How to get studs & experience fast in LEGO Horizon Adventures

Piling up studs and earning tons of experience are the keys to success in LEGO Horizon Adventures. Here’s how to get plenty of both in no time at all.

Playing as Aloy in LEGO form has its fair share of changes from the original games. Rather than picking up wood and collecting flowers for your arsenal, studs are what you need to get things done around here.

Though as much as things change, other aspects remain the same. There’s still a leveling system in LEGO Horizon Adventures, one that has you evolving four different characters throughout your journeys in the wild.

Naturally, gathering as many studs as possible and amassing all the XP you can are both absolutely crucial. So here’s our tips on how to be as efficient as possible.

What are studs used for?

In short, studs are used for just about everything in LEGO Horizon Adventures. From game-changing upgrades at the All-Mother Tree to funny costumes for Varl, every purchase made requires some amount of studs.

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Every upgrade requires you to spend a certain amount of studs, and some don’t come cheap.

Take your home base, for instance. With dozens of customizable features, there’s plenty that can be done to make it truly feel like home. But for every tree you plant or hot dog stand you build, it comes at a cost of studs.

Similarly, as you journey out and complete missions, your characters will level up, more on that below. In order to really make the most of your crew, however, you need to spend studs on valuable upgrades and improve their performance.

Best ways to get studs fast in LEGO Horizon Adventures

As you play LEGO Horizon Adventures, you’ll naturally earn studs from just about everything you do. But if you know where to look, plenty more can be yours without much of a hassle.

Gather studs at your home base

Firstly, the most important tip is to run around your home base between every adventure. Whether you’re completing a story mission, taking on an Apex machine hunt, or just freely exploring, every time you come back home is a chance to earn more studs.

Every large building piles up 500 studs while you’re off in the wilds. After every activity, your home base resets, so to speak. Thus, you can head back to every large building time and time again to get these 500 studs on repeat.

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Look for these studs near every large building around your home camp.

It barely takes a minute or two and before long, you’ll have a few thousand extra studs at your disposal. Add these up across an entire playthrough and you’re well on your way to unlocking everything the game has on offer.

Destroy everything

Next might be an obvious one but nonetheless important to remember. There are plenty of destructible items in every single stage and you should make it your mission to destroy them all.

We recommend essentially spamming your regular attack (not wasting your gadgets or rare weapons). The more you fire out, the more likely you are to break a box, a phone booth, a pile of rocks, or anything else. Studs will be pouring out in no time and while they may seem smaller at first, they certainly add up.

Follow silver stud trails

Finally, make sure you’re always keeping an eye out for silver studs. More often than not, there’s at least a few silver stud trails in every zone. Following them can lead to a number of different things, but they’re all worth pursuing.

In some cases, a silver stud trail might lead you to a chest containing hundreds of studs. In another, you might be led to a buildable item, which in turn, gifts studs as well. Regardless of the outcome, it’s always worth your time, so stay vigilant, and follow silver trails at all times.

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Veer off the main path as much as possible to find hidden chests like this one hidden underground.

How experience works

The next most important consideration is experience. XP is earned for taking down machines, completing missions, and just about everything else. It’s essential as you look to level up Aloy, Varl, Erend, and Teersa.

The max level in LEGO Horizon Adventures is level 20, and it takes quite some time to reach that milestone. Each character is leveled up independently, meaning every bit of XP you can farm will go a long way to helping reach the peak.

Leveling up unlocks new skills for the crew to benefit from, like increased weapon damage, improved gadget drop rates, and plenty more.

Best ways to get experience fast in LEGO Horizon Adventures

There’s no better way to grind out XP in LEGO Horizon Adventures than to complete all of the optional minibosses.

Once you’ve finished off all the main story missions in an area, you’ll then unlock four Apex hunts for the zone. Each hunt is a simple matter of tracking and defeating one Apex machine, and doing so nets a ton of experience.

Each Apex machine taken down hands out at least 1,000 XP, so you’ll be well on your way to leveling up in no time.

Apex Machine Hunts await once you’ve finished the main story levels in each region.

Once the Apex hunts have all been cleared, your options are a bit more limited. All that remains is to freely explore the lands, revisiting old areas and clearing out new bandits and machines all the same.

It may take some time, and not feel the most effective, but staying on the grind and blitzing through these more open areas is the best way to continue your XP grind.