BRINGING THE PASSION
Simon Brown, CG Studio Director and Christian Mills, Creative
Director at PASSION Games tell Sophie Carter all about their work on LEGO Horizon Adventures
What was it like adapting Horizon Zero Dawn into the established format of LEGO? Christian: Collaborating with companies you admire and can genuinely learn from is always a dream, and this project was no exception. We know that game development can be wonderfully
iterative. Animation, while incredibly fluid, sometimes has a more defined path. A key challenge for us was finding ways to bake that iterative mindset into our animation pipeline, ensuring the creative flow never hit a brick wall. We wanted to keep that spontaneous, evolving energy alive, allowing ideas to build and transform as we went. We quickly realized that bringing the sprawling
world of Horizon into LEGO form was going to require… a whole lot of bricks! We had to evolve our pipeline to match this task.
Simon: It was a bit of a double edged sword to be honest. We were lucky to have Guerrilla’s exquisite concept art and gameplay reference to honour and one of the most playful and well known toy brands to implement it in - but it was challenging. Horizon Zero Dawn and LEGO have opposing looks and overall vibes. One is super detailed and dense in a very naturalistic yet choreographed way, while the other is a simplified abstraction. One is serious and the other is playful, so these paradoxes were the main challenges. Both LEGO and Horizon Zero Dawn have their own
flavours.
Christian: It’s like being given two incredible LEGO sets and being asked to build something entirely new, but ensure it still feels undeniably like both. You have to respect the core DNA of each IP. For Horizon, that means capturing the sense of awe and danger, and the iconic character designs, even in their brick-built form. For LEGO, it’s about embracing that tactile, playful charm, the inherent blockiness, and the humor that comes from seeing familiar elements reinterpreted. We had to ensure that fans of both franchises would instantly recognize and connect with what they saw.
48 | MCV/DEVELOP June/July 2025
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