Preview | Hands-on with LEGO Horizon Adventures

LEGO Horizon Adventures is just over the Horizon (pun intended)! Ahead of its November 14th launch date, we were invited to PlayStation’s Sydney headquarters to play the first hour of the game.

Here’s what we learned in our first foray into the LEGO post-apocalypse:

A tale as old as time

LEGO Horizon Adventures loosely follows the story of Horizon Zero Dawn, so the first hour that we played followed Aloy’s first journey out into the wild with her adoptive father Rost. From there, we climbed our first Tallneck and fought the first Carja cultists, who followed the cult leader Helis.

As Player 1, you’ll be playing as Aloy, with the second player taking control of another member of her party. For the first few missions, this was Rost, with Varl taking over after specific story moments *wink* *wink* for my Horizon Zero Dawn fans.

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This demo really showed me that LEGO Horizon Adventures is a LEGO game in the shape of Horizon, not the other way around. For folks who have played Horizon, you’ll get a kick out of seeing these moments retold, but I think the real opportunity is for parents who love the core games, and have kids that want to play alongside. Most of the cutscenes are played for comedic effect, but it’s clear that Ashly Burch is having a great time playing a lighter, more playful Aloy alongside JB Blanc (Rost) and John Macmillan (Varl).

Combat is the element that most made me question how well it would translate to LEGO. And from what I’ve seen, the answer is that it translates pretty well. Horizon Zero Dawn has its fair share of stealth and tactics baked into the combat, and there’s a little bit of that built into LEGO Horizon Adventures. You can start an encounter in stealth, moving from little LEGO bushes and hiding from robots and cultists. However, when you kick off combat, you won’t be backing into stealth again.

Be very, very quiet; we’re hunting dinos

Unlike Horizon’s over the shoulder view, combat is zoomed out to an almost top-down angle, where you can see cultists throwing weapons or telegraphing big spin attacks. You’ll also have robots like the Grazers do big leaping attacks to grind at you with their horns. One moment of excitement from my play session was realising that you can damage specific robot parts, and that changes the attacks they have available to them — just like in full-fat Horizon.

If you activate your Focus, it’ll highlight weak points on the robots; armour plates, generators, horns and the like that can be specifically targeted. Shooting the horns off a Grazer, for example, will deactivate their grinding ability, which makes them much less dangerous.

There are a few other cool little moments in combat that made me think there’s probably more as the game goes on. I started to spot more explosive barrels that could be grabbed and thrown, as well as shot when enemies walked past. The copses of brush that Aloy can hide in can be set on fire with flaming arrows, explosives or a double jump fire boot item that has limited uses. The fire will damage units, and remove the ability to sneak in those areas. Pure speculation on my part, but I hope there are enemies that make use of stealth that you can flush out by burning bushes — the Stalker machines with their cloaking ability would be obvious for this.

Alongside the aforementioned double jump boots, there are a few pickup items that I was able to try out, like a Scattershot bow that fired five arrows in a fan in front of you. In an example of the LEGO-ness leaking into Horizon, there was also a very out of place, but funny Hotdog Cart item that summons a cart with an attendant that throws explosive hotdogs at enemies. Weird.

You got LEGO in my Horizon

It’s wild how well the Horizon designs fit into a LEGO mould, the machines like Tallnecks, Grazers and Broadheads all look great. The nimble Watchers look the best in my mind, their simple, sleek design still reads perfectly in-game. Plastered over the loading screens, I had a look at the Thunderjaw machine, and it’s living rent free in my head until I get to see how that fight plays out.

Similarly, the environments are lovingly recreated out of individual LEGO bricks and studs. These aren’t the big open world of Horizon, but more isolated levels built like large LEGO dioramas. You’ll start at one end and make your way to an objective with plenty of zip-lines, yellow climbing points and hidden offshoots to find along the way. There always seems to be something off the beaten path, usually a chest containing LEGO studs or a buildable object looking out over the environment.

The standout level for my demo was following a Tallneck through an abandoned city (likely the Devil’s Thirst Tallneck from the first game). The Horizon games’ attention to creating realistic buildings and abandoned cities was always jaw-dropping to me, especially seeing how the natural world was reclaiming these desolate environments. Similarly, in LEGO form these maps are breathtaking, and I’m sure some avid LEGO Masters will create some of these environments brick by brick.

Outside the core levels, there’s a nice feedback loop that ties into collectables. Throughout the levels, you’ll collect studs for breaking objects, defeating enemies and opening chests. Back at the town of Mother’s Heart, you’ll be able to spend these on equipment upgrades, town customisations and outfits for Aloy and her co-op partners.

The town itself is very customisable. As you collect Gold Bricks from levels, you’ll unlock various plots around town to place buildings. With these, you can select the buildings’ tops, walls, floors, as well as outside decor. The one I chose used a Tallneck’s radar dish on the ceiling, and had a feasting table to one side, where Aloy can stop and chow down.

After an hour with the demo build, slipping back into Aloy’s shoes is exciting, but completely different, and I’m excited to play more. For the final verdict, we’ll have to wait until the full kit is assembled – but right now, LEGO Horizon Adventures is looking like it’s got all the right building blocks for something great.

LEGO Horizons Adventures is coming to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch on November 14th. It’s also coming to PC the following day, November 15th.