Horizon Forbidden West is coming to the miniature world of bricks with an official Lego set of the game’s iconic Tallneck.
The giraffe-esque machine, which Aloy must climb and override in the game to discover new areas of its map, has been fully recreated as an official Lego set. It is described as a ‘build and display model’ - that’s one to look at rather than play with - which includes 1,222 pieces and stands over a foot tall at 13.5 inches (34 cm).
The model looks to capture all the main features of the Tallneck, including its disc-shaped head, ribbed neck, and protruding antennae. It also comes with a couple of extra models, including a small brick Watcher, an Aloy minifigure, and a display base kitted out with a rusty stoplight, an area of long grass for Aloy to hide in, and a birch tree for her to harvest into arrows.
The Watcher’s eye can be swapped for a blue, yellow or red stud, imitating its three levels of alertness, while Aloy comes equipped with a bow and spear.
“Getting to team up with Guerrilla was truly remarkable,” said Isaac Snyder, a Lego designer, in a press release. “Thanks to our close collaboration [with the Guerrilla Games team] we were able to include references to all the most iconic aspects of Horizon Forbidden West, from incredible machines, mysterious ruins, unique tribes, and stunning scenery.”
The set will release in stores this May for $79.99 / £69.99 (Australian pricing TBC).
Rumors of an upcoming Horizon Forbidden West or Zero Dawn Lego set first started circulating last year when Lego specialist site Brick Fanatics spotted a listing of the Lego Tallneck online.
Although Lego hasn’t confirmed it has more Horizon Forbidden West sets planned, the company has a habit of releasing a whole slate of kits around a single license, as it did when it launched several Overwatch sets back in 2019.
Analysis: which other Horizon machines deserve a Lego set?
It’s little surprise that Horizon Forbidden West is getting the Lego treatment. The excellent design and detail of its robotic dinosaurs lend themselves to bricky recreation. While the Tallneck is certainly one of the most iconic machines from the Horizon games, it’s by no means the only one that should be celebrated out of Lego.
The Sawtooth is the first major threat players face in Horizon Zero Dawn, and its four-legged chassis could make for a remarkable articulated Lego design. The turtle-like Shellsnappers introduced in Forbidden West are pretty impressive for their size, and we’d love to see how their mossy back could be made out of bricks. If you want size above all else, though, then the mammoth-esque Tremortusks would look pretty remarkable as a Lego display piece.
If the Lego isn’t for you, don’t worry, you can still get your Horizon miniatures fix. The official Horizon Zero Dawn board game released last year by Steamforged Games comes packed with plastic minis of the game’s machines. Across its many expansions, you can pretty much find any robo dinosaur you want.
Check out our Horizon Forbidden West review to find out why you should embark on Aloy’s next adventure.
Best of the best: The world’s leading tech publisher reveals the world’s leading tech products
Future knows the future, thanks to a planet-leading portfolio of innovative technology brands including TechRadar, Tom’s Guide, Android Central, T3, Laptop, and more. But Future also knows today -- both what’s bustling at CES 2022 , the world’s most important technology showcase, and what’s hitting the store shelves and available to change your life today.
You’ll find a complete list of the hottest gear of the year in the Future Choice awards : From phones and laptops to cameras and smart displays, smart vacuums, and smart homes, the 50 products on the Future Choice award represent the best that 2021 had to offer.
Assembled by the editors of Future’s technology brands from the products each has tested and lauded over the last 12 months, the Future Choice awards are a celebration of the innovation powering the technology industry and helping transform our lives and the world around us. In combination with the Future 50 -- our pick of the most influential people in technology today -- they form the Future Tech Awards , a who’s who guide and a what’s what list of the industry today.
Here's a sampling of some of the winners; for the full list, see our dedicated Future Tech Awards site.
Best TV of 2021
8K might feel a bit like overkill to some, but there's no doubt in our mind that the Samsung QN900A Neo QLED 8K TV ushered in a new era of flatscreen television technology. Samsung's Mini LED-sporting QN900A Neo QLED 8K TV offers stunning picture quality, exceptional color and brightness, terrific sound and outstanding blacks – all in a package that's unmatched in terms of design.
For the uninitiated, Samsung's 'Quantum' Mini LEDs are 1/40th the thickness of a regular LED, meaning thousands of smaller LEDs can be packed together in a much tighter fashion, allowing for far more accurate dimming zones and black levels that are practically indistinguishable from an OLED.
As the LEDs are far smaller, they're able to achieve far more precision and less blooming, so the act of seeing bright areas of the screen unnaturally bleed over into darker spots should be greatly reduced or not evident at all. And because it takes advantage of Samsung's Multi-Intelligence AI upscaling, the QN900A is consistently able to produce images that looked better than their source. Put simply, it's the flagship 8K TV to beat.
