Horizon: Forbidden West is a masterwork in open-world RPG gaming
This article is spoiler-free.
Horizon: Forbidden West was finally ported to PC last month as a complete edition that includes its DLC, Burning Shores. As mentioned in a previous article, its release went off without a hitch and has maintained a Very Positive rating on Steam. Now, after playing almost every day for nearly a month since release and accruing 78 hours of play time, I can say this is one of the best open-world RPG games I’ve ever played — if not one of the best games I’ve ever played in general.
Forbidden West had a lot to live up to with its predecessor, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and it somehow blew that game out of the water despite it being phenomenal in its own right. The ability to make a game with a vast, explorable world, and fascinating and original narrative, and then follow it up with something even greater, is not an easy feat.
Of course, Forbidden West wouldn’t be what it is without Zero Dawn; its story relies on what Zero Dawn started with, and it maintains much of the mechanics and feel of the first game, while building upon and improving it.
A new upgrade system for weapons was created that takes some getting used to, but provides a more rewarding experience in creating your loadout. This also means a workbench was introduced to the game, where you can upgrade your weapons as well as craft ammo for less resources, and upgrade your pouches.
The skill tree also got a makeover, and now includes passive skills that you can cycle through, all of them pertaining to different weapon types and actions in the game. There is also the introduction of “Valor Surge,” special skills you can choose from that reward you with a timed perk that builds up during the game’s trademark challenging, fast-paced combat.
The combat also got a bit of an upgrade; it was more difficult. I played Horizon: Zero Dawn on Hard and definitely had some rage-quit moments; given that I knew Forbidden West stepped it up a bit, I chose to play the game on Normal, and it still provided a fun challenge that told me I definitely did not want to be playing the game on Hard. Even with the introduction of some new, powerful machines, Thunderjaws remain some of the most difficult enemies to down in the game.
The world itself also got quite the upgrade; the character models are some of the most gorgeous and detailed I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even know Aloy had that many freckles; rarely do you come across an NPC that hasn’t had the same treatment. If you have the opportunity to converse with them in an up-close dialogue, the effort the dev team put into that character model is seen.
The landscape is beautiful; this is true for Horizon: Zero Dawn as well, but with the five year difference between the two games, as well as the extra two years for the PC release, it’s on a whole new level. I was often capturing in-game images, as if I was really there and the view was too good to pass up.
The upgrade isn’t just in the looks, however. There’s more detail; more life to it. Ruins are strewn throughout, in much greater abundance than the first game, as well as including real-life recognizable ruins. Zero Dawn’s DLC, Frozen Wilds, included some remnants of Yellowstone Park, but nothing very identifiable. Forbidden West brings you to the ruins of Las Vegas, different from the one we know now, but still containing iconic landmarks like its famed Eiffel Tower. In the Burning Shores DLC, you find yourself right at the Hollywood sign — miraculously mostly upright.
There are skyscrapers that you can scale, looting for caches and datapoints. There’s also the new collectable activity of “Relic Ruins,” ruins specifically dedicated to having puzzles with the goal of collecting something called “ornaments.” They’re essentially a type of datapoint, each telling a story that connects to the others, while also having a second purpose of customizing the lights in Vegas.
I’d say one of, if not the only qualm, I have with this game is that the puzzles were sometimes a swing and a miss. Puzzles were scarce in the first game, and it was clear Guerilla wanted to make them a more prominent fixture in this game, but they hadn’t quite figured out the difference between “challenging but rewarding” and “frustrating to point you angrily google the solution.” I love puzzles, so I appreciate the effort, but they definitely needed some work.
Other collectibles included black boxes that told many people’s last moments during the Faro Plague and could be traded in for resources, and the viewpoints that existed in the first game, although these ones have the added challenge of figuring out where the image was captured. One of them was even captured under water, which brings me to another new addition to this game: underwater gameplay.
Aloy eventually gets the schematics for a type of underwater oxygen filter, allowing players to swim underwater without having to worry about running out of oxygen. The underwater landscape is vibrant, and in one main mission plays a very big role. There’s no underwater combat, which makes it a bit nerve-wracking when underwater machines notice you, because they can attack you. I do wish Aloy could swim faster in those instances, and the mission that requires you to be largely underwater does shine a large spotlight on the lacking mechanics for swimming, but I can’t recall any game that has really perfected swimming mechanics.
