Westward bound.
Horizon, seemingly, as a franchise, can't seem to catch a break. When Zero Dawn was released back in 2017, it was followed up less than a week later with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game many consider to be the best ever made. Forbidden West, the follow-up to Zero Dawn is largely in the same boat, released a week prior to Fromsoft's wildly anticipated Elden Ring, a title that has some of the most positive reviews ever across the industry. Still, regardless of both titles having massive competition, Horizon Forbidden West is often a stunning achievement in much it aims to do yet is held back by a host of technical problems, some overdesigned elements, and an open world where you’ll explore only where the developers want you to.
Swapping between Forbidden West and Elden Ring has been quite the interesting feat, moving from one game that is so heavily detailed in its signposting to the other where you're left to explore and figure out its world and systems on your own; down to even its smallest elements. I've enjoyed each for their own merits, but Forbidden West might have the most icon-filled open world I've seen in years, removing all sense of self-discovery unless you purposely ignore much of its design. Forbidden West feels like solving a crossword puzzle where you clearly see someone's previous efforts lightly erased; the answers feint enough to see, and while you can look to solve it on your own, its solutions are often staring you in the face. Hell, Aloy herself will often spout the answer before you even know the question, but more on that later.
I'll stress right now, despite that last paragraph, I had a fantastic time with Forbidden West despite the level of criticism I have with it. Is Forbidden West a great game? Of course. It is a good sequel? Totally. Is it a masterpiece? Well, not really. However; If you enjoyed Aloy's previous efforts in Zero Dawn, then you are going to feel right at home here as much of it is business as usual. If this is your first trip alongside Aloy, the game does have a refresher to catch you up on the events surrounding her first outing, but honestly, stop reading this review and go play Zero Dawn first.
Despite the clean enough ending to Zero Dawn, Guerrilla has done a remarkable job at finding a way to make that story continue and it does so by making the previous story better and more interesting than it was on its own. The backstory of the old world is enhanced here with a narrative that highlights not only Aloy's heritage but also how it impacts those who call this world home and how they see her given who she is and what she has done. We also dive deeper into the events surrounding the original end of the world, and how it's tied into the world itself once again at its end. All around Aloy, she's seeing the world deal with a plague that is poisoning the ecosystem, making it next to impossible for its people to thrive. To solve this issue, Aloy must track down GAIA, a vastly intelligent AI system created by the Old Ones to put the planet back on track and heal its lands. To do this, she must trek into the Forbidden West, a land rife with dangerous tribes who are as deadly as any machine she has faced thus far.
Now, that last part is the pitch given to us pretty early on, making it sound dangerous and full of mystery, but that danger is lessened greatly based on one event that pretty much allows Aloy to have seemingly unlimited safe passage across this supposedly dangerous land. Sure, you have enemy encampments to take out, but they are so few and far between here in context to what we were told about this land. It does end up making all that talk of danger suffocate itself, and could have led to some very interesting adversarial storytelling that I feel we were denied. Now granted, the story that is told here is great and certainly kept my interest; however, it does take a good investment into the game to get to a point where it slightly rivals the first in its narrative. What then follows is Aloy having to forge alliances to battle a threat known as the Zeniths, a faction of men and women with an agenda that threatens all life on the planet. I will refrain from detailing much about them as it is pretty interesting in who they are and the strong technological advantage they have over Aloy that sidelines them greatly until she is equipped to deal with them, which is slightly disappointing, but I understand why they have done it this way. I'll also stress that those alliances are part of the story and not something optional or in a way where you can move forward without them.
Aloy is joined by a pretty enjoyable cast from various cultures and walks of life, including a few who return from Zero Dawn. Several hours into the game, you’ll set up a base that will operate as a hub location, one that you’ll return to frequently between missions. It is here where you will stock up on various resources or converse with your companions about their lives and the mission at hand. While I do wish that the cast was more active in missions to get to know them in more significant ways outside of conversation, we do get the odd side quest and activities to do with them. However; I wish there were ways to bring your companions with you more often, at least in some way as the game does need to have Aloy be on her own to drive home certain aspects of what the series is known for. When characters are with you, the game has a very Mass Effect/Dragon Age vibe that works extremely well here, and thankfully, the entire cast is written and performed to such a level where those interactions are always engaging.
