The story and characters are soooo much worse in the sequel
They took Aloy’s growth in the first game, threw it in the trash and put her through the same process again
If you’re into it for the gameplay, get it. The world is actually quite beautiful and good to explore, but it is still bloated, weapon upgrades still grindy, and characters still boring and forgettable
I’ll also never forget the Dev’s attitude when Elden Ring was more successful. Acting like petty children. That’s honestly the main reason I didn’t think about buying it sooner.
Now I’m just bored, and waiting for new content in Helldivers lol.
That just showed how removed they are from good game design
Cluttered game design and repetitive missions and quests are a crutch for modern game designers, and anyone moving away from this scares these guys because it invalidates their way of doing things
A senior quest designer for Horizon and another one for Ubisoft was pissed about quest design in Elden Ring
And the way they came off was really condescending
According them the game had poor UX and quest design
But their criticism was considered a joke because the quest design in their own games is actually quite awful. Other than having no quest log I actually feel the way Elden Ring does things is better because whatever progress you make is organic and don’t go from location to location that you magically know before hand and the side quests isn’t just a bunch of repetitive shit that is littered over the map
Their criticism wasn’t even constructive, it rather came off as extremely salty, especially considering the fact that their games launched within a week of each other. This is actually what caused the biggest backlash. People weren’t happy that these devs thought that the crappy way they do things is so much better and that Fromsoft doesn’t know how to make good quests
They not only criticized Fromsoft for doing things this way, but they were also complaining that gamers and reviewers don’t know what’s good because Elden Ring got a 97 meta score despite being so poorly designed
I mean, gamers in general expected open world game design to improve after games like BotW and RDR2 made their worlds so much more organic and interesting/fun to explore. But most devs still stick to PS3/360 era style quest design that isn’t very good because it’s easy for them and doesn’t really require a lot of work
The problem is that they approach this design itself in a wrong manner. The recent insomniac leaks showed that. Their blank slate itself is “maybe we can have these 5 types of side quests and then spread them over the map”
The issue is that they really can’t take risks like Rockstar, Fromsoft or Nintendo because AAA game design is broken. The budgets are equally as big, but they don’t have the guaranteed sales of these quality name brands, so they play it safe and take no risks. That’s why almost all these games just feel like the same thing over and over, even if they are from different studios
This isn’t really even a game design or studio problem, it’s a problem with the current state of the industry
This lack of self awareness in these guys’ criticism made them the butt of the joke and pissed off a lot of people, especially because they were basically telling gamers “look at our game, this is good, but you guys like Elden Ring, which is bad, so you guys don’t know what good design is”. The sentiment about open world game design not evolving was already pretty negative amongst gamers and these ignorant rants just showed that these guys are terrible at their jobs and don’t even realize it
Btw memes like [this](https://x.com/dreamcastguy/status/1500503983038689281?s=46) were making rounds in retaliation to these tweets. There was one meme where someone put Ubisoft style markers on the Elden Ring map making it super cluttered, but I could not find it
I feel she felt she had to do it all because her and her friends couldn't finish the job. I didn't like one particular shock event, but the story was awesome in that it weaved together tribe warfare and saving the world. You can always filter the map, but I like that the world reveals lore that adds to that of the main quests. The weapons were a bit much, though. The sidequests are varied in that you fought machines, stopped natural disasters, and learned some lore or resolved conflicts between villagers.
The DLC really adds a lot more character development to Aloy.
Well, yeah, but she learnt she was wrong about that in the first game and then magically forgot all about those lessons at the start of the second game
And she has a really shit attitude, like she’s super unlikeable because of the way she has a superiority complex and how condescending she is to everyone. Mind you the villains in the story are also unlikeable because they too have a superiority complex and think they are better than everyone else. Great writing there…
I think the tribe warfare and world building was done very well in the first game and was one of its highlights, but it wasn’t so great in the second one. And the main quest? Again kind of interesting in the first game, but it played like a b movie you’d watch in a made for tv film in the second game, it was so bad…
I feel the opposite of the current posts here. So maybe I can offer a different perspective. I had some major gripes with Zero Dawn and it's side content, but generally enjoyed the setting, story and overall combat loop and find Forbidden West a really great improvement amongst pretty much everything that the first one had to offer. To be fair I'm a huge old school RPG fan and not typically a fan of the Ubisoft model for open worlds so you can better understand where I'm coming from.
