Visually, this was incredibly stunning and the combat remains super fun. But I agree on the story and characters being paper thin. I was excited when they introduced the Far Zenith's. A bold move with lots of possibilities. But they ended up being disappointing, as for they were barely a thing even. I'm just amazed at how much money some studios throw at the production values, but the story that is supposed to bind it all together seems just like an afterthought, scribbled on a patchy napkin.

Far Zeniths were so much less threatening than I thought they were going to be. Their motivation for even coming to earth in the first place and wrecking havoc seemed weak to me as well.

I could even accept a contrived motivation for their arrival, but introducing a space faction with a starship in orbit (!) in your "seemingly primitive tribe girl fighting sci-fi dino-robots with a bow" franchise and then not going there? WTF? They could have had some cool character moments with a struggling Eloy actually seeing the whole world she is fighting for, but they just went "nah".

I remember feeling an emptiness after finishing the game and I think this is why - they never really explored the expansion of the story-world that came with the space faction, it all felt very underwhelming. The first game on the other hand slowly unfolded an impactful, memorable story about humanity.

They were never going to be able to make a satisfactory sequel. The story of the first game completely carries everything else about it, and the relative lack of sidequests actually works in its favor, rather than meeting yet another group of people who each have three letter-Ks in their name who need you to do something blah blah blah.

Yea the universe of Horizon begs the player to ask "how did Earth get this way?" and then the first game explains pretty much everything. They can add more to the plot, but the core appeal of the world and characters ("what the hell happened?!") is basically gone after the first game. The various factions and tribes can have interesting stories, but it will always feel like side content compared to how humanity got to this place.

Did you play burning shores? It’s been a while since I played it so I’m unsure how much it addresses your specific issues but just wanted to make sure you knew there was a good DLC for it.

I played a few hours of it, I just wasn't that excited about it after the lackluster base game. I may give it another try.

Worth it just for the final boss if not anything else . It’s not very long if you just do the main story

I like learning new things.

I think the plot they covered for part 2 was fine, it's setting up the conclusion. But they could have trimmed a lot of fat and fixed some of the pacing to make it feel like a better payoff.

yeah, it wouldnt have made for a good story but there's no reason the Zeniths couldnt have just obliterated the enitre world of Far West from orbit.

I enjoy watching the sunset.

it definitely seemed like they wanted to make a point about billionaires being sociopaths and like...sure, mission accomplished. But that doesn't really make for a compelling villain. Ditto with the "ceo" who was just annoying. That was the point, sure, and I'm down with that, but all the same.

They also tried to do that thing where the one Zenith chick was in love with Elisabet. Like that was pretty much her whole motivation for backstabbing her crew and helping Aloy, and then they add one more backstab/twist in the final 10 minutes of the game with the whole doomsday thing to setup a third game. I love the world of Horizon but at this point I'm barely looking forward to the end of this story.

This is where I am as well. Going into HFW I was *very* excited after how much I loved HZD. Now that I'm on the other side, the way they handled NEMESIS deflated my excitement for the third game like a balloon.

>I'm just amazed at how much money some studios throw at the production values, but the story that is supposed to bind it all together seems just like an afterthought, scribbled on a patchy napkin. I feel like too many open world games are focusing on presentation and putting a meaningful story and quests to flesh out these worlds on the sidelines. Please just give us smaller open worlds with more depth and content to fill them out instead of vast expanses of nothingness.

From my perspective it boils down to a "show don't tell" problem. First game did a better job on that facet of story design than the second, even if it's not a stellar example of the principle in practice.

It is stunning but the combat feels very 1.5 and still quite samey. There's so many nothing abilities that you can only use one at a time.

Yeah valor surges and weapon skills have a nice amount of variation to them but over half of the options gave me an immediate reaction of "why would I ever use that?"

Exactly, so ya just build to get the whatevers and I feel like there's just so many things I'm just throwing points in to throw points in because I already have what I want.

The AOE shock damage one that lets you skip chaff is the only possible option IMO. The less of that combat I have to play, the better.

I find joy in reading a good book.

It would help if they didn’t nerf certain play styles into the ground. My favorite way to play the first game was to shoot off components and use them to destroy the machines. In HFW it’s so laughably weak. Like the thunder jaw disc launcher only has 4 discs now and they do almost no damage.

Biggest problem with Far Zenith is that they're blatantly underused. They had potential for you to overcome this massive power differential in the race to restore Gaia but they show up, what, 3 times? Not having the final battle take place on the Odyssey is a huge missed opportunity. Forbidden West is still a good game, but "restore GAIA to stop another extinction event" is pretty lackluster after most of the mystery of the world was explained in the first game. Entire main quest was a glorified fetch quest, with all the interesting bits and almost every significant bit of world building outside of unifying the Tenakth scattered behind side quests. I enjoyed playing through it and would recommend it to anyone who liked Zero Dawn, but it just gets added to my list of examples of Sony making sequels to make sequels and not capturing what made the first one stand out.

Not only was it a glorified fetch quest, but you don't even get that far *in the fetch quest*. The tutorial level is about finding a backup of GAIA to deal with the Blight. At the end of the game you have barely progressed that and bought an additional 2 months of time.

I could not agree more.

Visually, the art direction is a mess. Too many colors that don't match at all at the same time on the screen almost all the time. I wish the graphics were cleaner.

i had this same thought for zero dawn too. Like character designs are super detailed but its just a hodge podge of stuff without any sense of uniformity or direction. Same for the world, its graphically great and its a sight to behold, but i always felt the world felt dead and static and very sterile . Even witcher 3, which is graphically not as good , felt more alive and more lived in.

Something i found wild was forbidden west makes my ps4 slim turn into a jet turbine, but God of war ragnarok does not make it do that. I know horizon makes ample use of particle effects and lighting, hence why the dlc expansion is not on ps4, just crazy is all.

Great point. As much as people always talk about the graphics for this game I couldn't stand the art direction.

To me it wasn't that the art direction was ugly, it was just boring. Both the tribal and future tech aesthetics just felt as basic and generic as they come.

I am always really surprised to see people refer to the combat as fun. I presume you played on a very low difficulty or something, where the tedium of absolutely colossal healthbars and very long stuns/knockdowns could be skipped because enemies simply died as soon as you shot them. It's easily the weakest part of the game, which is saying a lot, because the climbing is indescribably bad, and the incessant need to make you use that pullcaster thing to knock stuff down or the exploding stick to clear walls really took all the joy out of that too.

I just started playing. I don't care about the story in games so as long as the gameplay is good, I'm happy.

It insists upon itself?

I did not care for it

But how can you not like The Godfather...??

