Lego Horizon Adventures

PS5 Review

Lego Horizon Adventures is an Action-Adventure game made by Guerrilla Games, who also develop the mainline Horizon games and Studio Gobo, whose main contributions are helping the development of Redfall and Hogwarts Legacy.

The game sees the player going through a retelling of the original Horizon Zero Dawn with humour more in line with the Lego Movie and has the player controlling Aloy as they rebuild Mother’s Heart and stop Hades from reawakening every Machine on the planet and consuming it.

Pro:

Art style.

The art style is the most striking and impressive part of Lego Horizons, as unlike the traditional Lego games put out by Travellers Tales, like Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones, which use Lego constructs on top of a natural real life world, Lego Horizons is entirely built out of Lego.

Akin to the Lego Movie as it’s not just the characters but the buildings, the enemies, the very landscape but even the clouds in the sky are made from Lego. The most visually impressive part was simply looking at the running water from the rivers and waterfall cascades as that was also all moving Lego pieces.

The characters even move like they are straight out of the Lego movie with their exaggerated but stilted movement and walk cycles, so the player can really tell this is where the most effort was put into the game and why it’s probably lacking in other areas due to the focus on graphical superiority.

Lego Horizons is without a doubt the best looking Lego game and looks more like an interactive diorama, as while more limited in scope than Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga (Which I also reviewed and got the Platinum trophy for) it is way more graphically impressive and true to the Lego movies style.

Voice cast.

In previous Lego games most, characters were either mute or had brand new voice actors, as it wasn’t possible to get the licenced voice actors from their original IPs to come back and do voice work.

However in Lego Horizon Adventures they were able to get the full main cast back together for the game, with the standout being Ashly Burch who has a very different performance as Aloy, being very upbeat and high energy like the characters in the Lego movies compared to their original performance in Horizon Zero Dawn.

Unfortunately, not every cast member was able to return, Lance Reddick as Sylens had sadly passed away after Horizon Forbidden West and is sorely missed in the franchise, but to fill his role is Tim Russ who Star Trek fans will recognise as Tuvok from Star Trek Voyager and Picard. He does a great job portraying this version of Sylens who is less a puppet master and more wanting to be a full time DJ in the post apocalypse.

Enemy variety.

This aspect is where Lego Horizon really stands out from other Lego games as not only does it have the standard cultist archetype for the player to beat up but also about 10 Machines from the original game in the form of mini bosses or end of level bosses, that players have to destroy to progress.

In total there are 13 Machines in game but only 12 can be fought in combat as the Tallneck is only a platform challenge and is non hostile to the player.

So, on top of the 3 different main kind of cultists before elemental reskins come into play that’s at least 15 types of enemies for combat, with them all requiring different tactics to take down in the over world or specific Cauldron boss arenas.

Co-op.

This game features not only couch co-op but also online co-op, this makes it so no matter where the other player is that there will always be the option to join the main player throughout the story.

Co-op is also easy drop in and drop out with online being available after the opening tutorial so it’s very easy to add your friends to the game to control a second character.

Costumes.

As the player continues through the main story and collects the Gold Bricks from the Community Board or end of levels, they will unlock costumes to purchase at the tailors in the middle of Mother’s Heart.

These outfits can be equipped by any of the 4 playable characters with no gender locked outfits to maximise player customisation.

Like the decorations that take inspiration from the various Lego sets over the years the player can choose an outfit from Horizon, Lego City, Ninjago and other various sets.

The most expensive costumes for each player are gold coloured reskins to show off when they have bought everything else, and as a nice touch all the costumes show up in the cutscenes, so players can admire the costumes they unlocked.

Mother’s Heart hub.

The main open area that houses all the main buildings and facilities that the player will use over the course of the game like the level up tree, community board and tailor to use the studs the player collects.

The player can also buy the various decorations to place around Mother’s Heart with statues and attractions, but also to change the colour scheme of the whole village.

All the decorations around Mother’s Heart are also based on the various different Lego sets, like Lego City or Ninjago, so children who are fans of those sets and have them in their home may recognise some of the decorations in this game.

This level of customisation of Mother’s Heart makes it so no two players homes will look the same, as there are over 20+ statue spots and 6 big buildings that players can customise and change the roofs to put various Machine parts on top, like a Stormbird or Tallneck dish.

Playable cast.

The game features 4 characters that players will recognise from the original and they all attack differently.

