Guerrilla Games has explained why LEGO Horizon Adventures is skipping an Xbox release later this year – but the studio’s reasons haven’t exactly cleared things up.
LEGO Horizon Adventures is set to debut on PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch this holiday season, bringing PlayStation’s first-party franchise to a rival console for the first time. But Guerrilla Games, Sony and the LEGO Group have passed up the chance to take Aloy over to Xbox, presumably to avoid handing one of their exclusive characters to a competitor with closer demographic crossover than Nintendo.
That was what we all assumed, anyway – especially given releasing LEGO Horizon Adventures on Switch was already a surprising move from Sony – but now Guerrilla Games’ narrative director James Windeler has provided an official comment on the situation to Game File. It’s tough to say it sheds any real light on the studio’s reasons for skipping Xbox, though.
“Right now, we’re just very much focused on pushing this hardware to its limits and making this game look as amazing as it can possibly be on this hardware,” Windeler said. “You know, we don’t really have anything to announce about Xbox right now.”
It’s not much of an answer given the Xbox is more powerful than the Switch, so you’re not going to encounter any new hardware restrictions by taking the game to Microsoft’s console (and it’s already coming to PC). But perhaps the real question isn’t why the game isn’t coming to Xbox, but why it is coming to Switch: and Guerrilla has already confirmed the intention is to bring the Horizon franchise to a younger, family-friendly audience.
Xbox’s demographic doesn’t skew as closely to that target audience as Nintendo’s, so we’re back to assuming that Sony considers Microsoft’s console a closer rival for its own than the Switch. It’s a decision that makes good business sense for PlayStation as a platform, but it’s the players who ultimately lose out.
LEGO Horizon Adventures debuts on PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch later this year. For now, check out 10 things we learned from the hands-on previews.
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