Lego Horizon Adventures was one of Summer Game Fest’s most pleasant surprises

Lego Horizon Adventures, even after it inevitably leaked days before its announcement, was one of the biggest surprises of this year’s Summer Game Fest. The unexpected combination of the beloved building toy and Sony’s teen-rated blockbuster, this Guerrilla Games and Studio Gobo adventure is coming not only to PS5, but also to PC and Nintendo Switch.

However, if you look behind the scenes, the collaboration may not be as surprising as it first seemed. In 2022, Lego released a physical Horizon Forbidden West set, which, according to Guerrilla’s narrative director James Windeler, was the result of the same conversations that birthed the upcoming game.

“It came about through conversations,” Windeler told VGC. “From Guerrilla’s perspective, we have tons of Lego fans inside the studio. We prototyped the first machines in Horizon Zero Dawn with Duplo. There are fanatics within the studio who have entire rooms in their houses devoted to Lego.

“Also, there was the desire from devs who had been working on the Horizon games for eight, 10 years and wanted to make something that was a lot more whimsical and fun, and to kind of have fun with the IP.”

On the Lego side, the company was reportedly attracted to the world of Horizon because of its bright and colourful world, and because there are lots of elements within it that translate obviously into Lego, like its towering, dinosaur-like machines.

Lego Horizon Adventures is an action-adventure game not too similar from past TT Games Lego titles, with a fixed isometric-style camera, and beat-em-up gameplay that’s playable in co-op, either online or on a single screen.

Mechanically, it’s an obvious transition from the core Horizon games, then. But tonally, we didn’t really know what to expect, particularly because its main entries are often quite serious affairs with plenty of dark themes. However, it’s quickly apparent that, quite sensibly, Aloy’s brick adventure has ditched the often stuffy dialogue for a far more whimsical and slapstick tone, which we couldn’t help but find thoroughly endearing.

Ashly Burch returns as Aloy and puts in an infectiously energetic performance, in stark contrast to the moody monologues of Forbidden West et al. It’s like Lego Horizon is the After Dark podcast to the main games’ News at Ten broadcast, and the entire cast has cracked open cans of Strong Zero.

Windeler says Guerrilla and Studio Gobo intentionally aimed for a more light-hearted tone in order to appeal to a broader audience. However, the narrative designer claimed there are still plenty of references and dad jokes for older players to enjoy.

“What we’ve been trying to do with the entire game is make it for everyone, and to make it as approachable for as broad an audience as possible, and that feeds into the story, in terms of simplifying it, and also the voice acting, with original cast members like Ashly Burch back playing Aloy,” he explained.

“The fact that the cast embraced what we’re trying to do so fully has been a real boost, because you can feel the exuberance that they bring to the performances.”

“What we’ve been trying to do with the entire game is make it for everyone, and to make it as approachable for as broad an audience as possible, and that feeds into the story”

According to Windeler, Lego Horizon’s story is “very much its own thing”, though inspired by the events of Horizon Zero Dawn, so fans can expect plenty of recognisable moments and themes, but all interpreted through the Lego lens.

“We don’t think of it as a retelling, because it definitely isn’t that: it’s inspired by,” he said. “Neither is it a parody, because one of our goals is to bring it to everyone, so we’ve been very careful to keep the humour broad enough that you don’t have to be a Horizon fanatic to be entertained. At the same time, there are a lot of Easter Eggs and nods that are very central to the franchise.”

One of the most recognisable elements is Mother’s Heart, the main village from Zero Dawn which serves as Lego’s hub world. Here players can customise and upgrade their characters, as well as the buildings in the village. As expected, there’s plenty of humour: we upgraded one hut with a rollercoaster, and you can also add a wardrobe and customise NPCs (including putting them into hotdog suits) by comedically lobbing them into it.

Perhaps the most impressive part of Mother’s Heart is how authentic it looks. Lego Horizon is easily the best-looking Lego title to date, and with its top-down camera angles and gorgeous lighting, it often feels like you’re peering down on a real Lego set. According to Guerilla, that’s not a mistake either.

“That’s one of the most exciting things about this game… every single element is built using the digital representation of an actual Lego brick and conforms to the rules of Lego,” Windeler explained. “So Aloy has stop motion animation, for example, as we wanted it to feel like you were playing with an actual Lego set.

“We had about five Master Builders [from Lego] working on the game and they were a big part of a lot of the development of how we would build this. Lego were generous and very solid partners in terms of consulting about things like how they move conformed to real Lego.”

When you’re ready to go out into the world, you can exit Mother’s Heart and go on adventures to hunt machines, pursue story goals and bring back resources to upgrade the village.

Encounters simultaneously feel accessible and pleasingly authentic to the Horizon games, with Aloy and friends able to sneak through tall grass for surprise attacks, set traps and use familiar abilities.

“There are mechanics that will be very recognisable to fans, for example the weak points on machines, the use of Focus… we break our own rules in that sense that partners now also have Focus, which we make fun of in the story.

“You can go out and find rare weapons in the wild, such as more powerful versions of your bow. There are also weird gadgets you can pick up, like the double jump boots and the trip caster.

“On the lowest difficulty it’s quite simple, but if you push it up there’s definitely a lot of challenge, which invites approaching gameplay with the sort of tactical mindset that a Horizon fan might be looking for.”

The most surprising part of Lego Horizon Adventures, and the element that’s dominated the early conversation around it, is that Nintendo Switch version. According to Guerrilla, the game has been consciously designed around incorporating Switch, including with its simple controls, which we can see easily translating to a single Joy-Con.

According to the Lego Horizon developers we spoke to, releasing on Switch was something Guerrilla wanted, rather than some sort of license requirement.

“It was just a really unique opportunity for us,” Windeler said. “It was a natural fit for the ambitions that we had. I keep mentioning it, but we want this to be for everyone, and the Switch is really a platform that allows us to broaden the audience.

“That ethos goes all the way through the game, from the control schemes which are quite simple, [for example] it works on a single Joy-Con, and then also the simplification of the story, the lightening of the themes, the humour – it’s all part of the same ambition.”

Lego Horizon Adventures will be released for PS5, Switch and PC in Holiday 2024.