LEGO Horizon Adventures review: A fun but fleeting romp
Well, I can safely say I’ve certainly never spent as much time fawning over bricks as I did whilst playing LEGO Horizon Adventures. I’m a firm believer that Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West offer an unmatchable level of visual fidelity, resulting in wonderfully complex open worlds that are amongst the best you can possibly experience. It’s with that in mind that I shouldn’t be surprised that, in partnership with Studio Gobo, Guerrilla has also succeeded in crafting what is easily the best looking LEGO game out there.
LEGO Horizon Adventures is far from being a mere feast for the eyes though, it’s got the substance too. In fact, I’d even go as far as saying that this is the most fun I’ve had with combat in a LEGO game. What LEGO Horizon Adventures does, it does exceptionally well. That’s why it pains me that I cannot escape the elephant, or Tremortusk, in the room. LEGO Horizon Adventures is incredibly short, with the credits rolling just as the party gets going - and with its £59.99 price tag, I can’t help but brace myself for the reaction to that.
For the most part, LEGO Horizon Adventures recounts the events of Aloy’s original adventure albeit with a few subtle edits to streamline the narrative. You’ll see Aloy face off against the Eclipse cultists, led by Helis, as well as AI villain HADES, although this time around, Aloy is exclusively based out of Mother’s Heart. Teaming up with Varl, Erend, and Teersa, the group will venture out to defeat machines and cultists, using the bricks they acquire from doing so to help rebuild the village.
Take a look at LEGO Horizon Adventures in action below.
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It’s a simple concept, yes, but it is executed well and when I choose to play a LEGO game, I am always looking for that trademark low-stakes, high-octane fun. LEGO Horizon Adventures is a game primarily concerned with combat as opposed to exploration. You’ll venture outside of Mother’s Heart to four areas - the Sacred Lands, Snowchant Mountains, Jewel Rainforest, and Sunfall Desert - working your way through around five to six encounters for each. An encounter essentially consists of a couple of traversal ‘corridors’, culminating in battle arenas which you must complete to proceed.
At the end of each episode, you’ll be awarded with one of those aforementioned bricks, so you can likely see why I said that this is not a game concerned with exploration. It’s very much a linear experience - there’s certainly nothing in the way of side quests. The only real optional extra is that during the traversal segments of an episode, you may be awarded with bonus studs - used to acquire new outfits and upgrades - for venturing away from the obvious path. On paper, it’s a formula that could be rather dull but it’s prevented from being so thanks to the game’s excellent combat.
In those battle arena-style segments, you’ll often find yourself facing off against cultists and various machines concurrently. Just as with the main game, Aloy can use her Focus to scan the surrounding area, highlighting a machine’s weak points. Hitting the weak points will, as expected, inflict the most damage. Armed with Aloy’s trusty bow, players will have to press square (on PlayStation) to activate the weapon, using the left dual stick to choose the trajectory of the arrow. That may sound fiddly but I happened to love the challenge. As you progress through the game and the machines become more ferocious, it’s great fun trying to maintain this kind of pin-point accuracy while you evade incoming attacks.
That’s certainly not the only trick in your arsenal. Aloy will, throughout the story, collect elemental arrows - switched between by using R1 - as well as a number of accompanying gadgets, activated using circle. From a powerful ‘brick separator’ to a hot dog vendor who you can place to throw explosive hot dogs in the surrounding area, these limited-use attacks can prove to be a crucial aid in the heat of the battle. Players can also make use of fire, ice, and corruption, sending arrows flying through environmental features to imbue them with an elemental power-up.
Rock piles can be sent crashing down onto incoming enemies. Cultists carrying explosives can be picked up and thrown. There really is a wonderful breadth of choice because I’m yet to touch on the fact that you don’t even have to play as Aloy. Erend boasts a hammer, Varl wields a spear, while Teersa utilises throwables. Or you can go down the double-whammy route with a friend via the game’s local co-op mode. The same combat rules apply regardless of the character, but you’ll certainly never get bored of taking down machines given the plethora of ways you’re given to do so. In fact, having completed the game on the ‘regular’ level of difficulty, I’m already tempted to see just how challenging the most crushing option is.