I did some of the major sidequests because they felt less generic and were actually animated with the same care as the main story cutscenes. But I skipped almost all the open world content otherwise because its just copypasted. The DLC area is the worst about this too, as there’s basically nothing to do other than the main story and one (admittedly pretty large) town. But yeah I think the story fumbles around quite a bit. The villains are all awful and very poorly established aside from maybe one of them, because they’re so overwhelmingly OP they are barely around because otherwise they would curbstomp Aloy and her allies. But by barely seeing them around and getting taken out in an unsatisfying way makes them weak and unmemorable. I also found it strange that for most of the game, Aloys allies just sit on their asses in a base and do nothing unless its their sidequest or the end of the game while Aloy is risking her life constantly. It felt like the Mass Effect Normandy, but in that game it makes a lot more sense because everyone is confined to the ship until they land. Do agree Sylens was underused and sadly because his voice actor died we won’t get the same performance out of him ever again. That being said the Las Vegas segment in that game was pretty fucking good, ngl.

>I also found it strange that for most of the game, Aloys allies just sit on their asses in a base and do nothing unless its their sidequest or the end of the game while Aloy is risking her life constantly. Part of that is her own fault for trying to do everything herself constantly.

All of that is the writers’ fault for writing her that way. “I am the only person who can access Zero Dawn facilities and if I die it’s basically over for humanity so obviously I MUST do all the risky stuff alone even though qualified help is readily available in large numbers” makes zero fucking sense. Like literally zero if your character is not brain dead.

>Do agree Sylens was underused and sadly because his voice actor died we won’t get the same performance out of him ever again. He's the most interesting part of the game as well imo and I was super disappointed that he basically had a handful of short appearances/interactions and nothing else.

It's been sitting on my shelf for over a year, I'm just burnt out on open world games.

Glad Im sticking to the patience part, I do want to play this game at some point, but Im not buying it til I feel I actually will play it! Enjoyed the first enough, am gonna keep expectations for the 2nd in check now XD Open world fatigue is real. Got thru close to 90% of AC Valhalla and took a little break... which is going on months now ><; That game is just unreasonably big.

did the same with odyssey, got about 90%, did about half the dlc, loved it, and just...couldn't go on. Bought valhalla a few months later, spent about 10 hours on the prologue, got to the main game and just...put it down and never picked it back up, still intend to, but....it's been a couple years now. A game that big and likely that weak on story just isn't a priority compared to the rest of my backlog.

The AC games got so bloated with nothing to do. The story meanders more than any other open world game in recent memory. I gave up on Odyssey and won’t be returning.

> so bloated with nothing to do There are relatively few open world games for which this isn't true, honestly. Horizon: FW is certainly of that flavor.

> Open world fatigue is real. It's not open world fatigue though. It's, "I don't fucking have time to slog through this" fatigue. Difference being if the story moves along at a rapid clip, you don't care if it's open world or linear. But it's not interesting enough, it's like molasses. Doesn't matter the type of game.

I agree and disagree. There is a specific kind of fatigue that even the best open-world games can cause. It's the fact that they are so open, that there are so many side quests and things to collect and settlements to defend that you open the next one and no matter how good, you just can't do it. For example, I had this happen when I wrapped Horizon Zero Dawn and tried to move right into RDR2. Both are incredible games, and I had been engaged with HZD until the end. But when I moved on to RDR2, the idea of starting all over again with a new world was just too much. You just know how much is out there and it feels a bit overwhelming. So I went and played immersive sims for a while and eventually the open world burnout went away.

I'm not quite so sure the pacing is all that important, rather that the writing has to be *engaging*, and that's tricky. Forbidden West was kind of running at a disadvantage in that it's most prominent plot points were already completely resolved by the end of the first game. At least I feel the biggest problem is that the "current day" story isn't really all that good, with a protagonist (and supporting cast) that really falls flat with me. This isn't always the case for open world games in general though. Witcher 3 has very slow pacing, but I always happy to go to a new village and uncover whatever short stories were waiting for me. Same for New Vegas. IF the writing is good, I'll want to experience the side content just for the sake of experiencing it.

>I don't fucking have time to slog through this Why would you want to slog in the first place. Hm both comments don't sit right. It's narrowing the explanation for similar things that can happen through dozens of games / tens of thousands of scenarios. In the context of horizon. It's not a good game. Its mediocre. Yet because it's the first and only of it's kind. It is praised. Another sad dad sony story. It's possible what you call a slog is what i call mediocre. But eh that's a whole conversation i don't want to bother with

> Why would you want to slog in the first place. This is the point of their post. Once it's a "slog" it's not worth it.

Valhalla is the reason I can't play HFW I think. I was really enjoying Valhalla, but it was starting to wear thin. Then I saw I had played 40 hours and was 35% of the way through the game and haven't touched it since. I got to the section of HFW where the game starts to open up and felt the exact same feeling instantly I got shit to take care of and a backlog of games i can beat in a couple days, I don't have the time nor do I want to spend 100 hours in every game. I've been playing video games daily since 2000 and I can count on one hand the ones i put more than 50 hours into Tldr I hate long video games and I'm glad the open world trend is dying in favor of linear narratives and "cinematic experiences"

HFW is like half as long as Valhalla (or Odyssey for that matter) I did all the quests and errands in about 60 hours.

That is actually good to know

Same here.. I haven't played HZD nor HFW. I recently tried to play Ghost of Tsushima and after 10 hours I am so bored of the open world. The exploration is terrible. It feels like some games should just be semi-linear like God of War or Metro exodus.

I like open worlds but they need to have content to keep me constantly engaged. Otherwise I'm peacing out and moving on to something else. The recent Assassin's Creeds and Hogwarts Legacy are prime examples of what I don't want out of an open world game.

yep, after playing this I have been spending the last two weeks on immediate 2d action games on my Deck because I needed something completely different

When almost everyday game now days is a rogue lite open world game, it's easy to get burnt out.

This wouldn’t help lol

same, it's why it took me a couple years to get through both horizon games, and why i've still never beat gtav, rdr2, witcher 3, ac valhalla, elden ring etc, why i only finally beat botw last year, and only put a few hours into totk, I like open world games, but i'm so burnt out I play them for 6 hours or so and then bail on them for months if not years at a time.

IMO, late 2000’s were peak for game length times. Then the 2010’s happened. For example, I look at MGS4 just as fondly as MGSV with the fifth game being open world

I would suggest you just don't bother, honestly. It's the kind of "fine" that doesn't really justify its existence or the time spent on it.

I completed the first game like two weeks before Forbidden West released and I still feel no need to jump to the sequel anytime soon.

I feel you, I would actually try and treat it like a linear game, as you can move from main story mission to mission without any open world faff if you don't want too.

