I’ve been a big fan of Sony & Guerilla Games’ Horizon franchise since I first played Horizon: Zero Dawn in 2017 and Horizon: Forbidden West in 2022. As someone passionate about dinosaurs as a child and married to a Native American archeology record-keeper, the idea of combining ancient tribes, dinosaurs, a good mystery, and unexplained technology was super appealing to me. So, when my favorite toy company, Lego, announced they were releasing Horizon Lego sets, I couldn’t wait to get the Tallneck. When Warner Bros. Games announced they would partner with Sony and Guerilla to release a Lego Horizon Adventures title, I was through the roof with joy.
I have loved the Lego games going back to some of their early releases. Lego City Undercover is probably the greatest GTA-like nobody ever talks about. In a world where games like Sleeping Dogs, Yakuza, Saints Row, and others get all the attention for delivering on the open-world crime-driven games, Lego City Undercover was a complete masterpiece with incredible writing, amazing set pieces, wonderful characters, and managed to do all of that without forcing parents to sit over their kids’ shoulders wondering if the content is age-appropriate. Lego Marvel Super Heroes was another outstanding offering that I fondly spent hours playing.
So, when I fired up Lego Horizon Adventure expecting to get another puzzle-filled, character-laden adventure that would let me relive many of my favorite moments from these games, I was massively upset to discover I had instead been given a bog-standard platformer with no puzzles, very few selectable characters, and lacking all of the charm and special features fans have come to expect from Lego games — hunting for Red Bricks, unlocking stud multipliers, and other various cheats, rewards, and power-ups. None of it was there. It was nothing more than a barely serviceable platformer that carried the name Lego but had nothing fans have come to expect from their titles.
While the entire original cast has returned except for the late, great Lance Reddick, replaced by Tim Russ, the cast doesn’t seem to share the same connections and report with Russ that they had with Reddick. Of course, this is to be expected but it is very noticeable when you’re playing. To be fair to Russ, he does a perfectly fine job playing Sylens and, should he continue with the franchise, I have zero doubts he will develop that report and connection with the other members of the cast. It’s unfair to ask him to accomplish all of that and deliver a performance on par with a character actor as iconic as Lance Reddick. I think it was smart of Lego to give each character a trait they didn’t have in the source material and Sylens being an EDM DJ is completely on point and something I’m sure Reddick would have appreciated to no end. It also makes me wonder if Sylens and Moonbeard from The Plucky Squire meet up at a Wreck-It Ralph-style nexus where all video game DJs can party at the same time, regardless of their developer.
Lego Horizon Adventures does a fairly decent job of bringing uninitiated fans through the game’s story and emotional beats with all the care and humor you would expect from a Lego game. Deaths are lighthearted and often humorous while some of the more adult-themed moments like the reveal of Ted Faro are way toned down or barely alluded to in passing. This is neither here nor there for my sensibilities, but it’s probably relieving to parents who want to share the adventures of Aloy and others with their children, but might not be too keen on their child seeing a hideous and grotesque mutant of a man, Ted Faro, or them learning how he experimented on humans and society.
While Lego Horizon Adventures was not my favorite Lego game of all time, I do think it’s a wonderful way for parents to introduce their kids to this franchise, and at the end of the day, that’s really what these games are about. They’re not meant to be a one-for-one of the original material. They’re not meant to be as heavy or as violent. These are games meant to be enjoyed and to remind you why you love Lego and Horizon in the first place. To that end, this game succeeded in doing both. As long as you temper your expectations, you’re going to have a good time revisiting Mother’s Heart, the Carja, and the Cauldrons in Lego form.
BSO Rating: 6.75-of-10
