Review
Played on: PCReleased: 2024
Originally released: 2022 (PS4 & PS5)
Since my initial playthrough of vanilla Horizon Zero Dawn in 2017, review here, I've played the expansion Frozen Wilds and replayed most of it on PC, when it hit Steam in 2020. In simpler terms; although I had issues of complaint in my initial review, I loved the experience very much. Probably standing as my favourite PlayStation 4 game of them all.
Fast forward to this year, and I've yet to own a PS5 and the 30fps version PS4 with downgraded visuals hasn't been tempting for the sequel; Horizon Forbidden West. However, I bought a gaming laptop a couple of years back, and this year finally saw the release on Steam. I jumped in and bough it on launch!
Can the sequel repeat the magic? Let's take a look!
Continuing her journey from the first game, Aloy travels to what is known as the Forbidden West. An area covered with areas full of red plague. Here she is thrown into a war between various tribes and forced to rebuild a mainframe computer A.I. to take control of the new land.
It's a sequel that falls into the difficult task of continuing a story with a huge plot twist. It's forced to just build something out from a major reveal. Forbidden West does a fair attempt at captivating the player in new events, with n underlying tribal conflict, where you neeto reunite the various other tribes against the ruthless rebel Regalla. In a change of events from the first game, I actually cared more about the tribal part in the sequel.
While on the other hand, I especially didn't care for these futuristic characters. Ranging from the overly angry and violent Erik, to a pompous and scheming generic bald dude called Gerard and even Carrie Ann Moss turning up to voice a pretentious, sci-fi, lady called Tilda. Complete with tons of technical gibberish and high floating plans in their script. It just feels so stereotypical "futuristic" in both appearance and plot advancement. Like they looked up the word on google and found a ton of stock photos.
I get it, Aloy has to find a copy of an A.I. called GAIA, to restore the planets degrading biosphere. It's cool to interact with GAIA and understand more of how the world worked prior to apocalypse and help save it through main missions taken in the order your prefer. However, the sudden appearance of these futuristic people, called the Zenith, feels underwhelming like a deus ex machina to make the plot work. They appear early on and then vanish again, only to return towards the ending.
They break the illusion of Aloy being alone with her unique ability to communicate with technology. Where are the Zenith while you're running about and playing most of the game, stopping Aloy in her tracks? Plus, they're reason for surviving the initial apocalypse is a really generic explanation.
Luckily, Lance Reddick returns as Sylens, but his relevance wanders in the shadow of his massive plot twist in the first game. My favourite plot parts are the ones with Aloy interacting with her old friends and the new companion Alva. Aloy's clone Beta, on the other hand, is a whiny and exhausting character to deal with.
Facial animation and cutscenes all look stunning, though. The voice-over work is top shelf quality. Aloy likes to talk a lot to herself, hinting the player of places to explore of things to look out for, and it helps bring some personality to the loneliness when exploring on your own. I appreciated that Alloy makes a point of wanting to explore on her own to her friends and followers, a clever way of avoiding computer controlled characters wandering about with you all the time.
Gameplay takes the high seat this time around, a switcheroo from the first game. The skill tree is heavily changed for the better, allowing the player to evolve Aloy towards the gameplay style they prefer. Each skill set is divided into categories like health, stealth, override etc. allowing you to use you experience points where you prefer, rather than being forced to upgrade stuff you'll never use in order to reach others.
Item management is easier too, with excess stuff being sent automatically to storage. There's a lot of cool upgrades to be made to outfits, weapons and carrying items, which in turn require special resources. Each outfit has it's own strengths, some are better for stealth, others for sniping, while another might be geared towards melee. It adds some depth and strategy for choosing outfits, and don't worry, you can apply the appearance of any outfit on top of another.
Combat somehow feels less arrow spongy and, with a strong distinction on what works best as attack method for various types of enemies. Each enemy can be scanned and thoroughly informs you about their strengths and weaknesses.
