Horizon Zero Dawn when it was first launched in February 2017, it earned favorable reviews across the board. In these original reviews, many critics praised Horizon Zero DawnThe world building, the performances, the presentation, the story and its surprisingly strategic gameplay, with combat requiring players to target specific weak points of the robotic dinosaurs they were hunting. Horizon Zero DawnThe foundations were solid enough to warrant an expansion a few months later, an eventual sequel and its own expansion, and now even a LEGO spinoff in LEGO Horizon Adventures.
Announced in June, LEGO Horizon Adventures is due out on November 14 for PlayStation, PC and Nintendo Switch. According to pre-release marketing and previews LEGO Horizon Adventures will retell the events Horizon Zero Dawnalbeit with plenty of added branded LEGO humor and charm. Surprisingly, there is one particularly charming addition LEGO Horizon Adventures this actually corrects a longstanding criticism Zero Dawn.
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How LEGO Horizon Adventures Avoids Common Criticisms of Zero Dawn
Horizon Zero Dawn's facial animations were a major point of criticism
While Horizon Zero DawnWhile the visuals were heavily praised upon its debut in 2017, there was one element of the game's presentation that quickly drew criticism from fans online. generally speaking Horizon Zero DawnFacial animations were below par. Many of the game's character models exhibited very stiff facial movements when speaking, and the in-game lip sync was noticeably poor, giving some of the game's scenes a surreal look and feel.
These facial animation issues were ironically made much worse by the rest Horizon Zero Dawnstellar presentation. The environments looked incredibly detailed and vivid, the state-of-the-art lighting systems gave the game a natural, realistic tone, and the character models were generally complex and varied. In between all this, Horizon Zero DawnThe facial animations stood out like a sore thumb.
Fortunately, developers Guerrilla Games have taken this criticism on board and learned from it. Horizon Zero DawnThe Frozen Wilds expansion featured much improved facial animations for its characters and naturally, Horizon Forbidden WestThe facial animations were a huge improvement over those, with the 2022 game making excellent use of the PS5's hardware. Recently released Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered it finally fixes the infamous animation issues of the original 2017 game and brings a lot of technical improvements to the table.
LEGO Horizon Adventures avoids this criticism by embracing it
Coming LEGO Horizon Adventures it has its own funny way of getting around Horizon Zero Dawnfacial animation issues. Instead of focusing on realistic facial movements, LEGO Horizon Adventures includes deliberately stiff animations that mimic the stop-motion style The LEGO Movie. At that LEGO Horizon Adventures ironically, it avoids the original game's animation issues, opting instead to make its stiff animations an obvious part of the game's art style.
actually LEGO Horizon AdventuresFacial animations don't just guarantee game avoidance Zero Dawn's critics, actively contribute to the magic of the LEGO game. Along with summoning The LEGO Movie vibration, LEGO Horizon AdventuresThe facial animations still manage to convey a lot of emotion, all while maintaining the authenticity of the construction toy and its physical limitations. LEGO Horizon Adventures he fully embraces his LEGO aesthetic, and it's great to see him accidentally fix one of these Zero Dawnthe most criticized elements.