Would you like to take a look at our kitchen? In the lead up to a big event, we always plan a series of dates so that we can watch or play several games in a short time. Then we skip any queues that always exist at Gamescom, for example, and can do our work in peace. However, it often happens that publishers plan dates around games that have not yet been announced. These slots are then offered as an “unannounced game”. Of course, we always try to know the type of game in advance, but not every publisher is equally open about this. So it may happen that you accept such a non-informational invitation at a chance. You’re doing this not just with any party, but with a Sony PlayStation? We dared to take this gamble and so two appointments for practical training sessions with unknown games were added to my schedule.

When State of Play was released a week before the Summer Games Festival, one of these titles was already complete: Astro Bot, the successor to Astro’s Playroom. You can read more about this on Tweakers on Thursday. However, the other game remained empty, so we knew there would be another announcement during Summer Game Fest. Of course, it’s been rumored for some time that Guerrilla Games will be releasing a LEGO version of Horizon, and that’s exactly what happened. So those two planned slots were filled by Astro Bot and LEGO Horizon Adventures, and I can honestly say that disappointed me at first. You’re hoping against hope that you’ll suddenly attend the reveal of one of Sony’s biggest games for next year. But Lego? They’re mostly fun games, don’t get me wrong, but after Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel, etc., I’m tired of LEGO adaptations of popular franchises. I wasn’t looking forward to the LEGO version of Horizon.

Fast forward to the present and I can say: I was wrong. Not only are Astro Bot and LEGO Horizon Adventures among the most entertaining games I’ve played in these gaming days, but I wrongly assumed that LEGO Horizon would be exactly the same as all the other LEGO games. Logically: all of these LEGO games are made by TT Games, while this game is made by Guerrilla Games itself. Needless to say, this leads to a completely different game.

Of course there are also similarities. The most obvious is that the characters and game world are made of Lego. During our play session and interview about LEGO Horizon Adventures, it was also repeatedly mentioned that everything is made of Lego. In other words: you can turn everything you see in the game into reality. The building blocks that make up the game world in LEGO Horizon Adventures are real building blocks; They can all exist like this. This makes it even better that you’re instantly introduced to the world of Horizon as soon as you see this LEGO game in action. The game loosely follows the story of Horizon: Zero Dawn and is therefore also based on this game world. You can see that right away, even though everything was built with Lego.

Other elements that belong to LEGO are the loose style and the humor that comes with it, both in the dialogues and in the visuals. This means that all the characters are represented in Lego style, with all the hilarious consequences that entails. In addition, visual jokes fly across your screen. Sometimes they’re small and subtle, sometimes they’re big and gentle on your face. Take “hot dog guy,” which you may have seen in the trailer that PlayStation showed during Summer Game Fest. You can summon them in the game. It’s the kind of power you can use when the battle gets tough. Then he comes and sets up the hot dog stand and starts bombing the area from there. It doesn’t have to be serious and Guerrilla certainly takes advantage of that.