Underwater segments are surprisingly fun too, thanks to a breathing device you obtain through the story, allowing Aloy to breathe under water. Stealth gameplay is cleverly retained even underwater.
Interestingly, the cauldrons hidden in caves beneath the surface, basically dystopian futuristic dungeons, return and his time around they're way more elaborate. They offer some of the most challenging exploring and puzzle solving throughout the game. You need to find out how to enter them, override them and find the exit. They're an overwhelming, nightmarish design of metal, pipes and lights and maze-like structure, making them tricky but satisfying to complete. In general, climbing and exploring mountain areas has a Tomb Raider vibe to it.
Visually, Forbidden West has received a face lift, although a little more subtle than expected. Swapping back and forth between the original you can clearly see a lot of increased smaller detail and volume to vegetation, but seeing the first running full blast on the PC version, makes the transition less pronounced.
Combat somehow feels less arrow spongy and, with a strong distinction on what works best as attack method for various types of enemies. Each enemy can be scanned and thoroughly informs you about their strengths and weaknesses.
Underwater segments are surprisingly fun too, thanks to a breathing device you obtain through the story, allowing Aloy to breathe under water. Stealth gameplay is cleverly retained even underwater.
Interestingly, the cauldrons hidden in caves beneath the surface, basically dystopian futuristic dungeons, return and his time around they're way more elaborate. They offer some of the most challenging exploring and puzzle solving throughout the game. You need to find out how to enter them, override them and find the exit. They're an overwhelming, nightmarish design of metal, pipes and lights and maze-like structure, making them tricky but satisfying to complete. In general, climbing and exploring mountain areas has a Tomb Raider vibe to it.
Visually, Forbidden West has received a face lift, although a little more subtle than expected. Swapping back and forth between the original you can clearly see a lot of increased smaller detail and volume to vegetation, but seeing the first running full blast on the PC version, makes the transition less pronounced.
There's a focus on varying the environments more at least, new additions like lovely beaches surrounding azure blue water coming to mind as memorable, as well as some neat desert areas. That said, it's not a drastic departure in visuals, we've seen the same aesthetic of in many of the areas before. It does strengthen the fact that the first looked damn stunning back when it released though.
Some unusual standouts in visual depth are underwater segments, one in particular sporting lovely, neon colouring and cool lighting effects. Furthermore, the overall scope of the world seems to pushed further with detail reaching far into distances. Once again, the facial animations in cutscenes look fantastic, and more life-like than in the first game.
At the end of the day I'm happy with the sequel, there's a whole new world to dig into and while it doesn't change up the formula or visuals drastically, it comes together as more balanced and cleverly designed. There's clearly a lot more to do outside the main missions on the map, while at the same time there's not an overwhelmingly large open world.
Some unusual standouts in visual depth are underwater segments, one in particular sporting lovely, neon colouring and cool lighting effects. Furthermore, the overall scope of the world seems to pushed further with detail reaching far into distances. Once again, the facial animations in cutscenes look fantastic, and more life-like than in the first game.
At the end of the day I'm happy with the sequel, there's a whole new world to dig into and while it doesn't change up the formula or visuals drastically, it comes together as more balanced and cleverly designed. There's clearly a lot more to do outside the main missions on the map, while at the same time there's not an overwhelmingly large open world.
The story feels forced to me though, and I felt it just falls into a lake full of similar looking, futuristic, "epic" storytelling cutscenes when it comes to the Zenith people's story line. It's cinematic for sure, but kinda of generic, sci-fi looking, with stereotype bad guys. At least a playthrough isn't tiring long like many other open world titles, and thus feels like it holds momentum going all the time.
If you loved Zero Dawn, then Forbidden West is a must-buy. It's more of the same, in a refined package with more depth. For newcomers the story reveal and the scenario of the first game is recommended to play prior to this one. It's a confusing sequel if you haven't followed the story in Zero Dawn.
Now I need to get the Burning Shores expansion done, but that's for another day!
