Home is not a place, it is the people I want to be with.
Aloy, Horizon Forbidden West
Table of Contents
Introduction
Every once in a while I run across a game that is a full on iterative improvement in every way from its predecessor. That is the case for Horizon Forbidden West, sequel to one of my most favourite open world games of all time Horizon Zero Dawn.
I played Horizon Zero Dawn back when it first released on PS4 back in 2017. In fact it was the reason I went out and bought a PS4. Horizon Zero Dawn is still the only game to this day where I’ve gotten all the achievements and gotten the “platinum” trophy. I loved that game to bits.
So when a sequel to Zero Dawn was announced, I was very much excited. Unfortunately for me, like Zero Dawn, Forbidden West was initially going to be exclusive to Sony’s console, the PS5 in this case. So while the game came out in 2022, I did not play the game until it released on PC this year. So I have waited 7 years for this game.
It was worth the wait.
Mechanics and Visual Fidelity
I do wonder how much of my comparison of this game to its predecessor is tainted by recency bias. After all, it is hard to remember most of the finer details of Horizon Zero Dawn after 7 years. That said there are some very obviously visible improvements in this game over its predecessor.
The biggest one is visual fidelity, Horizon Zero Dawn looked really good already but this game is just better on that regard. Environment details, character models and textures. One immediately noticeable improvement in this game is that character facial animations in this game are very much more natural looking than the stiff animations in the first game.
Mechanically, the combat systems added a lot more variety. There are more weapon and ammo types and the game encourages you to mess around with the various weapon types to find the combat style you like. For example, I preferred a lot of mid to close range arrow combat against machines instead of using traps for example. While fighting human enemies I preferred a lot of stealth and precision arrows combined with melee combat when they eventually detected me.
The Tribes
The game brings in new tribes in addition to the ones in the previous game (Carja, Oseram). The new additions being – Utaru, Tenakth, and Quen. All of these are unique culturally; different clothes, ways of speaking, religion, armour, hierarchies and philosophies. I found the Tenakth the most visually interesting with their face paints and tattoos but all the tribes are interesting in their own right.
I recommend clicking on the screenshots to view them in the original resolution. There is a lot of detail to be appreciated in character models in this game. Chief Hekarro of the Tenakth is perhaps the most imposing character I’ve seen in a video game in a while. He is voiced by Geno Segers who really does the character justice with his performance.
Narrative
Horizon Forbidden West ups the narrative stakes significantly compared to its predecessor. The post-post apocalyptic world faces an impending apocalypse in the form of biosphere collapse if not stopped by pieces that only Aloy can put into motion. A fairly typical set of narrative beats for a video game but what makes this one special is the characters.
Familiar faces from the first game return, Varl, Sylens, Erend. Of course we get new faces like Zo, Kotallo, Alva who become part of your motley crew of weirdos (complimentary) helping Aloy save the world. Aloy herself gets more character development, she continues to be kind and empathetic to the distressed world around her and at the same time she is more confident and assertive of her own abilities.
The game presents a set of antagonists that are appropriately villainous but to me the most important antagonist, the pressing issue was the impending doom of biosphere hanging over every person in this world. From the Utaru farmers in Plainsong to the desert warriors of the Tenakth, every character in this world is affected in some way by the impending disaster which starts manifesting in the form of a red blight that destroys crops and poisons water.
I found myself enjoying the world and its characters a great deal. I did almost every side quest and errand the game handed me and I noticed a marked improvement in the quality of the side quests compared to the previous game. The quests were more well thought out with intriguing characters and unique narrative beats that fleshed out the world I was already into.
Burning Shores
Since I played the PC release of the game two years after its initial launch, the PC version included the Burning Shores DLC, about 10-15ish hours of additional story content. In many ways Burning Shores is a concentrated form of the narrative of the main game: impending environmental apocalypse combined with a cartoonishly evil antagonist who has created a cult of followers using mind control technology.
What makes Burning Shores really stand out is the companion character Aloy encounters at the very beginning of the DLC, a Quen marine named Seyka. Most of the Burning Shores story missions are ones Aloy and Seyka do together and the banter between them is well written, funny and charming. I found myself thinking, “…are they flirting?”, the answer to which is very definitely yes.
I was certainly not expecting a well written queer romance narrative in Burning Shores when I started playing it. The narrative feels like it was written by a queer writer. The way Aloy and Seyka interact very much feels genuinely queer in way where I don’t see a non-queer writer having written the narrative.
More of this kind of narrative in AAA games please.
Conclusions
Overall I found Horizon Forbidden West to be a significant improvement over its predecessor in every way and well worth the time I put into it over the course of the past month. If you like me greatly enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn when you played it, I very much recommend Forbidden West. For the PC gamers out there: the PC port is rock solid, I saw no issues with performance or any other technical problems.
I am very curious what Guerrilla Games is going to do next. I am definitely interesting in more games in the Horizon series but I’m open to at least giving whatever else Guerrilla Games does a shot.