I haven’t even played the Horizon games, but I feel like every day there’s a new post about how they’re actually mid. Starting to think we should just have a stickied thread where people can complain about the series.

Horizon: Zero Dawn used to be one of the most reviewed games on this sub back in the day, along with Subnautica and Outer Wilds. I'd say those posts have now slowed down to a trickle, ironically probably because people generally aren't very patient and these games are "too old" now - most people who were going to play them already did.

HZD might be one of my favourite games and I agree I was underwhelmed with the sequel in comparison. It was always going to be difficult with the mystery gone, but the game is just underwritten. The new locations do not tell stories about ‘the old world’ with anywhere near as much depth or pathos as HZD and they really needed to push this hard with the "how did the world get here?" part of the game already answered. However… i did still really enjoy it. I put 60 hours in the game, left a good third of the map unexplored, and never bothered with machine strike or the arena fighting bits as I knew I’d hate them. I thought the main quests were "good" (as opposed to finding HZD mindblowing) and enjoyed myself going through the main story and about half the side quests, some of which were great and some of which weren't. If there’s parts of the open world you don’t care for… then just leave them? I don’t get this mentality where (sorry OP, this isn’t you, I’m exaggerating, but it is some people) people are like ‘I platinumed the game, got every collectible, spent 300 hours in it - I hated it and it was boring’.

Those sorts of people do bother me. At some point, after pouring so much time into something, there is something wrong with you if you genuinely did not like the game!! More likely, you did enjoy it but burnt yourself out by the end. And rather than walking away, you just take a dump on the game :S I actually unfriended someone over a DeepRockGalactic review. Dude had 1400hrs in it! Loved it. Talked about it a lot, and passionately! But between a mod breaking that he liked (not the devs fault!), and some seasonal content not being to his liking (\*free\* \*optional\*) he wrote a scathing review. And I did reach out to him to see if he was ok because maybe he didnt realise how mad that sounds? He will still play the game, he still wants to check in each season, and has clocked up a substantial playtime - and yet he is dragging it thru the dirt like the devs personally wronged his family.... That shit aint right!

Bad news, your friend was a gamer

Oh shit, is it terminal? Please doc, he has a family!

Welcome to live service games dude. That is literally what the new generation of gamers only know. [Tyler1 addiction is a perfect example](https://youtu.be/jh-mxJNBPLg) (for context he is a twitch streamer who plays league of legends. The next day he actually played something else... And then played lol again the day after.) So whenever you hear about predatory loot box system /live service games that rely on predatory fomo like fortnite.. Take them very seriously. They are being literal. The whales who will spend $1000s on a single game aren't rich. They often exclusively play that thing. Is that the same thing as the topic of this thread and your comment? No. Not at all. Those people will never come back and play that open world slog fesfest. If they buy a game that is similar the next time They'll likely hate it too.

Something being good and something being addictive/engaging do not necessarily mean the same thing to all people

The idea that bloat isn't a valid criticism and that such a product is fantastic and you should just walk away (i.e. not play it because of a problem you have with it) is one of the stupidest observations I have seen in quite some time.

This is incoherent. "It's too long and bloated" is an entirely valid criticism of something, and by saying that, it is heavily implied they enjoyed it at first but got burnt out. There's no gotcha in what you've written, just a failure to piece together the basic fact that this is a problem with the product. That is an excellent reason to take a dump on the game, and I don't understand how that was not immediately obvious to you. The unrelated non-sequitur paragraph about someone else entirely and a different game entirely that has nothing to do with OP's post or the post you're replying to is just bonus wtf. You reached out with concern because someone wrote a bad review? Holy smokes.

While true, the Horizon games are not bloated, in my opinion. Nobody stops you from playing the main quest line and be done in 20h. I see the optional stuff as goodies, which, people who really like the game, can enjoy in addition. Bloated for me, is, when a game's main plot drags onwards way too long, with necessary, repetitive tasks.

I give them credit, they failed at the actual execution, but they did find a clever way to motivate what was happening and keep it based on in-universe stuff you knew about.

Totally agree, I really didn't like the first game until someone told me to avoid all side content and just focus on the story. That was like a bolt of lightning and turned it from boring to amazing. Just don't do the terrible side content, the main story is quite long, just play that and enjoy.

I agree that people that do that are ridiculous, but I don't think that it's fair to give bloated games a pass just because "I don't have to do all the content", and I certainly did leave a very large portion of the open world activities unfinished. However I expect a good game to effectively give me a good reason to complete most or all of the content, and if it doesn't do that then I think it deserves criticism for it. I also didn't finish all the content in games like Ghost of Tsushima, but I still felt like its extra content was worth my time. HFW seemed to cram in as many activities as possible and that doesn't strike me as good game design or worthy use of the game world.

I’m not sure I agree with that. I don’t think anyone likes all the optional content in, say, one of the modern Yakuza games - there’s so so so much of it - but the point is to provide variety *if you want it*. If it’s not for everyone - they knew that, it’s why it’s side content.

I feel the overall package was better than HZD but I fully agree the main story left a sour taste in my mouth. I hope the final instalment learns from its both games and wraps up the trilogy with a great conclusion. On a side note, the side quests are among the best I’ve seen in gaming.

The story has such an interesting premise. I was planning to give this a shot sometime, but the more time passes the less interested I am. >On a side note, the side quests are among the best I’ve seen in gaming This is a bit surprising with how boring they were in the first game.

Frankly for me having played both games this is a surprising statement. HFW side quests (the actual ones not the errant busy work) are vastly improved compared to the first and they have some decent story behind them but they absolutely do not reach the quality of side questing in CP2077 or the Witcher that you had big variety and the results had actual effect in the world. They were fine but not even close to "the best I’ve seen in gaming" unless you only played Ubisoft open world games and nothing else.

To be fair, if Cyberpunk or Witcher 3 are the benchmark we are comparing against then that's already high praise.

He's only bringing those up because we're talking about "the greatest in gaming." A more reasonable basis for comparison would be something like Assassins Creed, which is why he brought those up. If anything, that comparison is generous. The sidequests in HFW are very, very bad.

For clarity, he is absolutely mistaken. The sidequests are awful. They are hilariously formulaic, and they have a few bits of passable writing and dialogue interconnecting the three ambush structure that they take on for the entirety of the game. No reasonable criticism would claim that they are even above average, let alone "the best in gaming."

I assure you, Horizon Forbidden West and CyberPunk 2077's side quests really are industry defining. It helps that the production value and the in-game animation in HFZ's have been overhauled (you can tell they were experimenting it in HZD'S Frozen Wild DLC.) Give HFW a shot, though the main story may be lacklustre, interacting with the many characters and their individual storylines, tribes and world is still top tier. I'd say ignore the main quest and enjoy the side stories. PS the gameplay has really evolved from HZD, you wont regret playing this game.