Outside of new mechanics and vibrant landscape, Horizon: Forbidden West also introduces new companions, as well as bringing back familiar friends from the first game. They bring more narrative to the game in a way that the first game only touched upon; each one has a detailed backstory that you can inquire about, as well as companion quests that weave into that story. It reminds me of Bethesda’s format of providing companions that each have unique questlines, but these were more succinct and much more directly related to the main plot.
You can also talk to your companions, getting new dialogue almost every time; this makes everyone feel more real and makes you as a player feel more attached to them. It also makes you understand Aloy’s relationship with each one better, as she inquires about their lives and daily activities, and responds to them each in ways that reflect how she sees that person.
Aloy herself is given a bit more life as well; I found myself laughing a handful of times at the comments she makes to others, her personality popping out in a way that makes me love her that much more. She also has moments that can be triggered by interacting with certain objects that allow her to narrate her thoughts, and give the player more insight into Aloy’s way of thinking and what she’s feeling at that point in the game.
Character narrative is one thing in this game, but the overarching narrative is a whole different beast. Building upon the jaw-dropping twists and lore that the first game gives us, Forbidden West pulls no punches. Plot twists that made sense and aren’t just thrown in for shock-value is a skill that Guerilla has truly perfected; the fascinating story they have developed is continued and expanded upon and connects back to the first game in ways you don’t expect.
The admiration I have for Guerilla’s story-telling abilities is great; not only do they tell an unforgettable story through missions and cutscenes, but they maintained their ability to tell meaningful stories through datapoints. Some audio, others just simple text; all containing stories that are just microcosms of the overarching events of the game, both past and present. In Burning Shores, I found myself emotionally attached to a man named Ron who lived a thousand years prior, his story told through a handful of text datapoints. I’ve thought about him for days; Guerilla’s environmental storytelling brings me back again to Bethesda, the only other developer that can achieve that same level of environmental storytelling.
Outside of datapoints that achieve a level of emotional investment that you find in both games, side quests are as abundant as in the first game, but have more life to them. They have more in-depth narratives, more memorable characters, and help to further bring life to the world. The side quests in Horizon: Zero Dawn weren’t lacking, but Forbidden West does something different with them, gives players more reason to invest in them and the world around them.
The side quests in Horizon: Forbidden West are wrapped up in more life and more realism in terms of how people in the world would react to the happenings around them. Companions will properly respond to whether or not you’ve done a side quest; dialogue is adjusted depending on your progress in the game, something I can’t recall ever seeing in other open-world RPGs. It again just adds to the more realistic and life-like feel of the side quests and game overall, the world around you created with such care and thought and effort to make it feel like your adventure with Aloy is as real as it gets.
There’s also the addition of some side quests being presented to you through something new called “Rumors,” where a person in a settlement will have you sit down and tell you about something going on nearby that you should check out. The settlements are something that existed in Horizon: Zero Dawn, but have been brought to life in Horizon: Forbidden West in a way that’s unmatched to its predecessor.
Each one has its own personality, all of them belonging to four separate possible people, one being a new tribe called the Utaru and the other three being separate clans that make up the other new tribe, the Tenakth. These settlements are teeming with life, with a variety of traders available, plenty of quests offered, and their own storylines to delve into. Some of them are built upon ancient ruins, which creates a unique and beautiful setting for one of the settlements called “Plainsong,” which had me in absolute awe upon first entering it. Guerilla’s more dedicated focus to settlements in Forbidden West does not go unnoticed and is an invaluable addition to the game.
Put all of these aspects together, the mechanics, the landscape, the characters, the story, and you get what I believe to be an utter masterpiece. I didn’t think you could top Horizon: Zero Dawn, let alone catapult miles above it. Despite having finished both the main story and DLC a few days ago, I’m still playing. There’s still so much more to explore and I can’t imagine leaving the world yet. Guerilla has created something special, and I can’t wait to see how they continue Aloy’s story.
I feel as though a star rating doesn’t even do this game justice, but obviously it’s a 5 out of 5 for me.
You can find Horizon: Forbidden West Complete Edition on Steam and the Epic Games Store.
