‘Lego Horizon Adventures’ review: the crossover no one asked for

If, instead of hi-tech killing machines, the primitive hunting tribes of Horizon Zero Dawn had stumbled across a long-buried Hamleys full of X-Men scenes made out of tiny plastic bricks, they might have had somewhat less respect for the pre-apocalyptic Old Ones. Or, for that matter, if they’d seen their brave and epic adventures reduced to a bunch of figurines hopping cheerfully through the sort of undergrowth you’d never stay silent if you trod on in the dark. But here we are, at what’s arguably a crossover too far.

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Until now, Lego’s fine art of making toytown pastiches of major franchises has been targeted as skilfully as Aloy’s bow. Their Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings and copious superhero games have captured a fun, cup-holder-handed new angle on universally known, family-friendly characters and storylines with reams of po-faced lore for Lego’s gag writers to spoof. Playable plastic Yoda! Armies of orcs in serious danger of getting Hoovered up! Hot Dog Guys everywhere! Nostalgiageddon!

But as they break into gaming franchise homages by following last year’s Lego Fortnite with an adaptation of 2017’s 24 million-selling open-world RPG Horizon Zero Dawn – created by the original game’s developers Guerrilla Games and rendered in some of the most glossily realistic virtual Lego landscapes yet – you’ve got to wonder who it’s actually for. The complex original game was aimed at older gamers who are unlikely to be thrilled by a simplistic retread. And younger players, for whom Horizon Zero Dawn was way too advanced, just won’t get the countless comedy references that litter the game.

Lego Horizon Adventures, then, should be treated as a lightweight and enjoyable – if mildly confusing – kids’ game which transposes many of Horizon Zero Dawn’s themes, threads and features to eight diverting hours of village building, cash-collecting and arena monster battles. You start as franchise star Aloy, the young hunter out to discover her origins after being abandoned as a baby, in this post-apocalyptic landscape where jungle, desert and snowy mountain co-exist a happy hop from the Mother’s Heart village hub.

But as your mission to defeat a sun-loving cult and its evil Comic Relief red nose of a boss goes on, you pick up a team of playable and upgradable characters: the heroic but clumsy Varl, the bomb-lobbing Teersa and the hammer-wielding, donut obsessed bruiser Erend. Legend tells of a mysterious ancient hero who might materialise mid-battle to throw exploding hot dogs at your enemies, but only the spirits truly know…

As a team, the foursome swap endless Horizon Zero Dawn in-jokes between missions which quickly becomes painfully repetitive. The actual action isn’t much better. Aside from a few intriguing and inventive platforming levels set in sci-fi underground “cauldron” caverns, you’ll follow the same pattern each time.

Explore two or three limited areas for chests, building opportunities or shootable objects to collect the game’s “stud” currency used to buy upgrades back in Mother’s Heart (follow silver studs for collectibles, gold ones for the main action). Then you’ll drop down into a couple of trap-laden arenas along the way for ganky fights against an increasingly tough variety of machine monsters – the scorpion-like Corruptor, the crab-ish Shell Walker, the croc-based Snapmaw.

Despite a reasonable array of Horizon Zero Dawn weapons and traps making it into the Lego version, these battles can be quite a challenge – particularly towards the top end of the five changeable difficulty settings. Horizon Zero Dawn’s inclusion of highlighted weak points on enemies has been carried over but things generally descend into a button-mashing free-for-all when mecha-beasts and cultists are coming at you from all sides. Still, once you find your weapon of choice (Varl’s boomerang spear smooshed our run-through) you’ll be slicing through these arenas like butter. And why stalk around positioning yourself for precision bowing when you can just pick up your enemies and lob them at one another?

There’s little incentive to develop your homestead or run missions dressed as a bee, and the more enjoyable fire-spreading environment puzzles and races to catch the elegant Longnecks are too few and far between, as are the cut-through jokes. “That meeting could’ve been a scroll” is the standout and likewise, as pleasantly diverting as it is, Lego Horizon Adventures could have been an Insta story.

‘Lego Horizon Adventures’ is out November 14 for PlayStation 5 and PC