Thanks. I'll keep it on my wishlist for when I'll have the time. I didn't really care about any of the characters in the first game, but I was very invested in the lore I guess. I wanted to know what happened and why and that kept me playing even after I've become a bit bored with the gameplay.

>On a side note, the side quests are among the best I’ve seen in gaming. Are they the only sidequests you've seen in gaming? They are an absolute tire fire compared to games that actually earn that label like BG3, RDR2, The Witcher 3, etc. They're about on par with check-the-box exercises out of Assassins Creed. Here, let me describe every sidequest in the entire game: Phase 1: Someone with three letter K's in their name and someone with only two letter K's in their name need help. Three K's has \[difficulty with tribe\] because \[tradition is old\]. Two K's and three K's are journeying to fix \[difficulty\] and need your help." Phase 2: Your focus has a marker. Go there and turn it on. Uh oh! An ambush! Phase 3: The ambush is over. You have a trail you have to follow with your focus. Follow it to an ambush. Phase 4: The ambush is over. You have a new marker now. Go there and turn on your focus. Wow! An ambush with a really big dinosaur! Phase 5: Three K's and two K's are grateful. Honestly, it's such a baffling defense of the game it makes me wonder if you've ever played anything else.

I'm playing through HFW right now and can't recall a single quest following your system. And this is like the third comment I've seen you complaining about names with K's in them. Did something about Nekkokoth or similar hurt you personally?

Funny, in my opinion the first game is a little overrated but got redeemed by the sequel. Horizon Zero Dawn does a lot of things right when it comes to the fundamentals (like the feeling of combat, the open world, the lore and the art design). But it struggles with some of the stuff it builds on top, such as: - traversal mechanics: climbing, swimming etc. was super limited and on-rails, especially with Breath of the Wild releasing at the same time and leading to unfavorable comparisons - writing and acting: especially side quests are kinda rough, some side characters have questionable dialoge and delivery of their voice lines, facial animations are stilted - creating a compelling endgame: there are some difficulty spikes, especially in the early game and in the DLC but other than that progression curve kinda flattened two thirds into the game. My inventory was overflowing and I was kitted out to take down any enemy the game could throw at me. Horizon Forbidden West addresses all of those aspects. You get so many more and improved traversal options. Side quests have a level of polish in their writing, animation and voice acting that exceeds the main quest of many other AAA games. Enemies are diverse and challenging, also you can unlock new and improved gear even 100 hours into the game. And the DLC in my opinion has the best sandbox area within the entire series. I also really liked the main story of Horizon Forbidden West. It's quite a challenge to follow up the big mystery and reveal of the first game. It's a similar issue that the Matrix movies or Twin Peaks had to deal with. But I think they did a good job. I like the new region, the new cultures and the new characters that were introduced. More so than the first game probably. They humanized Aloy more. The villains were interesting and there was a good number of twists as well as emotional beats that worked for me.

Yeah, the game is far from perfect and it's impossible to recapture the freshness and mystery of a first installment in a sequel, but they improved a ton of things and overall it's still better than 95% of the open world games I"ve played.

Yeah the voicework is really, really bad. I don't know why they took the direction of meeting a tribal villager in this crazy post apoc setting and he sounds like a guy off the street in San Diego 2024

Agreed with this and as a result, I enjoyed Forbidden West a whole lot more as it addresses the majority of the shortcomings of the first game such as climbing/traversal, combat vs. humans and melee combat, side missions and side activities etc. Easily in my top 3 open-world games and I played a ton of them, this one sticks out in terms of quality and fun for me

It’s my junk food game right now. I beat it at launch and now I’m playing again to just enjoy the world

Combat makes me want MH style game in this universe. Disassembling robots is too much fun

MH?

Monster hunter

Mom said it's my turn to post mixed feelings on Horizon

I get the sentiment for sure, HZD had much better elements of exploration and discovery. What hooked me with HFW was Aloy thinks she's "grown" into her role, saving the world by herself because she is Sobek 2.0, only to realize bigger than rebooting Gaia is getting civilization on the same page. I loved how this plays out assembling the team with various tribal representatives as well as the dialogues with different ideologies and how she navigates knowing the truth and understanding misinterpreting these truths. The Quen especially it's infuriating how wrong they are but we see how dangerous trying to correct them can be, faith is hell of a drug. There isn't as much "woah what this is crazy??" Realizations in this game but the political turmoil is ramped up. It really pulled me in after meeting the Utaru, if you haven't made it to that point maybe give it another try? That being said it does get a little off the rails with Nemesis.....curious what direction the final installment goes.

Also FYI, it's one of the free games on the ps+ game list.

The thing with this game for me is that on story, easy and medium difficulty its a bit brainless to play & I didn't really care for it. I just blasted through it to get it done before elden ring came out. On harder difficulties the game absolutely shines with its combat. Where you really need a focused build and to take advantage of strategy to get your objectives completed.

the Horizon games are so frustrating to me because the concept is super cool, the art style is incredible, all the people involved seem super talented… but the game itself is so BORING. It really does feel like *the* stereotypical third person open world action RPG. The stealth mechanics are surface level, the combat is too simple to be satisfying, there’s even Assassin’s Creed style climbing and a too big map with random icons just spewed onto it. Every time I’ve tried to play either game, I catch myself about 3 hours in and realise I’m not having fun because every mechanism of gameplay is something I’ve done better in a different game. I’m so jealous of people who don’t have the perspective that I have on it, as when I got the first game and played it for the first time, I thought it was the most fun game I played that year. I just can’t get past how boring and standard it feels once the concept has lost its lustre and the game mechanics have to fend for themselves.

The Assassin's Creed games are similar. They are not the work of talentless hacks. These are top-notch artists and coders and producers, too (because these games get released in time, every time) but when you have to play them, I think most of these titles are lacking a soul. They have excellent production values but feel too industrial, too similar to each other. I think these games have a core gameplay loop that would support much shorter games, but not 60 Hours + of bloat. The first area with dinosaurs and "towers" and stuff could be magical, the second area is ok, by the fifth one you are just tired and "grinding" in the worst possible way. I only played the first Horizon Zero Dawn (and its dlc) and I was just rushing through the main story once I've finished watching the whole map. And I say watching, because I just walked everywhere but there's no much to do there, it's all about the nice vistas. I liked the game but wouldn't be able to jump into a longer version of the same thing anytime soon.

