Highlights

  • LEGO Horizon Adventures may mirror The Skywalker Saga's realistic graphics in a rumored game collaboration with Sony.
  • Previous LEGO games by TT Games mostly featured cartoon-like graphics, evolving to more detailed, realistic environments over time.
  • LEGO Horizon Adventures could blend realistic graphics with LEGO elements to uniquely reimagine Horizon's high-tech machines and post-apocalyptic landscape.

A rumored LEGO Horizon Adventures video game is reportedly in the works between LEGO and Sony. Insider sources describe the game as basically LEGO Horizon Forbidden West with “realistic graphics.” While it’s unknown how the game will play or if it will adapt both Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, its realistic graphics detail can provide options on how a LEGO Horizon game may look.

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Previous LEGO Games’ Graphics

Most prior LEGO games have been developed by TT Games, having produced 2005’s LEGO Star Wars: The Videogame to 2022’s LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. While it’s unknown who’s developing LEGO Horizon Adventures, it’s probable TT Games would develop it given its 35 LEGO game catalog. Many of TT’s early LEGO games featured plastic, cartoon-like graphics to make their games more immersive in a LEGO world and due to hardware limitations. Oftentimes, plants, animals, and structures were made of LEGO bricks, while entire landscapes or gigantic structures were made with simplistic, non-LEGO graphics such as lakes or LEGO Lord of the Rings’ Minas Tirith.

By the late 2010s and early 2020s, LEGO games became more polished in their graphic fidelity. This allowed for more scenery to be made of LEGOs and allowed for more detailed non-LEGO environments to be developed. In 2017’s LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2, players could travel to medieval England, where most of the castles were built with realistic stone bricks rather than gray LEGO bricks. Meanwhile, players could battle each other or CPUs in a battle arena on Sakaar where the sand and structures were made largely of LEGOs.

LEGO’s Most Graphically Realistic Video Game

LEGO game environments reached their graphical peak with the release of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Here, players could encounter battleships that have their entire exterior and interior made of LEGO pieces. However, planetside environments had some of the most realistic graphics seen in a LEGO game to date, from Naboo’s lush forests to Crait’s salt fields and mountains. Neither of these environments featured LEGO pieces beyond LEGO minifigures, vehicles, animals and some plants or small structures. Usually, if an object was made of LEGO, this indicated that the player could break or interact with it in some way.

LEGO Horizon Adventures’ Graphical Potential

LEGO Horizon Adventures may go the route of The Skywalker Saga in terms of its graphics and environments. Most natural environments, such as the Nora’s snowy mountains or the Tenakth’s arid Stillsands, could be depicted with realistic graphics save for the occasional small LEGO structure. Large structures such as the Far Zenith Base may remain depicted with realistic materials instead of LEGO pieces. Meanwhile, interior areas such as Cauldrons or ruins could be depicted mostly with LEGO pieces. The main LEGO objects seen in the game could include minifigures, animalistic machines, harvestable plants, small structures, climbing points, and interior environments. To improve its realistic nature, LEGO Horizon Adventures may implement Forbidden West’s day and night cycle and dynamic weather as well.

The game could even feature realistic effects on clothing and machines. LEGO Aloy’s clothes could remain wet after swimming or damaged after a battle. Damaged overridden LEGO machines could be repaired with LEGO studs instead of shards or remain showing marks and missing pieces if left alone. Some of Forbidden West’s more detailed customization options could be carried over as well, such as the numerous face paint options to make LEGO Aloy and other characters appear more detailed or realistic.

LEGO Horizon Adventures may go the route of The Skywalker Saga in terms of its graphics and environments.

In that sense, the game may look very similar to the main Horizon games, just with LEGO characters and machines as the major difference between the two. Horizon Zero Dawn and HorizonForbidden West are already some of the most graphically realistic games on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Further details about LEGO Horizon Adventures are rumored to appear during an upcoming PlayStation Showcase.