LEGO HORIZON ADVENTURES

Bricks and stones may break robo dino bones

We can never pass up the chance to play with some Lego, especially when it’s PlayStation itself asking. Going hands-on with a slew of other titles, we’re struck by the decor of the booth we’re beckoned into – the walls of the first floor tactfully lined with mini murals documenting the history of PlayStation ending in 2020 with the release of PS5. Oh, how things have changed since then…

Four years on from the console’s launch, we live in a world where a small indie hit like Helldivers can lead to a bigger-budget sequel that becomes one of PlayStation’s fastest-selling games ever; where first-party games are launched on both PC and rival console platforms on day one; and where we get to meet a Lego-fied Aloy alongside a much more family-friendly version of the Nora tribe.

BACK TO ZERO

Two things stick out when you start playing Lego Horizon Adventures. First, this is not an entirely new story created just for young players – instead, it’s a retelling of Horizon Zero Dawn in the Lego house style, which means slapstick comedy and lower stakes. While this sounds like an interesting setup, we can’t help but wonder how certain, darker, story elements will be handled.

Longtime Lego steward TT Games became really good at translating moments of drama into humorous versions – for instance, Boromir’s final scene in Lego The Lord Of The Rings sees him felled by a bow loaded with a banana. Even Lego Star Wars manages to take the high ground when it comes to Anakin Skywalker’s dismemberment at the hands of Obi-Wan Kenobi. However, the frequently dour post-postapocalypse of Horizon, the worldending implications of the story, and the existence of a tribe that kidnaps the Nora in order to enslave them will make it a challenge to lend Lego charm to certain story elements.