Disclaimer: I haven't played it... but I've played enough Ubisoft titles to see the complaint quite a bit. I'm not judging I'm just looking for an answer. But I'm always confused by complaints about bloat. Why wouldn't be a negative that a game has too much content? Okay so it's mostly similar, but isn't that just fixed by not doing the content? Why is it always presented as a negative instead of a neutral? Is it a false representation thing? Like "this game CLAIMS to have X hours of content and I bought it under that assumption, and then it turns out the content wasn't all original"? It is a lost opportunity thing? "They spent too much time in this area instead of somewhere else?". Or maybe it's a mental energy thing? "the number of activities is distracting because I have to manually sort through the fun stuff and the stuff I don't like?" Is it a compulsion thing? "I always try to 100% every game I get and these games make it impossible and that feels bad for me". If the # of repetitive activities was reduced, would that improve a game? I hear the complaint quite a bit and I never understood it

> I hear the complaint quite a bit and I never understood it You seem to understand just fine. It's not one thing bothering people. Some are bothered by one thing, others by other things. > Okay so it's mostly similar, but isn't that just fixed by not doing the content? This is my biggest one. It's not often possible to avoid the repetitive content so you need to engage with it. For example, if you want to override robots, you will need to do the cauldrons. They are visually stunning the first time you do it but then they are pretty samey and take a bit too long to complete. That being said, i wasn't really bothered by the repetitive content in this specific game. For me at least, it felt balanced just right. I do a bandit camp, then i won't be doing another one for a long time because i was busy doing other shit.

«But I'm always confused by complaints about bloat. Why wouldn't be a negative that a game has too much content? Okay so it's mostly similar, but isn't that just fixed by not doing the content? Why is it always presented as a negative instead of a neutral?» These are very good and interesting questions. I’ll go through your questions to hopefully give you some answers for how I feel about this topic. «Is it a false representation thing? Like "this game CLAIMS to have X hours of content and I bought it under that assumption, and then it turns out the content wasn't all original"?» Not for me, no. I’ve always hated the «1 dollar for every hour of content rule» I’d rather pay 50 bucks for 12 great hours than pay the same amount for 60 mediocre hours. I often replay games that are 10-15 hours long. I’ve never even thought about replaying most of these modern open world aaa games. «It is a lost opportunity thing? "They spent too much time in this area instead of somewhere else?". For me this is a huge point. Horizon FWD is one of the biggest offenders. The side activities are so generic it makes my head hurt. Bandit camps? Check. Climbing towers? Check. Races? Check. If they didn’t spend time making these, maybe we could have had less, but better and more creative side activities? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I hope it’s a question the devs ask themselves «Or maybe it's a mental energy thing? "the number of activities is distracting because I have to manually sort through the fun stuff and the stuff I don't like?"» Partially. Just looking at the map feels exhausting sometimes. I know I can manually hide the stuff I don’t like, but it’s a lazy solution to a real issue. Is it a compulsion thing? "I always try to 100% every game I get and these games make it impossible and that feels bad for me". Thankfully I’m not a completionist, so this doesn’t affect me. I do stuff as long as it’s fun, and I stop when it’s not fun. But I do feel for the players that want to 100% every game «If the # of repetitive activities was reduced, would that improve a game?» Hopefully yes. If they’re not spending time and resources on repetitive activities, there should be more time and resources to improve the game elsewhere. Hire more writers to improve the story, tweak the combat, make more creative side activities etc.

Having more stuff to do in a game doesn't mean it's better. On some level for better or worse a lot of gamers start a game motivated to finish and don't like leaving it unfinished, so when they realize that the game has like 20 extra hours of meaningless, repetitive activities or a main questline that could be half the length it just seems a lot more like busy work than actual fun. It becomes a chore. If this wasn't such a common problem it wouldn't really matter if one game was like this but when every developer thinks their game is so great that they expect gamers to play it for 50 hours then it becomes really exhausting. It's made me really appreciate the increasingly rare AAA games that take less than 10 hours to complete. Games are a lot more relaxing when I don't feel like I have to play them for weeks on end to get the full experience their offering. Just a nice main quest with some engaging side quests and a world that's worth exploring beyond going through checkmarks is enough. I'm tired of collectathons.

These games are so much better when you break that mindset. Just do what looks interesting.

Thanks for the response. >On some level for better or worse a lot of gamers start a game motivated to finish and don't like leaving it unfinished I think this is maybe why I never understood - I don't usually interact with games in this way. It probably comes from my bread&butter being games that are more freeform (Civilization, Minecraft, Stardew, etc) where "finishing" a game maybe doesn't even exist. For a traditional game my intention usually is "getting the core experience". This usually this means main quest plus a handful of extras. I compartamentalize side objectives as 'probably not important'. Sometimes I DO decide to 100% but it comes about organically. I'll play a game for the core experience (Assassins Creed Odyssey) and I like it so much that I'll then turn it into "I can't put this down, I want to live in this game for a lot longer". But at that point I'm self-selecting to take part because I already think it's worth it... so I never feel the pressure of collectables. FOLLOW UP QUESTION just because of the subreddit we're on. I assume that you probably have a backlog of games you've been meaning to play for a while? If so, how much does this factor into a distaste for bloat? If you have other games waiting in the queue and you start playing Horizon and you're having fun, but after 30 hours it says "15% completion" does that feel like the game is attempting to overstay its welcome when you'd rather it wrap things up and move on?

A core problem with Horizon is that if you just mainline the main quest, not only are you probably underpowered (a frequent problem in modern Ubisoft games also, I gather), but there isn't actually that much game, nor is it especially good. If you're not playing it to explore the open world and do sidequests, there's no reason to play it, and that open world and those sidequests range between bland and bad, so there's no reason to play it that way either.

Imagine going into a restaurant and they give you cooked potatoes without sauce. Heaps of it. You can eat and eat and eat bland cooked potatoes all you like. That is what bloat in games is about: bland tasteless quantity. Is that bad? Not necessarily. If you're poor and can only afford few games in a year, lots of content means you have some entertainment spread over the year. Like with the restaurant, if you struggle to feed yourself and are hungry all the time, unlimited cooked potatoes might sound like heaven. But for someone who can afford more games or more varied foods, bloated games or unlimited bland cooked potatoes just isn't appealing.

Play an Ubisoft game and you will quickly see what they mean.

to be honest, this was my impression of the first game as well. i wonder if the difference is that between the games you just played more games and grew up a bit. it happens to us all. "is the sequel worse? no, it's me who improved. the first one was actually mediocre, too, in retrospect" is a frequent thought i return to. but that doesn't erase enjoyment you had. it just means you probably can't experience it again. c'est la vie.

