Guerrilla Games and Studio Gobo on the making of Lego Horizon Adventures

Of all the entertainment properties to get the Lego video game treatment, PlayStation’s Horizon series probably wouldn’t be what first comes to mind. After all, Guerrilla Games’ action-adventure series is a somber tale about people trying to survive in post-apocalyptic world overrun by vicious machines. And yet, the Lego treatment is exactly what the series has gotten in Lego Horizon Adventures, a new family game from Studio Gobo, a veteran developer that’s assisted development on the likes of Hogwarts Legacy and Disney Infinity.

MobileSyrup sat down with Stephane Varrault, design director at Guerrilla, and Damian Buzugbe, lead concept artist at Studio Gobo, to learn more about this unexpected video game. The team discussed their collaboration with each other and Lego, the process of translating a more teen- and adult-leaning property into a family-friendly experience, the inspirations from The Lego Movie and more.

I read that Lego is actually the one who pitched this idea to Guerrilla. What did that collaboration look like? Were there any specific things you were told a Lego game had to have?

Stephane Varrault: The origin really is like an alignment of planets that really sounds like a fairy tale. On our side, at Guerrilla, we’ve always been fans of Lego. One thing is, if you take Zero Dawn, for instance, the initial machines, we’ve actually started to prototype them with Duplo bricks. So that’s how far and how passionate Guerrilla is about Lego, and we’ve always wanted to do something [with that]. And speaking with Lego, indeed, we discovered that they were actually also big fans of Horizon. So from then on, we started discussing. What happened internally at Guerrilla, we did a series of pitching processes, so we had like 15 different proposals for the game. And so the one that we launched is the one that got retained. So we were very autonomous in terms of what kind of experience do we want to do in the game.

And with Lego, it’s been a really super positive and creative back and forth about how do we build the environments, how do we build the machines, how do we make that work? And I’m saying planets, and the reason is two planets because at the same time that we were in talks with Lego, we were also in discussions with multiple partners to see what could be the opportunities. And we came across Studio Gobo that we had been following for a while. What we really liked, I think, is two things. One is the exceptional track record of collaborations on a lot of super great and well-known IPs, and the other was also they already had experience in games for a wide audience. So for us, it was like ticking all the boxes, and that’s how the three planets actually align.

Damian Buzugbe: Studio Gobo has been a co-dev studio for a long time, as he said, partnering with lots of big studios on some really big games, and kind of specializing in character action and and often in a family zone and family-friendly games. And so when we pitched for this game, we were always wanting it to be co-op, we always wanted it to be inclusive for everybody. And it was just a perfect match, really, for the three teams of Guerilla, Gobo and Lego to team up. And the studio’s always been full of Lego, and a ridiculous amount of Lego in the studio, and he’s got there’s even more now. So it’s great. [laughs]

What did that ongoing collaboration look like between your studios?

Varrault: All the development has been handled by Studio Gobo, and at Guerrilla, we had an internal team of directors to provide advice, to provide support, as the creators of the brand — what can work within that brand, what is the best way to choose and to implement things to create the experience. So it’s been a constant, daily back-and-forth exchange of ideas. We want to create combat, so how should we devise combat together for it to match the Horizon experience, but also to be playable by a family audience. So for every topic, every element of the game, it’s been really constant, ongoing discussions. And we met, of course, to review the bills collectively, or we would be sending messages all along to check this particular side of the game, this way to represent the characters or the machines. So, yeah, I think creative back and forth is really the way to sum it up.

Buzugbe: And within Gobo, because the whole studio was working on the game and really infused with it, but especially in the art team, the field I’m in — we integrated Lego Master Builders into our pipeline, and they were part of the team working with us every day. So, yeah, we’re really good at making games, but these guys are really good at making Lego. And the minute we wanted the whole world to be Lego brick built, we needed the professionals bought in, and it was stunning to see what the Lego Master Builders could take from our concepts and working with the 3D guys. So the unison of these teams working together was fantastic. It was a really good collaboration. And also they needed Lego as well with the guidelines and their Bible and all of their knowledge. It was a really fantastic, fun game to make.

What I think is really interesting about this game is it gives you a completely different framework to reimagine the world of Horizon. Those original games aren’t rated M for Mature, but they are more mature in terms of tone and atmosphere and themes. So, how did you decide what elements to sort of maintain, which to change to make more family-friendly, and which to invent entirely for this game and take a little bit of creative liberty?