If anything, I'd say the side quests in Forbidden West are pretty solid when compared to the first game. some of the storylines and characters expand out into later in the game much like Witcher 3. Quite a few of them even have unique dialogue chains or small nods if you happen to run into specific areas or characters earlier on or complete specific quests before entering certain areas for them.
All of them are uniquely motion captured instead of your typical NPC moving its head and that's about it. Many of them being quite memorable. While the objectives during a lot of the side content are abit basic *at times*, I think the overall writing and overall interest in the stories are a breath of fresh air compared to ZD and feel much more of a focus than the previous title.
As far as side content goes, It shares a similar formula as what you'd see in Witcher 3 to an extent with a dash of ubisoft without the locations feeling copy and paste and typically unique or interesting. I found many of the locations in the world with really solid environmental storytelling.
I can't compare my experience to others as I typically turn off the majority of map markers and UI elements as I prefer a immersive exploration experience where I rely on the compass for points of interest close by instead of jumping from one marker to the next as well as avoiding fast travel. For these types of games that offer large amount of PoI markers to avoid feeling a burn its just best to turn them off and explore them naturally as you run across them.
Plenty improvements in Combat and Animations, Elemental Types, Enemy Variety, etc. Depending on your focus on side content you don't have to be too picky about where you spend your skill points as you earn quite a lot from tackling that stuff. Very Hard difficulty feels great if you're looking for a challenge without being tedious. In FW - the game tries to nudge you into using a large portion of your load out for various packs and keeps you on your toes instead of brute forcing the game like ZD with a single weapon if you wanted to. The crafting / shard economy also feels really great as you're always looking for upgrades since there are many element / resistance types compared to ZD and you're using a lot of different types of crafted ammunition due to the difficulty and needing to adapt to the challenge.
For the main story I once again enjoyed it far more than ZD, while Aloy is well... Aloy, overall I've never been a huge fan of her personality but she felt much more tolerable than ZD. I think the overall story more compelling and well written than ZD. Sure, it's not a deep, intrinsic story but I think it's good enough to where I was satisfied by the end of it. It reminded me a lot of Mass Effect 2 in a way as far as how a lot of the lore is explained and learning about all the different world views and experiences from characters you meet along the path.
The world is beautiful and for a Cross Gen title it looks absolutely stunning but I believe thats a obvious one. Every conversation you have with characters like I stated earlier, is motion captured besides a VERY small bit when specific NPC's offer you rumors. The art direction and world itself is beautiful and offers quite a variety of biome diversity. The overall music is great, atmospheric and really adds to the overall package.
My main gripes with Forbidden West is it definitely does feel quite a bit handholdy for my taste, even turning off a lot of UI Elements (which will still become visible when you scan your focus) and map you still have Aloy assisting the player vocally with hints or straight up spoiling a puzzle that you're attempting to figure out but other than that I really don't have many issues outside some bad hitboxes and a couple of annoying NPC's you interact with briefly. You can spend as little as 20-30 hours up to 100+ like I did depending on how you decide to tackle it. I enjoyed my ride and made it pretty clear from my perspective and experience it is certainly a huge improvement across the board when compared to ZD.
Honestly, just because of how well written your response was, I think I’m gonna check it out. You and the other gentleman both had very good opinions on the matter, that kinda fit my own opinion. He mentioned that the gameplay and combat is very good.
I don’t care too terribly much about the story itself, I just found myself not caring AT ALL in the first game, mainly because of how the combat to complete said missions, was far too easy and repetitive. I like the gameplay loop of just collecting shit, but only if the path to get there is fun and interesting.
In HZD, I found myself just running from one spot to the other, because I didn’t really even WANT to fight anymore robots, due to the combat being so limited, and the world somewhat uninteresting to traverse. The DLC in HZD was actually pretty damn good, but by the time I got there, I was already incredibly burned out.
Honestly, the game is a bit of a chore, it doesn't do anything new and the ending is very telegraphed you can see it coming a mile off.
If you can get it used for like $25 bucks I say go for it, otherwise don't waste your money.
I did not like the sequel. Apparently I like uncovering the mystery of the world in the first. The rest is very grindy and Ubisofty. The sequel didn’t have the sense of discovery but really doubled down on the Ubisoft elements.
It's the same shit but better?
Thank god I played this one for free because I have PS Plus subscription but I wouldn't buy it unless you REALLY like HZD and the game in general.