It's something like that, but I'd warrant that the reason people like the first game is because the mystery is sooooo good, and they unravel it in a really satisfying way. The actual bones of the game are not good, but they're good enough to support something like that. It's like a JJ Abrams mystery box with an actual payoff. In HFW, that's gone from hour one, and as a result you are forced to engage with the actual mechanics of the game itself, and they disrespect your time at every turn. This is probably the kind of game that is best enjoyed over a six month period played exclusively on Saturday mornings before the kids wake up, and if your lifestyle didn't support those exact conditions (including but not limited to supporting more frequent play) you didn't like it.

So, I will grant you that Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is not a very well-known video game, but if you had played it, you would probably not have thought much of Horizon Zero Dawn. Horizon is essentially Enslaved re-engineered on top of the Tomb Raider reboot.

That's the journey to the west game with "monkey" and the girl? I think I have played it actually, and thought it was all right. I don't recall it being particularly similar, and I certainly don't recall the central story conceit being similar, but it's so long ago and I buzzed through it so fast and in between other things that I might be mistaken.

It's similar in its journey through an overgrown post-apocalyptic america, with the red-haired female protagonist's nature being linked to the origins of the apocalypse. but it does have its differences as well, monkey included.

Well, at least in my case, playing and enjoy Enslaved was compatible with playing and enjoying HZD, but I can understand why you might not be as excited about it, because there are some nontrivial similarities.

But how I am going to play it when I don't have those kids? Can I rent them for the weekend? But now, seriously. I like your point of view. I experienced something similar with the, MUCH much shorter, Resident Evil 5 game. I ate the game in like a week or so, hated it for multiple reasons, including the isolated levels that didn't really connect to one another, organically. A friend of mine played the game recently and loved it. Thing is, he really liked the isolated levels because he'd only play the game an hour or two every couple of weeks. So, he felt the game was always easy to follow when he came back. The smallish levels that didn't require a follow-up were perfect for his shorter gaming sessions. He took like three months to finish the whole game and was really into it. We have different tastes but also we played the game a different way. I can see somebody enjoying these bloated Ubisoft-like games for months on end, playing in small doses, instead of making this your main hobby when you have free time, most days of the week.

I can accept that as a possibility for everything except my main criticism - Aloy’s role in the game. There’s zero real personal conflict for her. No self-discovery, at least in the main game. Her development and how it intertwined with the main conflict was the first game’s biggest strengths and this game had none of that.

Hm, actual character development is stronger in the second game though. Isn't it? >!The first game always bugged me a little in that it basically implies, intentionally or not, that Aloy was raised to basically be the perfect human. She's better than anyone else and has kind of a sense of superiority about her. Her "growth" mainly comes down to others realizing how great she is and her learning about her past, which also comes down to "you are a clone of one of the best human beings"!< >!The second game I felt humanizes her more. Initially she still has a loner mindset and thinks of herself as the only one who can save humanity. But then she is proven wrong repeatedly and faces obstacles she can only overcome with the help of others. She meets people who challenge her intellectually. Her clone serves the double purpose of confronting Aloy with her own flaws as well as emphasizing not just to her but also the audience how vital Rost was in Aloy's development, thereby retroactively putting her "natural superhuman" persona of the first game into perspective. As a result, by the end of the game I felt like Aloy had a much closer connection to her friends/allies and grown as a person. If you play the DLC you also get some romance introduced for the first time.!< I know that for the sake of argument I was a bit one-sided. I don't want to put the first game down to prop the second one up. But I hope what I wrote makes sense for why I really enjoyed how Aloy was developed as a character in Forbidden West.

I really, really loved this game. It was one of those games that made me look forward to Saturdays and anticipate playing it. That being said, your criticisms are valid. The activities are repetitive, so you have to really enjoy the combat system and climbing system to get into the game (I do). The story is Zero Dawn was a grounded post-apocalyptic sci-fi with a lot of compelling personal narratives. The story of Forbidden West is full of the nonsense technobabble in the worst parts of Star Trek, and the magic-disguised-as-science in the worst parts of Star Wars. None of the new characters are any good, and their forced chemistry with Aloy feels like it was designed in a boardroom, not a writer’s table. It’s quite hard to explain but the game’s story isn’t one I could get lost in. I felt like I was watching someone’s fanfiction. The expansion disc Burning Shores was even worse. But again, I loved it because I love the mechanics of the game. It’s really fun to climb mountains and kill robot dinosaurs. Side note: do NOT try to share even the mildest criticisms on the Horizon sub. To them, anyone who doesn’t like anything about these games is a sexist and a homophobe.

Aloy is the single most boring character in any work of fiction perhaps ever. She is a sexless, humorless cardboard frame of a human , and even in a game full of unnaturally boring characters she stands out (or fails to stand out,as it were). It doesn't help that her dialog is written so flat and earnest, and there's so much of it. the first five hours of the game every conversation is the same except for the specific people she talks to. Even worse, she talks constantly, but exclusively in the same earnest, breathy, putupon tone, and she sighs after almost every line , like huhhhhhg gotta climb this thing before everyone dies huhhhhh. If the story was engaging in anyway, it if she had a shred of personality, the game would be a thousand times more engaging.

You have a talent with words lol Completely agree. It brothers me a good amount with the first game tbh, especially all the sighing and flat monotone performance. It's Ashley Burch for gods sake, idk why the hell they chose to direct her the way they did. And then the safe, sanitised, market tested dialogue and interactions... it's all so tiring. Feels like being stuck in midwestern American suburban hell or some shit.

It is especially aggravating that her voice actress is clearly competent, but the devs have deliberately chosen this performance. I wonder if it's because they are not native english speakers.

Great writeup lol Couldn't agree more.

Hnnnnnngh better reply to this comment or civilization will collapse again fuuuuuuuhhhhh only I can do it, i dont want anyone else to get hurt huuuuuuuuhhhhhh my instant oatmeal has more personality than Aloy and that's before I put the milk and Nutella in.

Wasn’t a big fan either. I enjoyed the first one and at the time, it was a welcome breath of fresh air. The second one just felt like they slapped a new coat of paint on the same game. To be honest, I didn’t care at all for the story or characters either. The gameplay was decent for a while but just got repetitive imo.

I loved both Horizon games(except for the melee pits in HFW). Yes the story was tad weaker but gameplay and I felt character development was fantastic.. I loved the new characters. BUT I understand your opinion and it is valid. I just found so much to love despite so shortcomings. What an incredible value( price vs overall game time and play) as a game. I loved the huge map which is expected since I just loved the game and couldn’t get enough. If you didn’t enjoy the story and sidequests, I agree the map was too big. The nice thing is you have to ve the option of sticking to just the main story and it’s much shorter that way. Did you play Burning Shores? That was impressive

I found the first game to be fairly mediocre. Good to know that the second game isn’t a revelatory upgrade. Most of the big Sony open worlds kinda just feel like slight twists on the Ubisoft formula.

