affinity between the two companies, Windeler also admits that adapting the story of Horizon Zero Dawn into this new format "was the primary focus and challenge" for the team.
"We had to take a really good look at what makes a Horizon game, and examine what elements of that work well for a broader audience," he explains. That meant dialing down some of the "existential", apocalyptic overtones, but emphasizing other themes, like Horizon's environmental ideas. It also meant "giving ourselves permission to break our rules," allowing Guerrilla to make fun of itself, heightening the humor and making sure Aloy was able to invest more in family or friendships than in the mainline games. That was a process aided by returning Aloy voice actor Ashly Burch, who Windeler says approached the project "with such exuberance. There's still the essential core quality of Aloy, but it's so much more upbeat."
The overall result is a game that's "inspired by Horizon Zero Dawn," but isn't trying to be a like-for-like recreation. There'll be "iconic scenes" that players should recognize, like the Corruptor boss fight, but the aim is that this should be a far more "approachable" take on this story, one that's able to bring new players into the Horizon franchise, who might eventually go on to enjoy the mainline games, or the upcoming TV series. Windeler mentions his young nieces, who have never been able to play anything that he's made, and says he hopes that this might be the first time they can connect with his work.
Lego charm, Horizon world
There's an undeniable child-like charm to Lego Horizon Adventures. Over-the-top cosmetics allow Aloy to dress as anything from a game-accurate NPC to a hotdog mascot. Larger-than-life powerups grant Gatling bows and explosive food vendors with little concern for collateral damage. Aloy is friendlier, more excitable, than ever before, and the rules of the world has been changed to enable a funnier, more cooperative story - in Horizon Zero Dawn, Aloy's Focus is an incredibly rare piece of tech, but in Lego Horizon Adventures, the characters make light of the fact that they're handing them out like candy.
Perhaps the most charming aspect of all, however, is the toybox style that Adventures brings to Horizon. Rather than other Lego games' semi-accurate movement, these characters bounce more rigidly around the world, as though controlled by a child simulating a walking doll. That's because Lego Horizon Adventures wasn't primarily shaped by games like Lego Star Wars or Lord of the Rings - "our biggest target was actually the Lego Movie," Windeler tells me, "in terms of the comedy, but also the look."
That visual authenticity extends to more than the characters - it can be found across the entire world. In an apparent first for a licensed Lego game, "every single asset in the game" is made of real blocks. And it has been - Windeler says that Lego's Master Builders helped craft machines and locations in such a way that a fan could recreate them, as long as they had the right pieces.
For all its childish charm, there's still plenty here for longer-term Horizon fans. The co-op system provides room for surprising complexity in combat; stealth systems offer a means to approach encounters in different ways; exploration takes advantage of multiple tools at once for those who want to see everything - an arrow shot through a campfire into a patch of red grass might be the only way to open up a specific route. Five difficulty levels mean that those who are only looking for a story will be fine, but those seeking a genuine challenge should find it.
I still wonder, however, exactly what it is that makes Horizon the target for not just this game, but the entire suite of other projects that have come along since Zero Dawn. A sequel and a VR spin-off have already expanded this world, and a TV series and an MMO are set to push those boundaries further. So what is it that's turning Horizon into one of Sony's broadest franchises? "You can start with the color of the world," Windeler says, "and the themes, and all these elements. We want it to be more approachable, we want more people to come into it. And then there's Aloy, who's a strong character, she's a role model. She doesn't believe in dogma, and hierarchy, and all that stuff, and those are all things that I think people really connect to." Whether that connection is enough to turn Aloy into the mascot of a series that's fun for the whole family, I'm not sure, but Lego Horizon Adventures certainly makes a surprisingly good case for Guerrilla to give it a try.
Lego Horizon Adventures is dropping this Fall on PC, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.
