Lego Horizon Adventures was officially announced, and it signals that video games are entering the cultural zeitgeist like never before.
This year’s Summer Game Fest showcase kicked off with a trailer for Lego Horizon Adventures—a Lego adaptation of Guerrilla Games’ Horizon series.
In the original Horizon games, you play as the outcast Aloy, hunting giant machine creatures in a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi setting. In addition to performing impressive takedowns of what are essentially robot dinosaurs, Aloy must piece together her own history and the history of the Earth’s apocalypse.
The trailer for Lego Horizon Adventures showed a Lego version of Aloy bopping around Horizon’s lush and colorful landscape. The game looks to be filled with the quirky charm and humor characteristic of Lego games.
Lego games have a long history of drawing from licensed properties, beginning with Lego Creator: Harry Potter in 2001. Lego games have adapted content from Batman, Marvel, the Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars.
These franchises represent some of the most loved stories and worlds of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Most of the Lego games draw from movies, or books that have been turned into movies.
But Lego Horizon Adventures is going to be a game about a video game. This surprised me.
While technically Lego Horizon Adventures is not the first Lego game to be based on a separate video game franchise (Lego Rock Band came out in 2009 and Lego Fortnite came out in 2023) it represents a departure. It is the first Lego game to be based on a triple-A single-player role playing game (RPG).
Single player RPG games (Fallout, GTA, Red Dead) are expensive, and they take a lot of time to play. They are associated with storytelling in a different way than mobile games and online games.
The fact that Lego is basing its newest title on a single-player RPG game says something about the state of video games: video games, and the stories they tell, are entering pop-culture to a new degree.
The original Horizon games sold over 32 million copies worldwide. We are in a moment where video games represent the largest slice of the entertainment industry. The industry grosses more than the film and music industries combined.
Over 200 million Americans are playing video games. Summer Game Fest has started drawing more viewers than the Academy Awards.
Given that the funny, light, and approachable Lego games have attracted children and more casual players, it’s likely that this new title will bring the world of Horizon to new audiences.
While this could pose challenges (children will not likely already be familiar with the franchise) it also reflects the fact that studio execs feel confident that Horizon’s story and fan base are strong enough to carry the new game.
Like the plethora of successful TV series that are bringing game stories (Fallout, The Witcher, The Last of Us) to new audiences, Lego Horizon Adventures signals a moment in which powerful stories from video games are finding success among audiences that have not previously gamed.
I’m excited for the ways that Lego Horizon Adventures could potentially bring new audiences into the world of gaming. I’m hoping that the game will provide different types of players (including families with young children) the chance to connect over Aloy’s fun and meaningful adventure.
Lego Horizon Adventures is set to launch on PlayStation 5, PC, and Nintendo Switch in late 2024.
