While LEGO Horizon Adventures was rumored for a week before Summer Game Fest, we never imagined that the Nintendo Switch logo would appear at the end of its hilarious reveal at the live show. PC for sure, but Aloy on Nintendo? This made us rub our eyes in amazement, because aside from the MLB: The Show series (which was a successful exclusive to Sony’s own consoles before 2021), this is the first time we’ve seen one of its biggest IPs make the jump to a rival console, even when you slightly in a more family way.
While Sony’s invitation to show off the new Horizon game at their basement booth at Summer Game Fest 2024 initially sounded a fight-or-flight alarm in our Nintendo fan noggins, we survived the ordeal unscathed and walked away with a positive outlook on this new Lego build. Even though this author personally didn’t have much experience with the Horizon games, we didn’t feel out of place and are actually much more curious to dive into their world than before. So that sounds like “mission accomplished” right? It’s also worth noting that we got our hands on the PS5 version at the event, which had no issues launching the game, but we’re incredibly excited to see it launch on Switch, hopefully sometime soon.
We’re aware that the Horizon games deal with some pretty serious subjects, but one thing that was immediately clear in our roughly 30-minute demo was just how much fun this brick-built world is trying to have with itself. The story follows the events of the first game, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Aloy embarks on a journey to learn more about her origins while trying to survive in this post-apocalyptic world filled with robotic predators. But since this is a Lego game, fun is at the forefront of every moment. Aloy and her comrades are constantly cracking jokes at their expense, creating plenty of hilarious nods to their alternate world endeavors that will land with those in the know. Surprisingly, these gags also didn’t fit the bill for us uneducated newbies.
During our demo, we noticed most (if not all) of the dialogue was voice-over, and several members of the original cast reprized their roles as well. We’re told that Ashly Burch was specifically scouted to see if she would fit this quirky new portrayal of Aloy, and from our perspective, she absolutely nailed it. Her bubbly personality paired with her quick delivery hit like a charm, and we’re thrilled to see her back in a role as crazy as her character from her original web series Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’?
PlayStation darlings Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West are both third-person action RPGs and are often compared to Nintendo’s Zelda: Breath of the Wild. However, Lego Horizon Adventures is most reminiscent of the original Lego Star Wars games on the GameCube. Playing from a dynamic top-down perspective, you’ll jump through chapters in two-player co-op, online or offline, that you can drop in and out of. As you’d expect from a Lego game, there’s also a large cast of characters and 100s of silly costumes to dress them up in.
We skipped through two of the game’s first levels, which saw us blast cultists and mecha dinosaurs in the face with Aloy’s bow and arrow and Varla’s spear, and even found temporary fire upgrades for said weapons here and there. We also got to try out some pretty fun special weapons that you’ll be able to find periodically throughout the game. In one instance, we found a brick splitter that we fully expected to allow us to carefully tear apart our enemies brick by brick, but instead it shockingly swings like a blunt baseball bat and unleashes a massive area of ​​effect.
Remember that hot dog, Tim Robinson looking guy from the reveal trailer? He actually appears in the game as an Assist Trophy-style summonable character that temporarily throws explosive glizzies at your enemies. Between the witty dialogue and wild, over-the-top combat, Lego Horizon seems to be a fun game for families and kids who might be interested in getting their foot in the door of the world of Horizon. Speaking of being kid-friendly, this difficulty actually caught us by surprise at times, so to quickly relieve us of the worry would be an overly simplistic walk in the park.
The world itself looks lush and has been carefully crafted from layers of precise Lego bricks. It looks exactly like someone built a Horizon “stage” in real Lego form. It’s easy to find beauty in the desolation and decay of empty streets. Even ordinary traffic lights composed of round red, yellow and green Lego studs will put a smile on our faces. We can only hope that the development teams had fun recreating a scene or two from the game with real Lego.
When we played the demo, we were told that the Switch version of the game is being built in-house between Studio Gobo and Guerrilla Games, and they aim to achieve parity between the alternate console versions, aside from the graphical differences. However, we wouldn’t be surprised if the PlayStation 5 version received some DLC with characters from the first PlayStation side or something similar. But who knows! Kratos of God of War and Nathan Drake of Uncharted are playable in Fortnite and have also made the jump to the respective Switch release.
Thinking of a special Link or Zelda costume in the Switch version is probably a pipe dream, but now that The Legend of Zelda has its own official Lego set, maybe it’s not such a crazy idea. It’s also pretty funny to think that PlayStation studios have Nintendo Switch dev kits in their buildings. Frankly, we find it an exciting prospect, and one that Guerrilla told us they’re excited about internally as well.
While Lego Horizon Adventures doesn’t appear to bring anything new to the industry on the surface, it’s a curious project that we’re happy to see created with such care for long-time Horizon fans and newcomers alike. The holiday 2024 launch window gives us plenty of time to catch up with the original series on our non-Nintendo hardware, but even if we don’t find the opportunity, we’ll still be just as excited to put our time into it when it hits the Switch later in the year.
Ready to build your foundations with Aloy on Switch? Let us know in the comments below!