Whilst I did refer to LEGO Horizon Adventures as low-stakes fun, that doesn’t equate to it being easy. I died on more than a few occasions - with each arena only offering a fixed number of healing berries - but you’ll simply respawn at the beginning of the encounter, ready to try again. If that sounds like a nightmare, don’t let me scare you. There’s a story mode for those who want to breeze through but I’d urge you to up the stakes if you can. Taking on Chargers and Watchers feels like child’s play at first, but by the time you’re battling a Snapmaw or a Thunderjaw within the confines of a Cauldron, you’ll be grateful for that training.
It’s at this point that I have to return to the game’s length. As I said, this is very much a fixed linear experience and one which I rolled credits on in seven hours. I knew it was coming. After all, I’ve played the base game. My fight against the Deathbringer spelled that the end was nigh and even still, ‘Thank you for playing’ has never felt more like a crushing blow. That being said, LEGO Horizon Adventures does soften that blow with a smidge of endgame content.
Once you’ve completed the main story, each of the four lands will offer four additional shortened encounters that essentially task you with defeating apex iterations of the game’s machines. As I said, the combat is easily LEGO Horizon Adventures’ greatest strength so I was exceptionally pleased to be met with more - although completing all apex encounters perhaps only took me an extra 90 minutes to two hours. It’s great to be able to really put your skills to the test, although it’s after this point that you’re left with very little to do.
You see, the only collectible on offer here is bricks. You’ll acquire bricks for completing the main missions as well as those aforementioned post-endgame apex fights. The only other way you’ll be able to nab them, which you’ll need to do if you want to max-out Aloy’s level and fully restore Mother’s Heart, is by completing jobs on the village’s job board. ‘Defeat machines using barrels’ and ‘Defeat cultists while dressed as a police officer’ are among the types of goals you can expect to find there. Naturally, some of these you’ll complete without trying and others you’ll have to actively pursue.
The problem is that completing these goals does eventually become quite tedious. By the point I’d completed both the main game and the apex fights, Aloy was levelled at 42. With no episodes left to complete, I had to utilise the game’s ‘expedition’ mode in order to tick additional job board tasks off to reach that coveted level 100. Expedition mode essentially allows you to enter the linear experiences from the main game across all four of the available lands without the story, so you can fight your way through various battles to fulfil any additional needs. You can see how as fun as combat is, that might soon become repetitive and hence, tedious.
This is especially so as restoring Mother’s Heart isn’t exactly a thrilling task. As you level up, you’ll unlock the ability to fix and build additional buildings, unlocking further cosmetics too. But restoring the village essentially equates to picking out a roof type, selecting a building’s colour scheme, or choosing which random decorative item to place in a given slot. I can’t imagine every player chasing down every single available brick to complete such an average endeavour.
LEGO Horizon Adventures gets so much right, and Guerrilla Games and Studio Gobo have created a truly wonderful experience that I’m sure will be enjoyed by fans both old and new … if they can justify that price tag. It’s a shame because LEGO Horizon Adventures is well worth picking up if you overlook that but when, for many, money is tighter than ever, that’s not possible. This is a steep price for the amount of content on offer - even if the game does boast dazzling visuals and stellar combat. If Horizon Forbidden West is also to be adapted, LEGO Horizon Adventures establishes some solid foundations, but I’d want to see a greater level of ambition next time around.
Pros: Impressive visuals, charming presentation, varied and fun combat
Cons: Short in length, limited replayability
For fans of: Horizon Zero Dawn, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
7/10: Very Good
LEGO Horizon Adventures is out on 14 November on PlayStation 5 (version tested), PC, and Nintendo Switch. A review code was provided by the publisher. Read a guide to our review scores here.
Topics: Lego, Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West, Guerrilla Games, PlayStation, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC, Sony, Reviews