Best smartwatch
The Apple Watch 7 is a flagship smartwatch that reveals the incredible power of modern computing -- all squeezed into a device the same size as that Seiko wristwatch you had in college.
Sure, It has essentially the same chipset as the Watch 6, and little in the way of new features, but what new stuff the Apple Watch 7 does have is incredibly useful, especially its larger screen, which is 20% bigger and yet only a tiny bit larger on your wrist, thanks to smaller bezels.
That extra size makes all the difference when interacting with the Apple Watch 7, and the wearable also charges faster than ever. With those things added to the still-excellent Apple Watch 6, the Apple Watch 7 becomes undeniably a great smartwatch.
Best Phone of 2021
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is the best smartphone in the world right now, the editors decided -- and they agree, it's a fantastic choice for you with one of the best cameras, phenomenal power, great battery life, a solid design and a whole host of other great features.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra isn't a cheap handset, and the price is high for this one, but if you're looking for the ultimate smartphone experience in 2022 you''ll be hard pressed to do better than this latest from Samsung. It features a top 6.8-inch screen with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate and a Quad HD resolution. This is one of the best smartphone displays on the market.
Best smart lights of 2021
There's a very good reason why Philips Hue is the biggest name in the smart lighting scene: it's without a doubt one of the greatest offerings to the market. The lights produce the most natural tones of any smart lighting we've used, the app is easy to use, and installation is a doddle.
There's a wide range of different smart lighting too; from color (with 16 million shades) and white bulbs (both solid and ambient that offers a host of different hues) to side and ceiling lamps, outdoor lighting, and even Philips Hue lightstrips . We were also impressed the smart lights work with Alexa, Google Assistant, and HomeKit.
Realme officially unveils its GT 2 series at MWC – and the Pro model looks amazing
We got our hands on the Realme GT 2 Pro ahead of its MWC announcement, so check here for our early impressions of the device.
Burgeoning mobile-maker Realme has officially lifted the international lid on its GT 2 series of premium smartphones – and the Pro model, in particular, looks like it could give the Samsung Galaxy S22 a run for its money.
The still-young Chinese company first announced the new handsets at a launch event back in January, but waited until this year’s MWC (Mobile World Congress) trade show to properly unveil both the Realme GT 2 and Realme GT 2 Pro on the global stage.
Billed as Realme’s first major foray into the premium flagship market, its GT 2 smartphone series is intended to rival competitors like the Oppo Find X4 and OnePlus 10 Pro , while still maintaining the relative affordability that has established Realme as a major mid-market mobile player in recent years.
The standard GT 2, which will be available in versions up to 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage, will begin shipping to the UK and Europe on March 15, with pre-sale prices starting at €449.99 (around £399 / $530 / AU$740) before rising to an RRP of €549.99. The Pro variant will arrive slightly earlier on March 8 for a pre-sale starting price of €649.99 (equating to around £599.99 / $800 / AU$1100) before rising to €749.99.
The latter will also be available with 12GB RAM and 256GB of internal storage for €749.99 (around £630 / $840 / AU$1160) before rising to €849.99 following the same pre-sale period, which runs between March 8 and March 16.
In any case, Realme’s GT 2 series undercuts the price of rival flagship ranges like the Samsung Galaxy S22 and iPhone 13 by some margin (the former starts at $799 / £769 / AU$1,249 and the latter at $699 / £679 / AU$1,199), living up to the brand’s reputation as an affordable alternative to mainstream mobile brands.
Those lower prices don’t come at the expense of premium features, mind. The standard GT 2 ships with a 6.62-inch 1080 x 2400 AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 888 chipset, a triple-lens rear camera headlined by a 50MP sensor and a 5,000mAh battery with 65W charging. That’s a stellar crop of premium features akin to other high-end flagships on the market right now.
The Realme GT 2 Pro, though, goes several steps further. In addition to a slightly larger 6.7-inch 1440 x 3216 AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, users will get a top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset – the fastest offered by Qualcomm today – and a triple-lens camera boasting a 50MP main sensor, 50MP ultra-wide sensor and an impressive microscope camera capable of magnifying objects by up to 40x. Check out our first impressions of the device to see just how good these camera features are in practice.
Incidentally, the GT 2 series also highlights Realme’s eco-friendly ambitions. Not only are these phones supposedly the first-ever to be manufactured using a paper-like bio-polymer material, but for every GT 2 series smartphone sold from the company’s official website, Realme will plant a tree. For every tree planted, Realme says, it will take less than 24 months to offset the amount of CO2 produced by manufacturing the device in the first place.
Those might seem like empty marketing promises, but at least Realme customers can rest a little easier in the knowledge that their purchase will be a sustainable one – on paper, at least.
Stay tuned to TechRadar for our full reviews of both the Realme GT 2 and Realme GT 2 Pro in the coming weeks, and check out our MWC 2022 live blog for the very latest mobile news emerging from the show right now.