You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. These words from The Dark Knight have become truer than any of us may have originally thought, with corporations focusing more on the bottom line and profit rather than what consumers truly want. Over the last twenty years, this phrase has slowly become true for Sony and its commercial decisions. With the release of the PS5 Pro and Concord, many gamers started or continued to question Sony’s intention. Earlier this year, Lego Horizon Adventures was revealed. At Summer Game Fest, we attempted to preview the latest Guerrilla Games project.
Sadly, due to a full schedule, we were not able to check out the game, but we still looked forward to the game’s release in November. This past week, we decided to pick up Lego Horizon Adventures in order to see how it compares to other Lego Games and how accurately it depicts the Horizon: Zero Dawn story.
LEGO Horizon Adventures
Developer: Guerrilla Games, Studio Gobo
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PC & Nintendo Switch
Release Date: November 14th, 2024
Players: 2
Price: Base: $59.99 USD
Lego Horizon Adventures disguises itself as a Lego game but lacks the charm of Take Two’s Lego Games. Yes, it has a similar style as its counterparts but lacks what makes the others special with its comedic script and mostly destructible environment.
The game attempts to add comedic moments to the story with easy punchlines but most of the jokes feel like they are throwaway. In fact, most of the story feels like it is rather forgettable due to the changes that the developers made with the script.
When comparing the story to Horizon: Zero Dawn, the core premise of the story is still there but it is dumbed down to a point below that of Lego Star Wars or Lego Harry Potter.
In the story, the player starts out by playing as Aloy and is joined by Rost after the Prologue. As the player adventures through the wild, they are able to fight off members of the cult and the robotic dinosaurs.
After Rost’s untimely demise, Aloy is joined by Varl a clumsy but goofy oaf. Despite his weapon looking like it is for melee purposes, you can only throw it. Even the consumable equipment is either stationary or ranged.
As each character levels, they gain additional health or weapon damage. The experience each character gains is not shared by other members; if a character is not used they will not gain experience and can feel lackluster at later levels.
After a level is complete, the player can use coins that they find in the wild to upgrade skills; these skills can improve elemental damage, experience gained, weapon damage, and equipment usage.
Skills are unlocked by getting golden bricks; golden bricks can be earned by completing a level or completing mission board requests. Mission board requests can vary from killing enemies in a certain manner to wearing a special costume in a level.
Lego Horizon Adventures‘ biggest flaws are that you can not replay levels until you complete the story, building in a level feels meaningless, and the amount of loading time in between levels.
On the Nintendo Switch, each time you transition to a new area there is an annoying loading screen; you can explore an area for 30 seconds and then have to move to a new area where it takes 30 seconds to a minute to load.
Throughout each level, there will be objects you can easily find and build but 90% of the buildable items don’t matter for collection or progression. The controls for the game are fairly simple to understand and use so whether you are playing using a controller or Joycon.
The game has five difficulty modes, however, unless you are not playing on Machine Hunter or Hero combat is mundane and can be quite boring. The difficulty of the game can be changed between levels. Once you have completed a section, you are able to move on to the next area or take on a hunt in the previous zone.
As someone who enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn and the Lego games, playing through Lego Horizon Adventures felt like someone looked at both games and tried to make something that would work without truly understanding what makes it special.
Knowing that the original developers of the Horizon games worked on this game felt like they used it as a training project rather than creating a truly faithful rendition.
Honestly, I could see a sixth grader creating a better rendition of the story than what was provided. The lack of secrets or discoverability made each level feel empty and rather bland.
If you are on the fence about picking up Lego Horizon Adventures, don’t! It is not worth your time or money. Picking it up when it’s on a big sale would make it worthwhile but even at half off it seems like a waste of time and money for those with a brain.
The game feels like it is meant for children between the ages of 2 to 7 who can’t play mechanical games. Most Lego games are played by adults or adults playing with their children and this feels like this was created for the lowest denominator.
Lego Horizon Adventure was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a copy purchased during Black Friday. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Lego Horizon Adventures is available as of November 14th on PC, Nintendo Switch, & PlayStation 5.
