LEGO Horizon Adventures is perhaps the only game based on a big PlayStation IP due to launch this year. Of course, it is also a spin-off title that mainly targets kids of around eight years old.
Speaking to GamesIndustry, James Windeler, narrative director at Guerrilla Games (which is working alongside Studio Gobo on this project), said that fans of the franchise will still recognize the main characters in LEGO Horizon Adventures, even though certain themes take on a more lighthearted note due to the different target audience.
We have tried to keep as much of the story as possible. A lot of what happens in the world, like the destruction of the old world… that’s a pretty heavy theme for an eight-year-old. So we needed to find ways to keep that present in the story, because it is essential to Horizon. But it is also not something we leaned on. You won’t find some of those devastating reveals from the first game, like those corporate masterminds dead around the table or anything like that.
There are moments from the first game that packs a really heavy emotional punch, that we’ve found, I think, a very good way to represent faithfully, but undercut them with comedy that keeps things light-hearted. This stuff is present, but it’s certainly not surface. This is a much simpler version, but it has a lot of echoes from the original.
It has still got to feel like Horizon. We have definitely bent the rules a lot. But the characters remain core to who they are. I think we’ve found a really good balance with it. We have a lot of help. Ashley Burch is back as the voice of Aloy, and JB Blanc (as Rost). And you would have heard the exuberance to their performances. It is different to what the other games are, but they’re still recognisable. They’re part of it and they bought into it, and that’s been a huge boon to us.
LEGO Horizon Adventures is launching this December on PC, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch, leaving out Xbox and even cross-play multiplayer among the announced platforms.