The Zeniths as the game’s central antagonists work “some” of the time yet cast a large shadow once Aloy and her team understand what sort of threat they impose, even if they, as a force, are used only a few times throughout the course of the game. We get some time with one of them, and honestly, I wish we had more interactions with them as they allowed Aloy to have a perspective she didn't have in the previous game or even here in Forbidden West. Apart from them, we also have Regalla, a spurred tribal warrior who leads a band of rebels against the other tribes, mysteriously equipped with the capability to command machines. We have a very impressive moment in the game's first few hours that sets the stage, but other than that, she, like the Zeniths, is a force that is referenced constantly but rarely present. I think this lack of presence works for the Zeniths, to build their mystery, among other predictable things, but Regalla could have been present far more and still regained the threat she brings to the table. Without going deeper into Regalla herself, due to spoilers, I found one key moment to not feel earned emotionally despite the game wanting that reaction from me.
Among all the world-ending chaos that builds up most of the game’s narrative, it’s a very human story about the survival of humanity and who we can be as people when we work together. It is also about how greed can consume all of it and the game does a very good job at conveying that across almost all types of people here, each in their own ways. The lands of Forbidden West are filled with numerous settlements, each with their own issues, and it usually stems from some sort of individual at the root of the problem. While Zero Dawn had its fair share of encampments and people as well to fill its sizable world, Forbidden West is considerably larger and densely more packed, loaded with even more settlements that are larger in scale and a healthy population among them, even if you start to see some repetition in the character models, especially in the game's first settlement.
Among the people that make up those settlements is a wealth of sidequests that have an insane level of presentation given to them. From stunning facial animation, motion capture, and voice work, I treasured each time these would occur. While the quests themselves would often be incredibly generic or largely just busy work to float the narrative, I was still impressed at how well many of its characters looked and acted. The subtle facial animations are stunning and there are moments where you can predict what they are about to say simply from a certain expression or gesture. While not all of these interactions are large encompassing quests, as some will be small errands, I made sure to complete all of them as I really enjoyed what Guerilla has done here, even if again, the quests themselves can often boil down to go hunt and kill something a dozen or so times.
While you’ll encounter lost ruins, old-world messages, drones you'll jump to after solving an environmental puzzle, and various other activities to flesh out the map, much of it can feel bloated in a way where they are designed to grant length to the game instead of being pieces of content that are worth doing. Most of them end with earning resources or maybe a new weapon, but I was never driven to complete all of them since they lacked what I needed to feel connected to what they offered. The very map you’ll explore is loaded with destination markers that do lessen the impact of self-discovery. As I’ve mentioned, you can ignore a lot of that, but it’s a shame that so much of this game’s world isn’t left up to you to discover, especially after you reveal portions of the map by climbing one of the cleverly implemented puzzles in the form of the Tallnecks. These are vastly more improved sections than what we had in Zero Dawn and each one of them is extremely unique even if they still feel like a Ubisoft tower.
The ways you can traverse Forbidden West’s massive open world is greatly expanded upon here when compared to Zero Dawn. Aloy has a retractable hook and a glider, in which the latter is earned as you enter into the Forbidden West. These tools open up a lot of much-needed methods to scale up platforms or get down from a high vantage point, which is pretty damn often and can make turning in some quests a snappy affair, not to mention gliding for a solid minute is super relaxing. While I do wish these has some implementation into combat, especially the hook, I found their use to enhance the experience and made my wanting of exploring increase despite the overabundance of signposting already present.
Climbing itself, while expanded upon from Zero Dawn is not without its limitations. While Aloy can scale several vertical surfaces somewhat easily, they must have climbable yellow lines or markers present in order to scale them, a feature that can be automatic or part of your scanning vision. This limitation is obviously not to break the game or progression by letting you climb past story blocks, but it can often not make sense on the why and where's when most surfaces that look very climbable, or even a ledge or railing some 4-5 feet up cannot be scaled. I also had numerous issues with stilted animations or Aloy's reluctance to move along the wall fluidly. It's not as refined as what we’ve had in Uncharted, or other games with a large focus on climbing, but when it works, it only barely gets the job done, I simply wish it was a bit more fluid and consistent on where and when you can climb.
