Our Verdict
Horizon Forbidden West is completely beautiful and builds on the unique’s intense fight, however an absence of ambition and a flat narrative maintain it again as a sequel. It offers extra of the primary recreation however larger, with a number of new inclusions struggling towards the tidal wave of familiarity.
Sequels are a humorous enterprise, particularly if the unique turned out to be an enormous success. You’re out of the blue locked in, and you’ll’t change an excessive amount of with out the chance of alienating your staunchest followers. That’s the unenviable place Horizon Forbidden West, an excessively secure follow-up to the smash-hit Horizon Zero Daybreak, finds itself in.
It’s not that there isn’t something new in developer Guerilla Video games’ beautiful open-world recreation. The developer has tweaked and refined the system, mixing issues up simply sufficient to maintain Aloy’s second journey by means of a robot-infested post-apocalypse from turning stale. Throughout the board, Forbidden West is larger than its predecessor, boasting a bigger world, a factory-load of contemporary robots to face off towards, and new fight choices like smashing enemies with big Resonator Blasts out of your spear and flashy Valor Surge strikes. Even traversal has been improved with the Shieldwing Glider letting you hop off any precipice with out concern and the Pullcaster grappling hook opening up other ways to resolve puzzles.
Fight stays a tense, tactical affair of observing the enemy, putting traps, executing your plan, then – considerably inevitably – being thrust right into a scrappy combat to your life. At the least, that’s how I play it. You’ll discover the Forbidden West and delve into many caves and forgotten treasure troves from the previous world, every layered with puzzles and draped with narrative moments that offer you insights into what got here earlier than. It’s a dense recreation, crammed with facet quests, hunts to interact in, and even a chess-like minigame so that you can whereas away the hours taking part in.
Nevertheless it’s the Forbidden West itself that’s the true star of the present, which sits comfortable among the many most gorgeous recreation worlds seen on PC. With enhanced visible choices that means these with beefy rigs can pump the sport past something the PS5 can provide and an enormous number of biomes and intriguing websites each large and small to discover, this world cries out to be explored and soaked up. Simply current in Forbidden West’s imaginative and prescient of the post-apocalypse feels proper, with the mud dancing round your ft as you watch robots snuffle round within the brush, the solar bursting out of clouds above to be mirrored in glinting azure waters.
As a port, Nixxes Software program has excelled at bringing Horizon Forbidden West to PC. This isn’t only a case of slapping the sport onto PC and wishing us effectively; every little thing has been taken under consideration to guarantee the port completely sings even on much less highly effective machines. My system, which incorporates an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and an Intel i5-10600K, squats on the really useful system necessities, but I used to be capable of crank every little thing as much as excessive and nonetheless get pleasure from a strong body charge all through, with just some cutscenes and some moments within the Burning Shores growth inflicting the occasional jitter.
For these trying to tweak their expertise, there’s a dizzying quantity of choices to trawl by means of, each earlier than you launch the sport and in-game because of an overlaid settings menu that permits you to instantly see the affect of your adjustments. All the things the fashionable PC participant would possibly need is right here: ultrawide assist, DLSS, FSR, triple monitor assist, and extra all work seamlessly. Even taking part in with mouse and keyboard works effectively, although some menus are admittedly much less intuitive to make use of than when taking part in with a controller. The one factor lacking is ray tracing, however with the world trying this good already it’s exhausting to gripe about its omission.
If Horizon Forbidden West existed in a vacuum it could sit among the many style’s greatest, however there are some drawbacks to its sequel standing that go away a barely bitter style. The overwhelming one by means of my adventures is the nagging feeling that I’ve seen all this earlier than. Whereas there are new robots and contemporary mechanics, it by no means appears like greater than a Horizon Zero Daybreak retread. There’s a brand new large unhealthy to tackle and a swathe of characters to fulfill, however the narrative and the construction of all of it begin to really feel mechanical the second time round. The beginning of the sport is particularly acquainted, going from a largely on-rails part to a barely open world earlier than you’re ultimately let free on the Forbidden West itself.
The sport’s narrative specifically suffers from being the center youngster within the Horizon saga. It follows up on some threads from the earlier recreation and lays the groundwork for the following, however the villain isn’t significantly notable and among the reveals fall surprisingly flat. It’s a disgrace given how effectively the unique recreation maintained curiosity by means of a skillful drip-feed of partaking lore and twists.
That stated, the character writing is usually robust. I’m particularly a fan of how Aloy’s experiences within the first recreation inform her character within the sequel. She’s a harsher predominant character, extra bored with coping with superstitions in regards to the previous, and nonetheless struggling the trauma of her battle towards Hades. That mixed with among the inter-tribal conflicts you encounter as you discover these new lands does add shade and shade to Aloy’s journey.
Sadly a pervading sense of sameness additionally applies to the expertise of taking part in Horizon Forbidden West. Most of your time is spent doing largely the identical duties as in Horizon Zero Daybreak. Climbing tallnecks to uncover extra of the gargantuan map, combating lots of the identical robots, coping with bandit camps, amassing sticks to craft arrows, and so forth. I’ve been there and seen all of it. If it didn’t really feel so good to play, it’d be verging on Horizon Zero Yawn.
Horizon Forbidden West by no means threatens to interrupt the mildew. It offers extra of the primary recreation however larger, with a number of new inclusions struggling towards the tidal wave of familiarity. This prescriptive devotion to following the primary recreation’s path makes Aloy’s newest stumble greater than anticipated, particularly once you issue within the weaker narrative. It’s a sophisticated, iterative sequel with sturdy mechanics and some of the gorgeous videogame worlds but seen, nevertheless it’s exhausting to kick the sensation that it may have been a lot extra.