The player starts off with Aloy as the main character who can use her typical bow and arrows, with a few of her traps and extra bows as limited as power ups. To other characters that play differently, like using throwable bombs or a giant Warhammer for melee attacks to get up close and personal with the enemy.

Focus mechanic.

One of the mechanics adapted from the mainline Horizon games is the ability to use the Focus and it’s scanning mechanic.

When used it highlights the breakable parts of the Machines that when destroyed by a player attack will inflict big damage to a Machine, compared to hitting it in a non-weak point.

It is always useful to start any enemy encounter by using the Focus, because even though it has no effect on the cultists it is very useful against the Machines and the few bosses of the game.

Accessibility.

Being aimed at the younger audience there are a lot of accessibility options to help children finish the game even if it is their first exposure to a videogame.

The game also allows the player to rebind all the controls which is great for younger players that may have trouble reaching all the buttons on the controller, but they also allow the dead zones of the controllers to be calibrated so very useful for how much the sticks need to be pushed before the character starts moving.

Most of the new options are about ease of player experience, with scaling combat difficulties by making your weapons auto aim on enemies, to also letting the players have full invincibility. So, no matter how bad a child is at using a controller they will eventually win through the power of attrition no matter what.

Con:

Price and Game length.

These two points go hand in hand, as the game was only 8 hours to finish and 11 hours to Platinum which is incredibly short for a game that released at full retail price.

Most Lego games average at least 10+ hours to finish the main story and then for the Platinum can take over 30 hours, due to the extra collectibles added to the game to increase replay value for the younger audience.

Lego Horizon Adventures launched at full retail in the UK at £59.99, and the length and value of the game does not reflect that price so in my opinion the game should have launched at a reduced price point or be delayed to increase the length of the game by putting in more collectibles or characters like a standard Lego game.

As of now post-platinum it felt more like a toy advertisement for the new Lego sets than a standalone game that players will return to when they finish the short campaign and run out of content to experience.

Abridged nature.

Due to the nature of compressing this game from 8 hours compared to 30 hours of the original, it made it, so a lot had to be cut from Lego Horizon.

This is most obviously seen with the change from a massive open world sandbox, down to a linear corridor action game with no major deviations from the structured path.

The story was also heavily reduced and had most of its darker and more complex themes removed to more closely tie into typical Lego humour and suitable for children to experience.

There are also a lot fewer famous locations from the original game with the only ones being Mother’s Heart and the various Cauldrons, but major ones like Meridian being completely absent, even though it was a central location in the original game.

Linear levels.

Given the nature of how all environments have to be built out of Lego and be immaculate in detail the level design is always more of a straight path, with only the occasional small divert for studs before returning to the main path.

It would have been more engaging if there were multiple paths through a level that changed up the enemy variety or had extra collectibles for the player. This is because once the player has bought everything with studs then they have no reason to be collected anymore, making players speed through level to grind XP instead.

No level selects.

After the player has cleared all the story levels there are currently no ways to go back and play that particular level with its accompanying cutscenes.

Instead, players have to choose to do the expeditions that have a random chance to pick a level at random, but there is no way to watch the cutscenes that went along with that particular level.

The easy remedy would be to let players construct an additional building in Mother’s Heart to act as a cinema and let players replay the cutscenes. This game is already only 8 hours long to finish, so it would be a good idea to let the players rewatch the cutscenes, so they have more of a lasting impact on the player.

XP Grind.

This is only an issue when going for the Platinum trophy to extend the playtime from 8 hours to over 10+

Each character has a character level that increases with XP dropped by destroying machines or cultists, but the main issue comes about in that the max level is 20 and when the player has finished the story only Aloy will be at level 20.

The problem is that with the 3 remaining characters, there are no extra levels to grind easy XP from, as players can’t redo the Apex monster hunts and instead have to rely on the expeditions which barely give any XP.

Limited combat options.

In comparison to Zero Dawn this game has removed a lot of Aloy’s abilities used in combat.

These being any melee attack with Aloy’s spear, being able to reprogram wild machines using her spear and even just being able to use a simple dodge roll to avoid damage. 

Conclusion:

A shorter game that is an abridged version of the original game that is geared towards young children than actual Horizon fans, without enough substance to keep older players engaged for its 8-hour long campaign.

I would only recommend this game only when it has been heavily discounted, as it is not worth the full price tag at launch for this limited and repetitive game.

Score: 6.2