Varrault: To me, Lego and Horizon, we meet on the ground of values especially, and that was the initial starting point. Yes, if you look at it from the outset, it’s very different kind of experiences for different kinds of people. The themes are, of course, very different, because, as you said, there is a mature franchise and there is a family franchise. But on the ground of discovery, player autonomy, creativity also being welcoming for everyone… There’s the notion, in Horizon, of finding your community, finding a family. And so these are all values that we share and we have in common, and that we try to develop and amplify in every aspect of the game, whether it is gameplay, whether it is art, whether it is narrative. We really, really focused on this first and how can we instil a bit of those values in every element of the game.

Buzugbe: One of our pillars was “Horizon inspired and Lego realized.” We love both of the worlds, but you also want to see what Lego could bring to it. And I read the other day. I can’t remember where it was from, but he said, “This is a retelling of an older story by the child’s imagination that they’re playing in their bedroom,” which I thought was really beautiful. It’s like a kid’s play. They’ve heard of this story of the Horizon, and it’s retelling it, and it kind of fits perfectly with the game and how you feel like you’re dropped into this world, how a kid would be down on the floor playing and reliving this story. So it kind of worked out really well.

Varrault: If you look at how the game plays, in particular, I think a lot of the work has been to reward intention over execution. So that’s why we have elemental systems, for instance, with fire, ice and electricity, because it’s becoming instantly intuitive for everyone how to use that. You apply ice on water, it freezes. You apply fire on the grass, it burns. And you can create chain reactions. So if you have an idea, the game should allow you to make it work. And for us, that was the entry point. This works regardless of your experience in games. You can be a parent. You can be a kid who is playing for very long. This can be your first game, or the game you receive at Christmas, and the whole family is around the TV. And that was really part of the intention, right from the start, that we should include everyone, and that everybody could pick up the gamepad and play.

Likewise, we have five different difficulty levels, so if you want to just follow the story, that’s what you can do. And there’s going to be a very, very light challenge. There’s also room, because the combat system actually can be demonstrative of quite some depth if you really, really want to push it. So the very last difficulty level, for instance, I think even has challenge for an experienced player, and that’s been designed like this right from the beginning.

On the subject of reinventing things from Horizon. What I’ve really liked as I was playing, as someone who’s a fan of Horizon, is how each character has their own little quirks. Like Erend is really into doughnuts or Rost is breaking the fourth wall. How did you balance sort of adding those little light hearted flourishes to bring a bit more levity to the game but also stay true to who those characters are?

Varrault: If we take especially like the four main characters that you play, but I think it goes the same way for Hades, for instance, or for Sylens… If I take the main game, what is their defining trait, what is the key element of their narrative arc, and how can I induce that in the game? For Aloy, of course, it’s understanding the mystery of the origins and finding a family or a community. Varl, which is probably my favourite character in the game, it’s like he’s trying too hard to be accepted, and he’s really, really pushing himself to be the best, to be a hero and be perfect. Erend, I think, is just enjoying the moment. And that’s a fine re-transcription. And Teersa, it’s more like she’s seen it all, and she’s helping the others from that perspective of wisdom.

So for us, it was that approach that if there’s one notion, one element, one motivation in life for every character, what should it be? We had a fantastic team of writers at Studio Gobo, and we’ve also been super inspired with by The Lego Movie, so we really worked with writers and even animation directors who are really, really knowledgeable about creating this and building that multi-layered narrative so that you watch the same second of the same scene, but a parent will understand something different than what the kid will understand, or the joke can work on different levels. So there’s always been that search for every second of the game to be so multi-channel and multi-layered and have something for everyone.

Buzugbe: It’s a great opportunity as well to get to spend a bit more time with the characters. Because in the main game, you’re Aloy, and they feature, but not as much. And this time, you get to see how these four characters interact as well. Some of the barks and the conversations they have are brilliant. So it’s seeing them all play off against each other, and it’s expanding that. It’s expanding the world of Horizon, but through a Lego lens.

Another thing that I think is pretty interesting is you have those special limited-use weapons, like the hot dog card. And thematically, they kind of fit in the world of Horizon, in the technological sense, but they’re also very zany. What was the inspiration behind some of those more outlandish ones and how did fit them in the world of Horizon, but also the world of Lego?

