Lego Horizon Adventures review: a good game that’s missing a few pieces

The Lego video games have been home to some of the best franchises including the Lord of the Rings Saga, Harry Potter Saga, The Star Wars Saga and even some beloved superheroes such as Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham and also the Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game. The beauty of the Lego games has been their unique take on beloved franchises and the ability to introduce them to a younger audience without worrying about any mature content. So I was a little surprised when Lego Horizon Adventures was announced bringing a beloved PlayStation exclusive to the Lego universe. While the campaign of Lego Horizon Adventures can be beaten in 8-10 hours, the overall adventure is a great way to introduce the franchise to kids who are still too young to delve into the world of Zero Dawn (review).

Table of Contents

Story

Lego Horizon Adventures takes the story of Zero Dawn and simplifies it for a younger audience. You still don the role of Aloy but her origin story of being a clone of Elisabet Sobeck, the intention of Hades and the cunning nature of Sylens are all simplified to the level of a Saturday morning cartoon and that is not a bad thing as the TG are young kids who need a simple story. There are no side plots and the tension between the Nora leader – Teersa and Aloy is completely absent from the game. Even the death of Rost is handled in a very family-friendly way and also explains how he has become the “narrator of the game”.

Gameplay

Keeping in tradition with some other Lego games, Lego Horizon Adventures is an isometric game where you don’t control the camera. While you start out by controlling Aloy, through the game you get access to control other characters as well including Erend, Varl, and Teersa. The gameplay is fairly simple with each controllable character getting some unique combat moves. Aloy for example has her trusty bow and arrow but along the journey, you can get special arrows such as shock arrows, fire arrows, freeze arrows, spreadshot arrows, etc. You can have one special arrow and one special ability (such as a drone bomb, double fire jump, decoy, etc) equipped at any point in the game. Each character has a signature primary attached as follows

Aloy – bow and arrow
Erend – a big hammer
Varl – Spear
Teersa – Bombs

Each character can get special abilities for their primary weapons such as a homing spear for Varl, elemental bombs for Teersa and more. The only downside to this is that you can equip only one special primary ability and one special secondary ability per character. Once you pick up a new ability, the old one isnt “dropped”. It is removed. This is a tad annoying as you may not like the new ability you picked up and may want to go back to the old one. Also, you cannot change characters whenever you like. You can only do so at the beginning of each mission.

Speaking of the core gameplay, it is a lot of fun. You have the standard set of metal “machines” you take on from the Watchers, Scrappers, Grazers, Tallneck, Shell-Walkers, Stalkers and more. It is a lot of fun targeting their weak points to chip away at their health. You also have some human enemies thrown into the mix. Some of the human enemies carry exploding barrels and in true Lego fashion, you can pick up and throw one of these enemies to create an explosive impact on a machine. Just like in the main game, there is tall grass for you to hide in for a bit and “escape” the machines, but stealth isnt a core component of the gameplay.

Moving over to the environments, they range from the dense forest to snow-capped mountains and also the scorching desert, very similar to the main game. You also have the underground bunkers where the machines are made and represented in a simple, easy-to-navigate manner. However, the way you traverse these environments is very simple – climb ledges here, slide down topes there, enter an arena and take out the machines.

The Thunderjaw boss fight is an awesome standout and while you can fight him more than once, I am a tad sad there there are no more big boss fights in the game until you reach the final one. A few more boss fights would have been a welcome addition.

Overall, the core gameplay loop is fun and easy to pick up, especially for younger players. The couch co-op nature makes it fun to play with the kids. The game also offers 5 difficulty levels, for the more mature players to challenge their reflexes. My only gripe with the gameplay is that there are far more loading screens than I like in the game. While it is ok for the game to be divided into small areas containing the gameplay for younger audiences, the plenty of loading screens are annoying.

Graphics and sound

Visually the game looks stunning with the standard slew of Lego blocks making up the environment. The environments themselves, though easy to navigate do look diverse with the snowcapped mountains white as… well.. Snow and the scorched desert show off some barren spaces and the jungle environments feel dense. The game has 2 modes as well – favour performance or graphics and I went with the performance mode. The game looked sharp enough for me sitting about 10 feet away from my 55-inch LG B9 TV.

The character animations are also nice with your character hopping around the screen before going into an attack animation. The mechanical enemies also have graceful movements and signatures ‘tells’ before they launch into a special attack. Visually, there are no complaints with the game.

The same goes for the audio department. There is a particular disco section which has some great tunes that I won’t spoil here. The background score is peppy and the thuds and swishes of your attacks do sound slightly comical keeping in nature with the game’s design.

The cast from the main game have reprised their roles (except the late Lance Reddick as Sylens) and it’s nice to see them put on a “peppier” tone to the otherwise serious nature of the original games.

Verdict

Lego Horizon Adventures is a great way to introduce the sci-fi franchise to a younger audience. It has good and engaging gameplay, offers couch co-op and plenty of difficulty options to entertain young as well as veteran gamers. On the downside, the inability to keep more than 1 special weapon and 1 special ability makes the gameplay feel slightly limiting. Overall a fun game for the kids at home to enjoy over a weekend.

Editor’s score: 7/10

Pros

Cons

More Info:

Developer: Studio Gobo, Guerrilla Games, Studio Gobo Limited
Publishers: PlayStation Studios, PlayStation Publishing LLC, Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PS5, PC
Reviewed on: PS5

We played a review copy of Lego Horizon Adventures provided by Sony

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