Lego Horizon Adventures Isn’t Your Typical Lego Game

The foundational elements of a Lego game have remained largely unchanged for 20+ years: Smash everything into bricks and studs, collect characters by the dozens, then use those characters to jump back into levels to solve puzzles that were previously gated off. Lego Horizon Adventures has a little bit of that DNA, and moving back to a fixed camera like the pre-Skywalker Saga games makes it look like a classic Lego game of yesteryear, but after playing 30 minutes in single-player and co-op, I came away thinking of it as the most cinematic Lego game to date. Rather than intensely focus on smashing and collecting things, it’s putting the focus on Guerrilla’s story–and putting that story through a kid-friendly filter.

“We were determined to make a Lego game unlike any other Lego game,” James Windeler, narrative director at Guerrilla, told me after my hands-on session. “From a visual perspective, we wanted to make a statement in the sense that we wanted to create a playable Lego movie in terms of the visual quality. But one of the things that’s really unique about it and very different from other games is that everything you see is made from individual bricks. Every asset could, in theory, be made from physical material, Lego pieces.”

He’s right, of course. Traditionally, Lego games involve bricks in the playable area and backgrounds made to look more like traditional video game environments, and that difference here, paired with the gorgeous visuals, really makes Lego Horizon Adventures stand out instantly when you see it.

But playing it feels a bit different than classic Lego games, too. Sure, you can smash up some of the environment to collect studs, but not nearly as much as in other Lego games, and there seemed to be no stud counter demanding you unlock some status such as “True Adventurer.” That’s because this isn’t really a collect-a-thon like Lego Batman or Lego Star Wars. It is, as Winderler says, like playing a Lego movie starring Aloy, Rost, and other stars of Horizon Zero Dawn.

And I do mean Zero Dawn specifically. Lego Horizon Adventures reshapes the 2017 game in key ways to be more appealing and appropriate for kids, but without totally reimagining its story. “It’s not a faithful retelling, and neither is it a parody,” explained Windeler, who said the game will take players about 7-8 hours to complete, though there are elements of replayability to be revealed later. “We wanted to poke fun at the IP; we wanted to use all the self-referential humor that’s characteristic of Lego properties.

“We also very much wanted to make sure that the game had a very broad appeal […] We didn’t make the whole open-world game and put it in here. We told a story that we felt captured some of the spirit of the original, some of the themes […] It’s more of an inspiration.”

Given how those themes originally included things like climate change and corporations’ habit of commandeering a dilemma to present a solution before making matters worse, I wondered how much of the game would go into those beats specifically. “We definitely pushed some of the more complicated and truly dark themes very much into the background. Those ideas are in the game, but they’re very subtle,” he said. “You know, the story takes place more in the present and is very much focused around the more emotional story of a girl looking for her mother who gets drawn into an adventure with existential stakes.”

Just as it translates the story and world into bricks and minifigs, one of the coolest parts of my demo was how it transforms the series’ weak-spot targeting system into a simpler version that less experienced players can grapple with more easily, specifically on the Nintendo Switch’s small controllers. “A lot of thinking went into that,” Windeler revealed.

“But we also wanted to make sure that we maintained the kind of level of tactical thinking and combat that the fans of the franchise might be used to, too. So even though the control schemes are quite simple, you will recognize mechanics, like [focusing] on the weak spot, but also, there’s like a complexity; there’s a difficulty slider, and if you slide it up, there’s a requirement to really kind of engage on a tactical level.”

In practice, this involves holding the aim button at a machine’s parts as they glow a vibrant yellow, just like in the traditional Horizon games, then releasing it to hit the robotic beast in that spot. Players can also sneak around in the tall grass and even kick off wildfires that propagate across the brick-filled landscape, causing chaos and even sometimes solving environmental puzzles.

And of course, in two-player co-op, all of these elements can be doubled, creating a kid-friendly combat system that is still more like an action-adventure game rather than a traditional Lego game, which tends to a button-mashy brawler. In a word, Winderler called Lego Horizon Adventures’ combat systems “frantic.”

With Lego Horizon Adventures reimagining the story, whether it’s for a visual gag or just to make it a better family gaming experience, I asked if Guerrilla ever flinches at the task of taking a character like Aloy, whom the studio has always spoken so highly of, and turning her almost into a caricature of herself. But Windeler doesn’t see a conflict there.

“We do have the single-player games, you know,” he said. “We’re still very protective of the characters in that canon, [but] everyone who was involved in this wanted to have fun with it. There are still some heart-wrenching moments in the story. And like, we’re not completely skipping out on the emotion of the original story. But it’s definitely meant to bring joy to people.”

Lego Horizon Adventures arrives on PS5, PC, and–yes–Nintendo Switch this holiday season.