LEGO Horizon Adventures preview: A Horizon game I can get on board with

Before we get into this preview, I have a full and frank admission for you: I'm not the biggest fan of the Horizon games.

Don't get me wrong, I think Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West are beautifully made, but they've never quite clicked with me. I've always found Guerilla Games' post-post-post-apocalyptic world to be just a little dry.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I discovered the only thing needed to get me into Horizon was to turn everything to LEGO.

LEGO Horizon Adventures, developed by Horizon custodians Guerrilla Games alongside Studio Gobo, is an absolute joy. Alongside the incredible Astro Bot, it marks a refreshing return to imaginative, whimsical worlds from PlayStation instead of leaning into yet another gritty third-person adventure game.

I was recently able to play the first 90 minutes or so of LEGO Horizon Adventures, which serves as a kind-of reimagining of Aloy's earliest quest.

The main beats are very much the same; a mysterious baby named Aloy is found and raised as an outcast in a world populated by robotic animals and various tribes. But that delightfully referential sense of humour the LEGO games are famed for ensures a much more lighthearted take on the world and characters.

Suddenly, there are jokes about how Aloy just happens to have as many Focus devices as the plot demands, and meta jokes about the narrator arguing with the characters when the story doesn't make much sense.

The heart of this humour comes from Ashly Burch, who has reprised her role as Aloy but plays it completely differently. If you've ever seen Burch in Apple TV's Mythic Quest you'll know she's a genuinely brilliant and very silly comic actor, and it's fascinating to see her play a much more naive, childish version of the character she's already hoovered up awards for playing.

It's also important to note LEGO Horizon Adventures is not an open-world game like more recent LEGO entries or past Horizon games. This is very much to its credit.

Where LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was ultimately a rather bloated adventure filled with arbitrary open-world nonsense, LEGO Horizon Adventures is all about short, sharp bursts of fun through linear levels. You'll still smash up items and collect studs to buy upgrades, but the game plays and feels much more like a beat 'em up in which you move between locations and take on various robotic threats and rival tribes.

I was only able to play as Aloy during my preview, but LEGO Horizon Adventures has done an excellent job of taking her arsenal and playstyle from the main games and making it infinitely more accessible to younger audiences.

Aloy can still use her focus to highlight enemy weakpoints before using her bow and arrow to take them apart, but the whole thing is much more streamlined. You can also earn various temporary power-ups, like a spread shot or a double jump that sets fire to whatever is beneath you.

It's also worth noting LEGO Horizon Adventures is easily the best looking LEGO game to date, with an astonishing level of detail. For what I'm fairly certain is a first, every single object in the world is made up of actual LEGO, rather than just key props and characters.

Jumping in water kicks up individual blue bricks, while tearing a robotic animal apart will cause its individual pieces to pop off and rattle around. It's a deeply satisfying tactile diorama, and I can't wait to see more of the world in action.

Based on what I've played, LEGO Horizon Adventures is absolutely the real deal. While it's not the next big open-world adventure fans are clamouring for, it'll scratch the itch for any Horizon fans out there, and get younger gamers into Aloy in the process.