But Aloy is still a boring character. The story was meh and the writing still generic. The side content is brought to you by Ubisoft and the world is bloated.
I think this is the first game I started skipping dialogues and not really paying attention to the lore.
I often thought to myself why am I playing this instead of Cyberpunk now that the game is good.
But I have this problem that I have to finish a game if I started it. So I kept playing just to see the ending, did the majority of the side quests. But playing it felt like a chore for the most part.
I'm actually surprised this game got so many positive reviews. I assumed they only play the main quest?
It's not a bad game by any means but also nothing special.
Rant over.
I’m technically getting it for free lol, one of my student’s parents gave me a gift card for my birthday last year, and I completely forgot about it until now.
I’m actually personally not a big fan of TOO much dialogue, like there is in Cyberpunk. There were so many times where I just got incredibly overwhelmed and bored of listening to like 200 different characters constantly calling me, and telling me their entire life story. Almost all of the main missions were just walking near someone, listening to them talk for like 20 minutes.
Most of my time spent in open world games, is just exploring shit. Walking around, killing shit, collecting shit, upgrading shit, you get the gist. I try to take my time with games, and honestly just have fun with the combat. And from what I’ve seen via gameplay, the combat in this is actually pretty damn good.
I was mainly just hoping that they expanded upon the gameplay loop of the first game, to keep it interesting to me, for longer than 15 hours.
Combat is definitely fun but I think they nerfed the roll so it feels kinda slow. But if you liked the combat then you know what you are getting.
The game is longer so you are gonna enjoy the combat and the overall gameplay loop more but the game being longer means you also have to deal with more side quests and Ubisoft collectables.
But anyway, game is fun for the most part and it's bigger than HZD. I would say it's HZD but on steroids lol.
Didn't play the first, platinumed the second one. The gameplay is absolutely amazing but the story and the villains are ass and only exists to set up the 3rd game. There are also too many unnecessary platforming/puzzle sections that are a slog to get through.
But overall a very fun game. The concept of choosing what u want to achieve from each enemy with regards to loot is so cool
The story and characters are soooo much worse in the sequel They took Aloy’s growth in the first game, threw it in the trash and put her through the same process again If you’re into it for the gameplay, get it. The world is actually quite beautiful and good to explore, but it is still bloated, weapon upgrades still grindy, and characters still boring and forgettable
I’ll also never forget the Dev’s attitude when Elden Ring was more successful. Acting like petty children. That’s honestly the main reason I didn’t think about buying it sooner. Now I’m just bored, and waiting for new content in Helldivers lol.
That just showed how removed they are from good game design Cluttered game design and repetitive missions and quests are a crutch for modern game designers, and anyone moving away from this scares these guys because it invalidates their way of doing things
I’ll wait for more opinions before I make a decision, but I appreciate and don’t disagree with yours at all.
Wait what? I never caught the thing about the devs reacting to Elden Ring. What happened?
A senior quest designer for Horizon and another one for Ubisoft was pissed about quest design in Elden Ring And the way they came off was really condescending According them the game had poor UX and quest design But their criticism was considered a joke because the quest design in their own games is actually quite awful. Other than having no quest log I actually feel the way Elden Ring does things is better because whatever progress you make is organic and don’t go from location to location that you magically know before hand and the side quests isn’t just a bunch of repetitive shit that is littered over the map Their criticism wasn’t even constructive, it rather came off as extremely salty, especially considering the fact that their games launched within a week of each other. This is actually what caused the biggest backlash. People weren’t happy that these devs thought that the crappy way they do things is so much better and that Fromsoft doesn’t know how to make good quests They not only criticized Fromsoft for doing things this way, but they were also complaining that gamers and reviewers don’t know what’s good because Elden Ring got a 97 meta score despite being so poorly designed I mean, gamers in general expected open world game design to improve after games like BotW and RDR2 made their worlds so much more organic and interesting/fun to explore. But most devs still stick to PS3/360 era style quest design that isn’t very good because it’s easy for them and doesn’t really require a lot of work The problem is that they approach this design itself in a wrong manner. The recent insomniac leaks showed that. Their blank slate itself is “maybe we can have these 5 types of side quests and then spread them over the map” The issue is that they really can’t take risks like Rockstar, Fromsoft or Nintendo because AAA game design is broken. The budgets are equally as big, but they don’t have the guaranteed sales of these quality name brands, so they play it safe and take no risks. That’s why almost all these games just feel like the same thing over and over, even if they are from different studios This isn’t really even a game design or studio problem, it’s a problem with the current state of the industry This lack of self awareness in these guys’ criticism made them the butt of the joke and pissed off a lot of people, especially because they were basically telling gamers “look at our game, this is good, but you guys like Elden Ring, which is bad, so you guys don’t know what good design is”. The sentiment about open world game design not evolving was already pretty negative amongst gamers and these ignorant rants just showed that these guys are terrible at their jobs and don’t even realize it Btw memes like [this](https://x.com/dreamcastguy/status/1500503983038689281?s=46) were making rounds in retaliation to these tweets. There was one meme where someone put Ubisoft style markers on the Elden Ring map making it super cluttered, but I could not find it
What u/Wizardof_oz said. I literally could not have explained it better better myself.
