LEGO® Horizon Adventures™ Pre-order Bonus (DLC)

I want to be straight with you from the top: this is a DLC listing for a pre-order bonus, not the base game, and what you're actually getting is cosmetic content - specifically, the Shield-Weaver Outfit for Aloy in LEGO Horizon Adventures. That outfit is a blocky reimagining of one of Horizon Zero Dawn's most iconic armors, originally earned in the source game by hunting down Power Cells and completing the Ancient Armory quest. Here, it unlocks in minifig form and becomes usable once you've hit the relevant in-game progression point. Worth knowing: the Shield-Weaver in LEGO Horizon Adventures may or may not carry the rechargeable energy shield mechanic from the original, since the developers flagged balancing concerns around it pre-launch. So, to the question of whether this DLC is worth picking up on its own: it isn't, really. It only has value attached to the base game, and the base game itself is a mixed bag that critics landed in pretty different places on. The core of LEGO Horizon Adventures is a linear, level-based action game built on the story of Horizon Zero Dawn, where Aloy and up to one co-op partner work through combat arenas across four environments - the Sacred Lands, Snowchant Mountains, Jewel Rainforest, and Sunfall Desert. The hub world, Mother's Heart, sits between missions and can be customized and rebuilt. Combat leans on Aloy's bow, weak-point targeting carried over from the main Horizon games, and per-character elemental abilities with limited charges. Most reviewers clocked the main story at somewhere between seven and ten hours, with completion percentage pushing well past half at that point. Where the base game earns praise: the visuals. LEGO Horizon Adventures is genuinely striking, running a stop-motion aesthetic that holds up at 4K on PC, and the world being constructed entirely from LEGO bricks - bridges clicking together underfoot, machines shattering into debris on death - gives it a tactile visual identity no other LEGO game has quite matched. The humor lands often enough, with the game leaning into slapstick parody of Zero Dawn's lore-heavy plot rather than playing it straight. The five difficulty settings, rare in the LEGO space, mean the higher end can push adult players more than the genre usually manages. Outfit customization is genuinely deep, mixing and matching pieces across characters in a way older LEGO titles never attempted. Where it earns criticism: the combat is thin, with each character limited to one primary move and shared pickups. Level design is repetitive and the absence of the series-traditional destructible environment loop - smashing everything, collecting studs, buying characters - makes it feel less like a LEGO game than fans expect. Replayability is low for a genre that normally thrives on it. The Shield-Weaver pre-order bonus is a single cosmetic that, bluntly, is unlockable in the base Horizon Zero Dawn for free. If you are buying the base game and want a recognizable outfit from the original on day one, it has that niche value. Outside of that, it is a thin add-on to a short and divisive game that will click for co-op families and Horizon-curious kids more than dedicated fans of either franchise. Alex, Scout Team