Our Verdict
Horizon Forbidden West is totally attractive 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 sport 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 a large success. You’re out of the blue locked in, and you may’t change an excessive amount of with out the danger of alienating your staunchest followers. That’s the unenviable place Horizon Forbidden West, an excessively protected 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’ attractive open-world sport. The developer has tweaked and refined the components, mixing issues up simply sufficient to maintain Aloy’s second journey by 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 large 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 worry 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 battle on your life. Not less than, that’s how I play it. You’ll discover the Forbidden West and delve into many caves and forgotten treasure troves from the outdated world, every layered with puzzles and draped with narrative moments that offer you insights into what got here earlier than. It’s a dense sport, stuffed with facet quests, hunts to have interaction in, and even a chess-like minigame so that you can whereas away the hours enjoying.
Nevertheless it’s the Forbidden West itself that’s the true star of the present, which sits cozy among the many most gorgeous sport worlds seen on PC. With enhanced visible choices that means these with beefy rigs can pump the sport past something the PS5 can supply and an enormous number of biomes and intriguing websites each massive and small to discover, this world cries out to be explored and soaked up. Simply present in Forbidden West’s imaginative and prescient of the post-apocalypse feels proper, with the mud dancing round your toes 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 advisable 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 seeking to tweak their expertise, there’s a dizzying quantity of choices to trawl by, each earlier than you launch the sport and in-game due to an overlaid settings menu that permits you to instantly see the affect of your adjustments. Every little thing the trendy PC participant may need is right here: ultrawide help, DLSS, FSR, triple monitor help, and extra all work seamlessly. Even enjoying with mouse and keyboard works effectively, although some menus are admittedly much less intuitive to make use of than when enjoying with a controller. The one factor lacking is ray tracing, however with the world wanting 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 finest, however there are some drawbacks to its sequel standing that depart a barely bitter style. The overwhelming one by 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 looks like greater than a Horizon Zero Daybreak retread. There’s a brand new massive unhealthy to tackle and a swathe of characters to satisfy, 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 very 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 little one within the Horizon saga. It follows up on some threads from the earlier sport and lays the groundwork for the following, however the villain isn’t significantly notable and a few of the reveals fall surprisingly flat. It’s a disgrace given how effectively the unique sport maintained curiosity by a skillful drip-feed of participating lore and twists.
That stated, the character writing is often robust. I’m particularly a fan of how Aloy’s experiences within the first sport inform her character within the sequel. She’s a harsher important character, extra uninterested in coping with superstitions concerning the previous, and nonetheless struggling the trauma of her battle towards Hades. That mixed with a few of the inter-tribal conflicts you encounter as you discover these new lands does add coloration and shade to Aloy’s journey.
Sadly a pervading sense of sameness additionally applies to the expertise of enjoying 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, preventing lots of the similar robots, coping with bandit camps, accumulating 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 sport however larger, with a number of new inclusions struggling towards the tidal wave of familiarity. This prescriptive devotion to following the primary sport’s path makes Aloy’s newest stumble greater than anticipated, particularly if you issue within the weaker narrative. It’s a elegant, iterative sequel with sturdy mechanics and one of the crucial gorgeous videogame worlds but seen, but it surely’s exhausting to kick the sensation that it may have been a lot extra.