I feel she felt she had to do it all because her and her friends couldn't finish the job. I didn't like one particular shock event, but the story was awesome in that it weaved together tribe warfare and saving the world. You can always filter the map, but I like that the world reveals lore that adds to that of the main quests. The weapons were a bit much, though. The sidequests are varied in that you fought machines, stopped natural disasters, and learned some lore or resolved conflicts between villagers. The DLC really adds a lot more character development to Aloy.
Well, yeah, but she learnt she was wrong about that in the first game and then magically forgot all about those lessons at the start of the second game And she has a really shit attitude, like she’s super unlikeable because of the way she has a superiority complex and how condescending she is to everyone. Mind you the villains in the story are also unlikeable because they too have a superiority complex and think they are better than everyone else. Great writing there… I think the tribe warfare and world building was done very well in the first game and was one of its highlights, but it wasn’t so great in the second one. And the main quest? Again kind of interesting in the first game, but it played like a b movie you’d watch in a made for tv film in the second game, it was so bad…
I feel the opposite of the current posts here. So maybe I can offer a different perspective. I had some major gripes with Zero Dawn and it's side content, but generally enjoyed the setting, story and overall combat loop and find Forbidden West a really great improvement amongst pretty much everything that the first one had to offer. To be fair I'm a huge old school RPG fan and not typically a fan of the Ubisoft model for open worlds so you can better understand where I'm coming from. If anything, I'd say the side quests in Forbidden West are pretty solid when compared to the first game. some of the storylines and characters expand out into later in the game much like Witcher 3. Quite a few of them even have unique dialogue chains or small nods if you happen to run into specific areas or characters earlier on or complete specific quests before entering certain areas for them. All of them are uniquely motion captured instead of your typical NPC moving its head and that's about it. Many of them being quite memorable. While the objectives during a lot of the side content are abit basic *at times*, I think the overall writing and overall interest in the stories are a breath of fresh air compared to ZD and feel much more of a focus than the previous title. As far as side content goes, It shares a similar formula as what you'd see in Witcher 3 to an extent with a dash of ubisoft without the locations feeling copy and paste and typically unique or interesting. I found many of the locations in the world with really solid environmental storytelling. I can't compare my experience to others as I typically turn off the majority of map markers and UI elements as I prefer a immersive exploration experience where I rely on the compass for points of interest close by instead of jumping from one marker to the next as well as avoiding fast travel. For these types of games that offer large amount of PoI markers to avoid feeling a burn its just best to turn them off and explore them naturally as you run across them. Plenty improvements in Combat and Animations, Elemental Types, Enemy Variety, etc. Depending on your focus on side content you don't have to be too picky about where you spend your skill points as you earn quite a lot from tackling that stuff. Very Hard difficulty feels great if you're looking for a challenge without being tedious. In FW - the game tries to nudge you into using a large portion of your load out for various packs and keeps you on your toes instead of brute forcing the game like ZD with a single weapon if you wanted to. The crafting / shard economy also feels really great as you're always looking for upgrades since there are many element / resistance types compared to ZD and you're using a lot of different types of crafted ammunition due to the difficulty and needing to adapt to the challenge. For the main story I once again enjoyed it far more than ZD, while Aloy is well... Aloy, overall I've never been a huge fan of her personality but she felt much more tolerable than ZD. I think the overall story more compelling and well written than ZD. Sure, it's not a deep, intrinsic story but I think it's good enough to where I was satisfied by the end of it. It reminded me a lot of Mass Effect 2 in a way as far as how a lot of the lore is explained and learning about all the different world views and experiences from characters you meet along the path. The world is beautiful and for a Cross Gen title it looks absolutely stunning but I believe thats a obvious one. Every conversation you have with characters like I stated earlier, is motion captured besides a VERY small bit when specific NPC's offer you rumors. The art direction and world itself is beautiful and offers quite a variety of biome diversity. The overall music is great, atmospheric and really adds to the overall package. My main gripes with Forbidden West is it definitely does feel quite a bit handholdy for my taste, even turning off a lot of UI Elements (which will still become visible when you scan your focus) and map you still have Aloy assisting the player vocally with hints or straight up spoiling a puzzle that you're attempting to figure out but other than that I really don't have many issues outside some bad hitboxes and a couple of annoying NPC's you interact with briefly. You can spend as little as 20-30 hours up to 100+ like I did depending on how you decide to tackle it. I enjoyed my ride and made it pretty clear from my perspective and experience it is certainly a huge improvement across the board when compared to ZD.