New to Forbidden West is giving Aloy the ability to swim, which could have been exciting, but simply serves as a way to have Aloy traverse through areas that are closed off until you get the rebreather device several hours in. There is some charm to the game’s underwater exploration, as well as decent enough controls to do so, but so much of it is simply used as a method to traverse between locations in each environment or placing some of its resources deep below the water to harvest. However, there is one particular location, a casino, that proved that they can make an awesome underwater area, but it still does fall short of succeeding from a gameplay perspective. It's a shame Aloy didn't have some sort of harpoon weapon given the extensive collection of her arsenal already as underwater combat could have opened up a huge avenue for the game to follow.
Previously, in Zero Dawn, fast travel required an item, and while that is still the case here, you'll only need the item if you are not at one of the many campfires you'll encounter on your travels. By using the campfire, fast traveling is free, and the low-cost item, which is available at nearly any vendor, is still there should you need to get somewhere a bit quicker. I will say that there are a lot of campfires, some so close that you can usually see the next one ahead of you. Fast traveling also sees a massive benefit on the PS5 thanks to its SSD as it loads incredibly fast, so much so that its load times were slowed down by the developer just enough to show off some tooltips, a feature that can be turned off to just let the game naturally load. Even the initial load time into the game is less than 5 seconds, which is still a very cool trick that Sony has really nailed with its first-party games.
Combat is a strong point for the Horizon series and Forbidden West improves on nearly everything brought forward from Zero Dawn, especially with making close-range combat far more enjoyable and thrilling. Aloy has weak and strong attacks now that expand with various combo moves, and there are fighting arenas where you can benefit from some tutorials and practice, which is fantastic, not to mention earning some new gear. Certain combinations of attacks can energize targeted areas of human enemies to allow you to conclude that skirmish with an arrow shot to finish them off. While combat against machines is still largely the same, you certainly have more tools at your disposal to deal with them, from scanning to find weaknesses or laying several types of traps to contend with them, which does require a few points placed into your skill tree to really benefit from them.
While a full-out onslaught against machines is very possible, albeit challenging, you can stealth attack or override most creatures should you find the cauldron location for a specific machine. Stealth attacks can do significant damage and cause what could be a hectic fight into a silent assault on a field of unsuspecting machines, even if the game has a far too generous lack of line of sight sometimes as I've killed machines right next to each other and the second machine was oblivious to my shenanigans three feet to their left. I also enjoy that the robotic creatures mimic their types more so than they did in Zero Dawn and embody their animal comparisons considerably more. You'll also encounter high-level threats lurking about, snapping up some rare materials for your crafting and upgrading.
Aloy has an impressive arsenal ranging from Hunter, Warrior, Sharpshooter bows, to Tripcasters, Spike throwers, and more. Out of the whole lot, the Shredder Gauntlets are likely my favorite as you sling around projectiles that cause considerable damage. Each weapon can be upgraded to increase its stats as well as a wealth of perks. Each weapon and armor set can have weapon coils and weaves equipped that provide passive buffs such as additional defense or dishing out more damage. The weapon wheel can get a bit unwieldy with how many options you can have access to at once, but the part of the game where I feel a less is more approach would have benefited the game is that in some cases, there are over a dozen of each type of weapon, often only different based on the ammo type such as fire or lightning, or other elemental weapon varieties. The hunter bow, for example, has 16 different variations, and while there are some significant differences between many of them, some other individual weapons have the option for selecting between different ammo types, so it’s a shame that bows were not simplified to offer different ammo types across fewer bows, so you had more options in the moment as opposed to equipping multiple hunter bows at once taking up two slots instead of a multi-ammo bow taking up one single slot.
Still, regardless of there being an excessive amount of ammo-variant bows, every single weapon feels fun to use and is viable given a certain situation. Tripcasters are solid for placing down tripwires to electrocute machines if they pass through the trap, but you have to watch out for them yourself, which oddly wasn’t a problem in Zero Dawn. Ropecasters and Blastslings are decent enough to use, but I found I often relied heavily on the Spike Thrower to dish out extremely impressive damage, especially from the explosive variant. Combat is fast and you can alter the speed at which the weapon wheel is up to slow down combat to swap between weapons, or craft ammo, which I do feel is something that could have been improved from the previous game, but it’s only a minor annoyance given the accessibility options to make it a bit more convenient to use during a hectic encounter.