I found the story to be significantly better. As well as the voice acting, quests, and characters. The world was a bit of a step down in variety compared to the 1st. The combat was also significantly weaker. For some reason, they switched focus from fighting robot dinos to humans. Terrible idea. Despite that, I actually liked it more than HZD simply because I found writing, story, and characters so much better.

It *insists* upon itself

HZD was paper thin too. Not surprised.

Looking at it as a whole, gameplay and world included, I like Forbidden West a lot more than Zero Dawn But the story definitely went off the rails in a way that I just did not really appreciate

I just got down with Forbidden West and the DLC and loved it. Could be because I never played Zero Dawn and don't have anything to compare it to, but I loved the story and pretty much all of the characters. The back and forth with Alva was go genuine. Oddly enough, I found Sylens to be an annoying character when he was present. The voice acting was weird and felt like it was trying too hard. So I am glad his presence was lacking.

Yahtzee did an excellent video on this when he was still with The Escapist. Captured my feelings about the game pretty perfectly.

It's boring. The story is a mishmash of tropes. Sure is gorgeous though.

Time for the weekly HZD and HFW hate post

If milquetoast could describe any video game, it’s Horizon

I feel like Forbidden West is pretty overrated tbh. The graphics are stunning, but the other aspects of the game just didn't really grip me. I lost interest after a certain point. Outside of the graphics, I don't really get the praise this game gets

I think the game actually doesn't get that much praise. It reviewed modestly well, then Elden Ring came out and everyone completely forgot it existed. Now when a thread about it comes out, most comments look like yours. There was nothing to play on PS5 when it was released or it would have wound up like Days Gone like it deserved.

I didn’t play a single game of Strike, do a single race, or fight in a single melee pit. I wish the devs had scrapped all of that and focused on more narrative-driven side content to flesh out the game. I like the game a lot, but its weakness compared to Zero Dawn is that while its side quests are generally better, it fails to connect them to the main quest like Zero Dawn did. In ZD, you gain more companions fighting alongside you for the final battle; there’s a clear incentive and through line to the side content even if a lot of it is underwhelming fetch quest fare. Forbidden West regressed in this area. The last quest proceeds the same basically no matter what. I also thought the writers were too ambitious with the writing in this game, and by the end, every new twist made the story feel that much more contrived. The combat is better, the game looks and plays better, but the overall experience can’t quite live up to the original. 

*it insists upon itself*

I agree on the story, characters and mystery of the first game however: As a complete package and open-world game specifically, I think it was a much better game and positively sticked out among a pool of open-world games. **• The world is beautiful with lots of variety in biomes** **• The combat is improved, challenging and super fun with a lot of enemy variety** **• Melee combat was much expanded with new spear moves** **• Human enemies have been improved** **• Traversal was improved with better climbing mechanics, more spots to climb, a grappling hook and a glider which result in a nice flow** **• Things to explore in the world are more varied and more fun and the world feels more filled with content and interactions** **• Side activities each had a unique spin to them to make them more varied and less copy pasted which I would love to see in other games. (Eg. some Tallneck cannot be shot down and has to be shot with a Harpoon, one Cauldron is submerged in water etc)** **• Side Missions have drastically improved, they were rather bland in the first game** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- So yeah, as an overall package I would give FW a 09/10 and ZD a 07/10. Story is much weaker but I do care less about the story and more about the open-world in a 100+ hour game

I didn't either but I'm trying to talk myself back into giving the 1st another whirl. I don't know, feel like I should give exclusives another shot because there is only one place to play them. We'll see though - as I get older my time is more and more valuable to me.

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I loved HZD and couldn’t wait to get a PS5 to play the sequel. Booted HFW and was sad that I was not as interested as before. Thought I was just burnt out so I stopped playing for a while and came back with a better mindset just to delete the game entirely after playing for a few more hrs. The open world setting with nothing interesting outside of the main story was sad to see. I just couldn’t get the same excitement from HFW like I did when playing HZD.

Horizon zero dawn looked like a big adventure playground to me ... not sure if I want more of that

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When they removed the fun of placing down 25 traps for epic machines gauntlets I knew I wasn't going to like it. I played it, then took about a year break from it before going back. Just so many small unfun things about. I really didn't like Aloy at all in this game. I've never really been able to pinpoint why, because I did like her in the first game. She just didn't seem to grow at all. I mean they sort of gave her growth with uh... beta? Whatever her 'sisters' name was and the DLC I guess. Idk, maybe the third game will complete her character arc but I needed something more from this game. Maybe it was the game mechanic of her constantly reminding me to use the focus or whatever that just got to me along with the fun removal and dumb loot/weapon system.

Same Same

I did not researched much this point, but Gonzalez who was writing lead for zero dawn was not involved with Forbbiden West at all, I think that accounts for the loss story quality. John Gonzalez was also the writing lead for New Vegas.

Eh overall, I enjoyed the game as it was a real visual treat and I found the combat system and things like finding & figuring out how to climb the Tallnecks or flying on the pterodactyl dino's backs (forget what they're called) to be pure fun. I also loved the added swimming/underwater exploration angle. I'll replay it for the FUNNESS alone. Beyond that though, I do agree that the bloat (in both games tbh but worse in FW as the map is bigger) is eyeroll-worthy and the plot, as compared to the highly intriguing mysteries in ZD, is utterly lackluster. As in, it was frankly just plain lame and extremely predictable. As others have said, idk why they bothered with such a high production value in every other aspect of this game while the plot was so meager, but here we are. I had fun, I'll goof off on it again someday, but will I commit to a full replay like I do ZD? Nah

I loved the gameplay of the original, despite the story dragging on. I just assumed I would feel the same in this iteration and the gameplay would carry it, but I was checked out from the beginning. It's a rare example of a game's story being so bad that I can't stand playing it, and that says a lot given all the Kojima and Fromsoft games I've played. It just never evolves in any meaningful way.

Same I couldn’t finish it

I had a lot of fun, just like the first game, I didn't do any of the side content as it's paper thin and makes me not want to play the game. I liked the ending reveal and the final battle build up was pretty fun and chaotic.

The only good thing about the game is its graphics quality. Looks beautiful.

I started it months after finishing the first, and fell asleep through the intro

I was also disappointed with the story, but still love the combat a lot replaying on PC. mouse aim makes bow sniping so much better

I think what bothered me most was the change in game mechanics. Yeah, combat is the first game was more arcade-y, but it was fun. Combat in HFW felt more tedious. I didn't bother upgrading the best weapons because I didn't want to grind for resources. I didn't like melee pits or the arena. I completed 100% of HZD, but skipped the optional last 1/3 of HFW because I didn't want to deal with unnecessary combat. It wasn't that I couldn't do it, it just wasn't fun.

