LEGO Horizon Adventures is recasting the role of Sylens after Lance Reddick’s passing

LEGO Horizon Adventures is the upcoming LEGO spin-off of Sony’s critically acclaimed Horizon franchise, and series’ developer Guerrilla Games just confirmed their plans regarding the role of the character Sylens.

This is an extremely important figure in this series, who made his debut in Horizon: Zero Dawn and reappeared in the sequel, Horizon: Forbidden West. Legendary Hollywood actor Lance Reddick voiced Sylens in both of these appearances, not to mention that he was also his character model, but he sadly passed away on March 17, 2023.

Reddick’s tragic demise left many fans wondering how Guerrilla Games was going to handle the character of Sylens in future installments. In an IGN preview, senior world artist Lucas Bolt responded to this question by saying “Lance Reddick tragically passed away in 2023, and he is deeply missed within Guerrilla and our community (…) The character of Sylens does appear in LEGO Horizon Adventures, and we will introduce the new actor at a later date”.

The confirmation that another actor will voice Sylens in LEGO Horizon Adventures has certainly relieved most fans of the series. While this may seem like an obvious choice at first, the alternatives were much more dire: Guerilla Games could have completely omitted Sylens from this new spin-off, it could have reused old voice lines from Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, or it could have even replicated his voice with the use of generative Artificial Intelligence, which would have been extremely controversial and in poor taste for most people.

LEGO Horizon Adventures won’t be the same without Lance Reddick

Despite relief at the announcement, there’s no denying that gamers will miss Reddick’s excellent performance as Sylens in future Horizon titles. He brought this fascinating and complex character to life, not only with his smooth voice but also with his impeccable physical acting. Even though LEGO Horizon Adventures is clearly going to be a more comedic adventure, Reddick has proven that he could seamlessly do comedy, so he would have most likely done an excellent job in this spin-off as well.

But Horizon’s Sylens is not the only video game character that Reddick portrayed, since he also voiced Commander Zavala in the Destiny series. His performances as these two beloved characters were so phenomenal that both the Horizon and Destiny franchises featured touching homages to this legendary actor after news of his demise went public.

Even though Guerrilla Games still hasn’t confirmed who will replace Reddick in LEGO Horizon Adventures (and in future Horizon games), many fans have been suggesting David Harewood, who portrayed Mr. Door in Alan Wake 2.