As you level up, you'll earn skill points that can be used to unlock a variety of skills, both passive and offensive that give Aloy a leg up in several categories. The skill tree structure is split between warrior, trapper, huntress, survivor, infiltrator, and machinist, with each of them being pretty self-explanatory to what they offer. What I enjoy a great deal about the available skills is that this isn't a collection of abilities or perks that feel like Aloy should have had these from the start, which was an issue I had with Dying Light 2. While I unlocked almost all of them during my playthrough, I feel that most players will likely unlock at least half or a bit more, depending on how much time they sink into the game before they wrap credits. I don't feel there is a method of making Aloy your own based on your playstyle as I don't feel there is that level of diversity here in making an Aloy that is more a hunter than a warrior, even if you can tailor her that way to a point.
Whether it is combat or simply opening a locked chest, the DualSense controller does a solid job here at making you feel certain motions and actions depicted in the game. You can feel the footsteps of your Bristleback, to the tension of your bow, a feature the controller was touted as having even before the console launched. I honestly feel it works better here than in previous DualSense games as I feel I didn’t have to pull the trigger down hard for different actions, which was an issue I personally had with Ratchet and Clank, making me disable the DualSense features.
Horizon Forbidden West is a stunning work of art in every sense of the word. Its world, its people, its machines, are all some of the most visually striking and well-crafted assets ever produced in a game, let alone most CG films from a few years ago. Its presentation is groundbreaking in how it handles people of all cultures and the motion capture and facial capture is on another level. The sheer amount of detail here can cause some objects or Aloy herself to get lost in some of it, but it’s a welcome trade-off down to how incredibly gorgeous this game can be at times. Like most current-gen titles, Forbidden West has both a Resolution mode and a Performance mode, and frankly, after playing most of the game in Performance mode and then trying Resolution mode, I swapped back immediately as the game felt incredibly sluggish with the drop in performance, as if Aloy was trudging through swamp water to simply move, let alone jump.
Much as was the case with Zero Dawn, the voice work and sound here is stunning, with Ashly Burch once again proving she's the best in the business, especially with the “variety” she has here to perform. The side characters here are very impressive, especially “Kotallo” and “Alva” the latter of which I wasn't too sure about but ended up adoring. There are a few celebrity voices in Carrie Anne Moss and Angela Bassett that are solid, but feel more like PR moves than anything else. My only issue with the sound is ironically, Aloy herself. While Ashly's work is phenomenal, she won't stop talking during exploration, constantly muttering to herself about sending items to her stash, but the real crime is Aloy telling us where to go even when we haven't even had time to survey a room. Every Cauldron I entered, regardless of them being story path or not, Aloy would instantly say “Well, looks like I have to get up there…” before I even set foot in the room. While I don't feel it's Guerrilla not having confidence in the player, it does come across that way, offering the answer to the current problem without even knowing the question.
Now, all that praise aside, I had A LOT of glitches, including numerous instances of my game dropping down to single frames. I had pop-in constantly in some areas of the map, characters spinning around during emotional cutscenes, to an NPC whose death saw them sinking into the ground, almost to bury their own body; it was bizarre. I had constant animation stutters, Aloy phasing through ladders when she would swing through the bottom few rungs, to NPC’s that I had to follow getting stuck on all sorts of objects or people. honestly, I have never seen so many small problems come from a game developed by one of the three console makers ever. While nothing was major, since my framerate issues were solved with a reboot, I couldn’t play more than a few hours without some sort of glitch making its presence known.
Horizon Forbidden West is certainly not without its problems. I still vastly enjoyed my time here and I do think this game is truly great, often phenomenal, but it does need a few patches to iron out a few things and I hope that if the series continues that its open-world is left a bit more mysterious. Aloy is still an engaging character with a solid performance from Ashly Burch, and her cast of supporting characters really helps this game’s world really come alive. The presentation given to its side quests is second to none and visually this game is on another level. I still have issues with certain aspects of its overabundance of weapons, but still enjoy combat to the point where it is only a minor annoyance than a significant issue. Forbidden West may not have been in the conversation long after the release of Elden Ring, but it is most certainly an adventure worth taking and a showpiece for the PlayStation 5.
Developer - Guerrilla Games. Publisher - Sony Interactive Entertainment. Released - February 18th, 2022. Available On - PS4, PS5. Rated - (T) Blood, Language, Use of Alcohol, Violence.
Platform Reviewed - PlayStation 5. Review Access - Horizon Forbidden West was purchased by the reviewer.