Buzugbe: A lot of that was led from gameplay — gameplay is king. Some of our designers would have pages and pages of whiteboards of ideas and then prototypes and demos. And so gameplay was king. The ones that got chosen were the ones that were most fun to play — the ones that gave us the most opportunity for the chaos in the play area. And then we would look at how to bring this into the world of Horizon? Can we bring this into the world of Lego? And that was how they emerged — they evolved from gameplay and testing.

Varrault: One formula that we refer to often throughout the development was how we can create what we call “joyful chaos.” So I spoke earlier about player autonomy, and it’s exactly that. We give tools to the players. We give them gadgets. We give them weapons. Most of the time, every gadget, every weapon, it can be used in two different ways, at least. So the more you combine these gadgets and these weapons and the more autonomous you are in your approach to solving your situation. And that’s one essential point for us gameplay-wise.

This is a beautiful game. On top of running on Unreal Engine 5, you made the decision for every single part of the world be made out of brick, which isn’t something that every LEGO game has done before. And then this is the first time in the Horizon series is launching on PlayStation and PC and Nintendo Switch at the same time. What were some of the challenges of hitting that very high level of fidelity while also developing the game for three platforms at the same time?

Buzugbe: Yeah, we like to make life hard for ourselves. [laughs] As Stephane said earlier, one of our inspirations was the Lego movies, and we wanted to be the best-looking Lego game ever made, and that was our high bar. The early days were all, “Can we achieve that?” And the further and further we got down development using Unreal, we were like, “We can achieve this! We can do this!” It was really hard. Thankfully for the Master Builders, they’ve done a million rocks. You wouldn’t know how many rocks they’ve done, but everything, the restrictions that Lego brings — like how you’ve only got so many bricks — there would be a perfect solution, a perfect engineered solution to those problems. Like the fact you’ve only got 50 colours and three greens, our environment team will figure out a way to make this work in the world, in bringing all those different biomes with restrictions. But it brings it back to that Lego world and that Lego wrapper. So it was a challenge, but it was a really fun one.

I’ve seen some of the team talk the idea that you get to share Horizon with a younger audience now, like your kids might not have played the other games because of the subject matter and the intensity of the gameplay. What’s it been like now that you’ve made this game and it with that younger audience? What were some of their big takeaways or reactions exposed to this franchise for the first time?

Varrault: From what I’ve seen, one element that got received really positively was the co-op. And there is a lot of fun to be had playing co-op. I think especially for the kids together. It’s also the reason why we wanted it to happen on the same screen, on the same TV, and it’s so that you can really create more chaos together. One player is already super autonomous in their way to solve situations, but if you add two players, the movement, the combination of the systems, you really start to get something that’s really fun to watch and really fun to enjoy. If you watch the streams as well, people have been creating really, really crazy situations, and we’re having fun creating those combinations of moments together. So I think that’s really the first reaction we got. It’s positivity in creating that chaos and the joy of playing together.

Buzugbe: The joy of throwing some cultists off a cliff is never-ending.

Buzugbe and Varrault: [laugh]

Buzugbe: Kids seem to love that. And also eggs — eggs in the hub are a big appeal.

As game makers, what was your favourite part of getting to work with Lego as a property, especially as it relates to Horizon?

Varrault: For me, it was the ability to mix different universes. And I think with many other brands, it could be seen as introducing something that is not logical or something that is out of context. And to me, Lego gives you permission, actually, to blend those words together. There is no justification besides it’s fun. [Even in] cutscenes and the characters wearing the outfits, in some other context, [it would be] breaking the continuity or breaking the consistency. But here, it’s actually completely embraced, just like in the movie, that you can just do it as if you were playing with your toys at home, and to me, it’s that freedom of blending a world and universe that’s actually super refreshing as a developer, and I think also, from what we see, for players.

Buzugbe: For me as a developer, it was a dream project I’ve never had. I’ve been in the games industry 26 years now, I think, and I’ve never had the opportunity to work on my Lego game. I’ve obviously played with them since I was a little kid, my first medieval castle set, and I’ve still got Lego on my desk. I’ve got a Tallneck on my desk. I just bought a llama from Fortnite. I don’t even like Fortnite, but the llama was so cool. So Lego has always been, in my 48 years, surrounding me, and the chance to work on a game, on it, and work on a game in a universe I really adore with the Horizon franchise was a dream come true.

This interview has been edited for language and clarity.

Lego Horizon Adventures is now available on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and PC.

Image credit: PlayStation

Update: 21/11/2024 at 11:56am ET — This feature previously mentioned the game is on both PS4 and PS5, but it’s actually only available on the latter. We’ve updated the piece accordingly.