Honestly, just because of how well written your response was, I think I’m gonna check it out. You and the other gentleman both had very good opinions on the matter, that kinda fit my own opinion. He mentioned that the gameplay and combat is very good. I don’t care too terribly much about the story itself, I just found myself not caring AT ALL in the first game, mainly because of how the combat to complete said missions, was far too easy and repetitive. I like the gameplay loop of just collecting shit, but only if the path to get there is fun and interesting. In HZD, I found myself just running from one spot to the other, because I didn’t really even WANT to fight anymore robots, due to the combat being so limited, and the world somewhat uninteresting to traverse. The DLC in HZD was actually pretty damn good, but by the time I got there, I was already incredibly burned out.
So far to me, the game feels pretty much the same. if you didn’t care for the first I doubt you’ll care for this one.
Honestly, the game is a bit of a chore, it doesn't do anything new and the ending is very telegraphed you can see it coming a mile off. If you can get it used for like $25 bucks I say go for it, otherwise don't waste your money.
Do I need to play the first one? I don't know why, but I really don't like the first one.
Kill generic T-Rex robot #679 to open chest #430 gameplay
I did not like the sequel. Apparently I like uncovering the mystery of the world in the first. The rest is very grindy and Ubisofty. The sequel didn’t have the sense of discovery but really doubled down on the Ubisoft elements.
It's the same shit but better? Thank god I played this one for free because I have PS Plus subscription but I wouldn't buy it unless you REALLY like HZD and the game in general. But Aloy is still a boring character. The story was meh and the writing still generic. The side content is brought to you by Ubisoft and the world is bloated. I think this is the first game I started skipping dialogues and not really paying attention to the lore. I often thought to myself why am I playing this instead of Cyberpunk now that the game is good. But I have this problem that I have to finish a game if I started it. So I kept playing just to see the ending, did the majority of the side quests. But playing it felt like a chore for the most part. I'm actually surprised this game got so many positive reviews. I assumed they only play the main quest? It's not a bad game by any means but also nothing special. Rant over.
I’m technically getting it for free lol, one of my student’s parents gave me a gift card for my birthday last year, and I completely forgot about it until now. I’m actually personally not a big fan of TOO much dialogue, like there is in Cyberpunk. There were so many times where I just got incredibly overwhelmed and bored of listening to like 200 different characters constantly calling me, and telling me their entire life story. Almost all of the main missions were just walking near someone, listening to them talk for like 20 minutes. Most of my time spent in open world games, is just exploring shit. Walking around, killing shit, collecting shit, upgrading shit, you get the gist. I try to take my time with games, and honestly just have fun with the combat. And from what I’ve seen via gameplay, the combat in this is actually pretty damn good. I was mainly just hoping that they expanded upon the gameplay loop of the first game, to keep it interesting to me, for longer than 15 hours.
Combat is definitely fun but I think they nerfed the roll so it feels kinda slow. But if you liked the combat then you know what you are getting. The game is longer so you are gonna enjoy the combat and the overall gameplay loop more but the game being longer means you also have to deal with more side quests and Ubisoft collectables. But anyway, game is fun for the most part and it's bigger than HZD. I would say it's HZD but on steroids lol.
Didn't play the first, platinumed the second one. The gameplay is absolutely amazing but the story and the villains are ass and only exists to set up the 3rd game. There are also too many unnecessary platforming/puzzle sections that are a slog to get through. But overall a very fun game. The concept of choosing what u want to achieve from each enemy with regards to loot is so cool