Guerrilla Games has discussed the origins of Lego Horizon Adventures and the decision to release the game for Nintendo Switch.
Announced during last week’s Summer Game Fest showcase, the action adventure title will hit PS5, PC and Nintendo’s console this holiday season.
Co-developed by Guerrilla and Studio Gobo, it’s billed as “a playful and light-hearted story inspired by the events of the world of Horizon”.
The game has been in development for about three years, according to James Windeler, a narrative director at Guerrilla who told VGC the studio plays home to “tons of Lego fans”.
“The story is that we prototyped the first machines for Horizon Zero Dawn with Duplo,” he said in an interview following the game’s reveal. “There are fanatics within the studio who have entire rooms of their houses devoted to Lego”.
“Also, there was the desire from devs who had been working on the Horizon games for eight, 10 years and wanted to make something that was a lot more whimsical and fun, and to kind of have fun with the IP.”
Windeler said Lego was “attracted to the world of Horizon because it’s a bright and colourful world”, and because there are “lots of elements within it that translate obviously into Lego, like the machines”.
He also said that while the themes in the main games can be quite dark, “a sense of optimism and hope that runs through them all” appealed to Lego, as did “the inclusivity of our fanbase”.
Asked about the decision to release the game for Switch, Windeler said: “It was just a really unique opportunity for us. It was a natural fit for the ambitions that we had.
“I keep mentioning it, but we want this to be for everyone, and the Switch is really a platform that allows us to broaden the audience.
“That ethos goes all the way through the game, from the control schemes which are quite simple, [for example] it works on a single Joy-Con, and then also the simplification of the story, the lightening of the themes, the humour – it’s all part of the same ambition.”