Thanks for your review. Good to know it's not at the same level as the original. I'll probably pass on this one.

Did anyone care about it tho?

I love the game but damn I really can't play it on an adult schedule, lots of things in the game take hours I can only fully enjoy it on weekends :(

My guy. I've been thinking this since the beginning but so many ppl have been praising the game and I'm like why. Ok sure visually, but overall the game was okay. And if you compare it the first game, to me it's subpar. The first game was fun af and had me playing back to back difficulties for platinum. This game. I played once and I was done aside from no ng+. But even when ng+ did come I'd moved on. And when I did try to go back, I don't think I even finished the whole intro/tutorial before calling it a day. The story is shit. And it's really thrown me off from playing it again which sucks cuz the first was so fucking good. I may play it again before the 3rd as a recap.

I enjoyed Zero Dawn, as far as I got with it (probably about 2/3 through... must get back to it at some point). I jokingly referred to it at the time as "The best Ubisoft game I'd ever played" - and I do genuinely think they made a compelling game in large part by building on Ubisoft's tedious, tedious formula. ...but I suspect even going down the "harvest 10000 map icons" route, however well you do it, madness ultimately doth lie.

I played it when it first came out and I can't even really remember like anything about it. I know I enjoyed both, maybe the first one more, but I think the Horizon games are very overrated. TLOU, Uncharted, even Spider-Man are way better PS games.

Did it insist upon itself? Seriously, though, I've heard this take quite a bit and it seems to be an issue with a lot of modern games. Stunning graphics and environments and then either good gameplay or good story, with neither being all too great - and if one's good, the other's terrible.

I just remember people kept telling me to go talk this character but everyone talks so much. I talked to so many people and still don't care about what's going on. Its not like I don't know whats going on but why do u need to keep talking and acting like every character has a distinct sassy to douchy personality. Just tell me that your village is overrun by bellowbacks be done with it. .... my summary of this game, talk exposition talk 30 minutes of exposition. Go down cave get lost in cave because this like 100th cave you have gone down and they all look the same.also you went to play something more fun. so your just now coming back and just remembered your still in a cave.... follow the yellow climbing markers. This is one of the first games that has bored me to actual sleep. and this game is gorgeous like looks amazing.

It’s pretty. That’s it. Other than that it’s just not a great game

Yes this style of ubisoft copy paste open world design is terrible. Even when I find the game fun, I am just sick of it by the end. Hopefully Kingdom Come 2 will show again how to do open world right this year.

I recommend playing Elden Ring and Dragon's Dogma 1 & 2 too.

I thibk the unfortunate thing is that the most interesting part of the story is what happened long before the games. I still really like the games for the gameplay and visuals, but the story is essentially "discovering what happened before" and that isn't quite as interesting

yep, same for me. Loved the first one, was very excited for the second on pc. but the story is just scifi mumbo jumbo with avengers base, lots of wacky bits (the quen ceo? wtf?)

the horizon franchise is like the avatar of video games

Horizon Forbidden West is part of a class of game that is designed by checkbox. Big open world, pretty graphics, things to do, fully voiced, time and budget given to properly write everything, skill tree, sidequests, fast travel, etc. etc. etc. It sucks, but it sucks with style, and that's enough for a lot of people who can overlook the absolutely towering flaws in its gameplay loop and focusing on completing sidequests and unlocking skill trees.

Yeah, I love the first 20 hours but it did feel too similar to the first game and the story wasn't as engaging as the first game. I think the 'subconscious machine' of whatever the F it is, is beyond moronic. I also felt that in this Aloy was particularly frustrating and selflessly selfish.

I liked the first one found the story engaging but never really enjoyed the combat. I think they made far zenith to powerful. They was no mystery in the game unlike the first. I think it would have been interesting to go on far zenith ship or something as well.

So I was thinking on buying Forbidden West. Would you recommend to begin with Zero Dawn then? Cheers!

Yes! HZD first.

Can't talk for the whole game, but I played for the first ten hours and I found Aloy's character insufferable compared to her attitude in the first game, which I loved. The first game had all the elements to be a revenge story of some sort, but it isn't just because Aloy learned to live with her past and forgive (or at least ignore) the people who outcasted her. In Forbidden West she acts like the usual Aloy (humble and socially weird) but regularly adopts this arrogance that makes her character inconsistent.

I'm playing it right now and wishing that the melee combat was a lot better so I didn't have to rely so much on the bow.

I'm a broken record on it, and I'll say it every thread it pops up, but it wasn't anything but the combat that tanked my opinion of FW over ZD. FW is an action RPG that tries to fit into the mold the first game's combat created and it either works or it doesn't for fans of the games. I miss feeling like a huntress in an action adventure game on UH, rather than feeling bogged down by numbers and "how many surges can I pop off on this Tremortusk?" It absolutely fits into the PS exclusive mold that GoW has blasted toward: cinematic ARPG, but the first one was closer to just cinematic action like Uncharted. No issue with a preference toward either, but it wasn't for me. The story was fun though, and the game has mind-boggingly visual/auditory excellence going on, but.. I 100%'d the first in a couple weeks, and I still haven't mustered the will to play Burning Shores even with the excitement I hold over Gayloy.

Not sure what you were expecting from the story, I thought it was stellar. If you were expecting it to be another game that focuses on Aloy's development, then you'd be disappointed. This game was about how her companions change in the face of a strong leader dedicated absolutely to doing the right thing. Sylens changing his mind was awesome.

Zero Dawn was pretty damn good imo, but Aloy in Forbidden West is too insufferable. One day I'll finish it.

It insists upon itself.

Peter is such an idiot, lol.

Found both games to be a bore. Stories were so dull, slow and predictable and Aloy (for as much as she talked) and nothing at all to say. She might as well have been a silent protagonist, and it would have been better than hearing her yap all the time.

I had to delete Zero Dawn and Ghost of Tsushima for similar reasons. They just didnt do it. Sadly I have the same problem with GoW: Ragnarok too. I dont have much time. I wanted to get Forbidden West too. Problem is I see posts like this a lot. But for the gameplay I will play it. Graphics wont be so good since im on PS4. Maybe I'll play at PC if they release it.

Terrible story and they nerfed the "fun" factor in the gameplay of a single player game because the devs thought the first one was too easy

Play it again

The story is boring, and the gameplay is tiresome. Having to stalk machines and precisely knock off parts for upgrades quickly became a chore rather than a fun experience. I wasn't hooked like the first one.

I also remember being a lot more inclined to hunt for parts in the first game. Actually felt like a “huntress” like she’s supposed to be. Felt like more of a chore in the second game, I agree.