The first thing to know about the announcement recently Lego Adventures Horizon is that it is first and foremost a Lego game and an adaptation of Horizon Zero Dawn second. This is not an individual, brick-by-brick recreation of the vast open-world RPG, or even an abridged version. Think of it more as a Shakespeare for Kids version of the sci-fi adventure, except instead of translating the Bard’s iambic pentameter into contemporary English, it takes the familiar bones of a Lego adventure game and adds a prehistoric, robot-smashing touch. he.
It came as a bit of a shock when Sony revealed that it would be bringing Lego Adventures Horizon on Switch as well as PlayStation 5 and PC, but playing it for about half an hour at Summer Game Fest, it quickly becomes clear that it’s the perfect fit for Nintendo’s handheld hybrid. This holiday, the game features two-player co-op and was designed to be playable with a single joystick so multiplayer is an option out of the box, with players each using an individual Joy-Con.
Tim Symons, lead producer of franchise development at Guerrilla Games and the person who walked me through my demo, seemed excited to fulfill a sort of childhood dream. He joined Dutch studio PlayStation five years ago after more than a decade at Nintendo, surprise. He also loved playing with Lego as a child and told me that his favorite set he ever had was the giant pirate ship called Skull’s Eye Schooner (he wasn’t alone, it was also the set that I coveted while constantly browsing the house catalog at the time).
“For us, it’s super exciting to make a Nintendo game for the first time, right? Symons told me. He said that, rather than making the game for PS5 and cutting it down, both versions were made simultaneously. “We’re doing all of this at the same time, in parallel, so we have a dedicated engineering team optimizing all of this for Switch, but it will be exactly the same.”
Instead of a two-player split-screen, the two heroes, selected from Aloy, Varl and two others, share the same playspace and follow each other through lush, post-apocalyptic forests, villages and caves. Players have a single projectile attack – a bow and arrow in Aloy’s case and a spear in Varl’s case – with the ability to gain additional limited-use power-up abilities over the course of the game. exploration of each level. The machines you encounter still have weak points like their counterparts from the original PlayStation 4 game, but there’s no stopping to target specific parts or using Aloy’s abilities to bypass and control them .
She does, however, still have her Focus, which can be used to highlight interactive objects and other useful information in each level, and you can still deploy makeshift traps by lighting objects on fire, exploding barrels of ice and taking advantage of other elemental effects. I didn’t really see the traditional building mechanics of a Lego game put to good use, with much of the exploration and combat feeling more like a stripped down version of Horizon, with a light upgrade skill tree, something reinvented in the world of Lego. However, you can fight cultists, picking them up and throwing them at each other.
This narrower focus can make Lego Adventures Horizon seems simplistic but still compelling. Movement and action are well-controlled and the crunchy, tactile feel of Lego is everywhere, from the stop-motion animations to the fact that everything in the game was first designed from real pieces, a requirement of the company Lego.
“They would check everything to make sure every brick is real,” Symons said. “It’s basically their brick library. So we’re rebuilding the game in Lego, which was a cool challenge because we took inspiration from the films. The films are also made entirely of Lego and we have a bit of stop motion animation because we didn’t want to bend the plastic. We want to be true to the actual product.
Even the Horizon The story has been retuned to introduce the zany and irreverent humor that other Lego games and films are known for. Ashly Burch returns to play Aloy and we see that she has a lot of fun reinterpreting the character and her story through comic moments that vary from burlesque to knowing parody.
While Lego Adventures Horizon feels purpose-built for the Switch, it will have a few bells and whistles on its original PS5 platform, including a 60fps performance mode. There are also a wealth of customization options with light colony building mechanics and costumes from other Lego franchises and themed sets that can be unlocked over the course of the game. The main campaign lasts around eight hours and Symons has promised that post-story content and other unlockables would keep players busy beyond that duration.
I peppered him with a few more questions before my session ended. How Guerrilla CEO Hermen Hulst reacted at the time Horizon shipped and now co-CEO of PlayStation, what was his reaction when he first played the new game? “He loved it,” Symons replied with a laugh. What is Symons’ favorite Lego game? “The Marvel game is pretty good because there are so many different playstyles,” he said. And finally, does this new partnership mean Aloy could possibly join the next Super Smash Bros.? ” It would be good. If you talk to Nintendo and they want to invite us, let me know.
It’s clear that Lego Adventures Horizon is a carefully selected point of contact to obtain the Horizon the brand into the hands of more people, especially children, thanks in part to an abbreviated story that tones down some of the dark parts of the source material (I bet we’ll see some of it). more Horizon Lego sets too). At the same time, from the first steps, this seems like an obvious recommendation for any parent like me who likes Horizon and I have kids who want me to play games with them. This way it looks like the goal Minecraft Dungeons served to parents who love Diablo-inspired dungeon crawl. If Lego Adventures Horizon will manage to justify itself as a standalone game, remains to be seen. Minecraft Dungeons that’s certainly what he did. I hope Lego Adventures Horizon can also.