LEGO Horizon Adventures’ Melting Pot Approach is a Lesson for LEGO Games

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home November 8, 2024 43 Views 7 Min Read
LEGO Horizon Adventures' Melting Pot Approach is a Lesson for LEGO Games



LEGO games have come a long way since 1997’s LEGO Island. Though they started life as fairly simplistic sandbox games, park builders, and Mario Kart clones, LEGO games evolved into one of the most popular family-friendly action-platformer franchises around, with its bevy of movie tie-in games holding a close place in the hearts of many who grew up with them. Now, LEGO Horizon Adventures is presenting itself as the next part of LEGO’s evolution.




While LEGO has produced sets based on video game IP like Overwatch, Minecraft, Super Mario, and Sonic the Hedgehog, those collaborations don’t often make it back into the world of video games. LEGO Horizon Adventures seems to be setting a new precedent. Far more than just an adaptation of the first Horizon game, LEGO Horizon Adventures is packed with features, many of which hearken back to some of LEGO’s most revered games. And this melting pot-like approach might be worth revisiting.

Horizon Zero Dawn Facial Animations LEGO

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LEGO Horizon Adventures Is a Melting Pot of Past Ideas


LEGO Horizon Adventures Adapts a Well-Known Story

As mentioned up top, most of LEGO’s most popular games over the last two decades have been licensed movie tie-in games that adapt a handful of movies from a popular franchise, such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, and Jurassic Parks. In a similar vein, LEGO Horizon Adventures is adapting the story of Horizon Zero Dawn, the first game in the PlayStation first-party franchise.

The bulk of LEGO Horizon Adventures‘ runtime will likely be spent playing through the game’s linear levels, solving simple environmental puzzles and hacking away at hordes of both humanoid and robotic enemies. This gameplay loop will also probably hearken back to LEGO’s licensed adaptations. Two-player co-op will also be present in LEGO Horizon Adventures, allowing for some classic split-screen fun.

LEGO Horizon Adventures Borrows LEGO Fortnite/Worlds’ Customizable Hub

While LEGO Worlds wasn’t quite the Minecraft competitor it marketed itself to be, the game’s customizable biomes were a major strength. Those customizable biomes live on in LEGO Fortnite, with players being able to create a vast assortment of structures made from all different kinds of LEGO bricks. LEGO Horizon Adventures is trying to capture this customization and the player-freedom that comes along with it, letting players personalize their hub area with new buildings.


LEGO Horizon Adventures Brings Back Character Customization

For the first time in quite a few years, LEGO Horizon Adventures will let players customize their character. While a fully-fledged custom character creator likely won’t be in the game, LEGO Horizon will allow players to change the appearance of heroes like Aloy and Varl, equipping them with outfits based on classic LEGO themes like Space, as well as costumes based on fellow PlayStation franchises like LittleBigPlanet.

LEGO Horizon Adventures Embraces a Familiarly Whimsical Tone

A common strength among most LEGO games is their shared humorous tone. In classic LEGO titles where characters didn’t speak, this humor came from visual gags and facial expressions, and in more recent LEGO titles, this humor can occasionally come from tongue-in-cheek, often self-referential one-liners. It seems as though LEGO Horizon Adventures is carrying this trademark tone forward.


Future LEGO Games Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Borrow From The Past

Ideally, LEGO games should be constantly evolving, with each new entry bringing a handful of new features to table. But that no longer becomes an ideal scenario when the game loses a lot of what fans loved about the franchise in the process. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is a great example of that.

While LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga marked a major step forward for LEGO’s movie adaptations, its increased scope and scale left some beloved franchise features on the cutting room floor. Character customization, more linear levels, and proper co-op implementation in boss fights were all missing from LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga in favor of more playable characters, more side missions, and more open-world hub areas. While The Skywalker Saga was a solid evolution, future LEGO games should make sure they’re still keeping one eye on the past.


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