What's your opinion on Horizon: Zero Dawn?

I actually never finished Horizon back when it came out. After the Ps5 reveal I decided to go back and give it another go. Since I had forgotten everything I had to restart from the beginning again. Anyway... I'm curious to hear what SW thinks of the game. My own feelings are kind of mixed.

I think it has some really cool concepts and ideas. Everything that has to do with the robots is awesome. The way they look, how they have different roles in an eco system, that you can shoot off parts to alter their functionality and the way their parts fit into the economy and crafting system. Your hunting themed arsenal is also pretty rad. Trip wires and traps. Rope caster to pin down the biggest robots, never gets old. Precision bows to target weak points. The lore also feels pretty unique and interesting. The mix of stone age humans and sci-fi tech.

But the wrapping for these awesome mechanics is a pretty tedious Ubisoft style open world grind. The amount of map icons is ridiculous. Much of the "content" is of the uninspired checklist variety. Dialog animations are really stiff which means it's kind of hard to get emotionally invested. Human AI in stealth is subpar. Picking flowers to refill the medicine pouch gets tedious as hell.

In summary:I think Horizon is a perfect game to do a sequel on. It has a very strong premise and cool mechanics. But the execution of the first game was deeply flawed in many ways. With a bigger budget and building off the first game, Horizon: Forbidden West has the potential to be something truly special.

What do you think?

That's almost how I feel about it. I did feel that combat got old though by the end of the game.

I enjoyed the story even though I knew where it was going. I expect I'll enjoy the sequel more, It will show how much the devs listen to the players.

Great game, but two things I didn’t particularly liked. The melee combat and the dumb human ai. The robot ai was good though.

I got turned off by the grinding, need to finish it still.

I was kind of disappointed by the game. Pretty much share what was written by the op.

Game got pretty tedious for me. Uninspired quests for the most part. World is pretty but its quite unrewarding to explore. Also the comparison with Unisoft open words is fair but the game doesn't even quite reach that level. Movement is inferior to Ass Creed and there's a lot more to do in a Far Cry game.

Pretty much like Spiderman's shallow open world, it's a good game, very far from bad, but over hyped like hell because the label says Sony. Really hope the sequel focus on more than looking cool.

Really interesting setting with cavemen vs robot dinosaurs. I was also enthralled by the story since the first minute and wanted to know more about Aloy's backstory.

But I found myself playing the game more because the traversal was fun, the game has pretty graphics and good looking environments, more so than because it had a deep combat system or anything.

I actually hype HZD (made the hype thread back in Feb 2017) and its still my favorite PS4 game to date (right up with GoW4 & Spider-Man combine) and ready to rebuy it on PC this Summer. I have play this game like 4 times, I never felt the combat/gameplay never got old, shooting robo Dinos was the fun part of the game and I find Aloy interesting, she doesn't need to be all sexy, she's cool and that's exactly what I expect when this game was reveal for the first time. The world of HZD is just beautiful on a console (yet) and for what its worth, its still my top 5 PS4 game. I give it a 8/10! If anything, HZD has that 10,000BC feel to it with sci-fi robots in it.

As for Forbidden West, I'm also hype but I be really surprise if its a PS5 launch title but even I know it's going to be a long time before its release and I expect to be release around 2022 if most.

@Sushiglutton:

I genuinely enjoyed it. I loved the exploration and the world was really fascinating. The combat got old fast though but because of the story, I managed to power through it. I loved the robot dinosaurs too, they reminded me of Monster Hunter. So yeah, it was a great game, definitely. Solid 9/10

The bad:

-Melee

-Lots of markers get.in the way of genuine exploration

-The side quests are meh and typically delivered with terrible acting

-a bit like Uncharted and in sharp contrast to BotW, you can't climb except when the game wants you to. This is a really missed opportunity

The good:

-Strong main sci fi story

-Fantastic visuals

-Range combat and bomb+trap setting are fantastic and allow for encounters to be approached with different styles

-Intelligent and genuinely deadly robot enemies make for really visceral combat

My recommendation is that nobody should play this below "hard" btw. I'm not usually "that guy" and Normal is always my starting point, but the combat and world exploration become soooo much more interesting when the robot dinosaurs feel more like robot dinosaurs and you feel more like the fleshy weakling you are

I listed a number of negatives above but the fact is this was one of my favorite games in a long time

I loved it. Taking down the large and harder to kill dino's with a bow and arrow was satisfying. I am definitely looking forward to the sequel.

i thought it was the best example of an open world story game i've seen in a very long time.

everything about it was highly polished and cohesive. the world, lore and enemies were meticulously crafted. the pacing of the story against the experience / skill tree progression was well balanced; i never felt forced to grind. combat was engaging and the enemies were challenging, particularly on harder difficulties. i really liked it.

to me it was infinitely preferable to ubisoft's uninspired, derivative, game by numbers approach, despite on the surface sharing a very similar formula

the bow mechanics gameplay is the best in its class.

melee sucked though.

I liked it a lot.

I more hyped for the 2nd one though.

because now they have a good baseline to approve on.

@xantufrog: If you don't mind me asking, did you use (or rather find) the secret armor? The shielding armor that adds layer of protection if you play it on hard mode, does that help?

i tried and didnt get into it. and i even bought the complete edition. finished the witcher 3 and find it overrated too. but at least manage to complete it

I liked it. New fresh game with interesting twist on things.

Days gone is better imo.Oh wait my opinion doesn’t matter,I’ll go and check metacritic and GS review scores.....

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Just checked and according to the gospel of metacritic I liked HZD better than days gone

HAH

@davillain-: I did! I don't really remember the impact it had on my gameplay, though. It definitely didn't make it feel like the challenge was gone

I like it well enough. Engaging story, great graphics and art direction. Good voice acting. Game mechanics are sorta average outside of the machines which have some cool gimmicks but it gets old pretty fast when you realize ropecaster+blast sling solos everything with immense ease.

Melee is horrible and it suffers from the same shit as many open-world. Dull sidequests, busy map without much of interest to do etc.

Felt to me like it was made by Ubisoft. Empty open world with generic challenges/side quests. Felt to me like this hype surounding the game was carried by the game's graphics and the fact that it was a ps4 exclusive.

I did like the art style, graphics, dinos design and gunplay, tho so its not all shit. Game is not worth anything over a 7/10. If it wasn't for Hard Mode, i would've felt asleep playing the game, but at least it was pretty challenging from what i remember.

Never developed any great love for it at all.

One of the greatest games possibly made, when I play it on PC.

Loved it. But i was hoping for a new protagonist on the sequel. Don't like Aloy that much

Love the game. Play it on hard and above so that the shieldweaver armor is useless and made combat actually a very tactical experience.

Chuckling...

Well played. :P

I enjoyed it, definitely one of the better PS exclusives.

The hunting part of the game was near flawless; everything from stalking and studying your prey, laying traps to selecting the right weapons, and so on was just great.

With that said, I thought it was average to decent in other areas.

I heard it exists.

Played it for 15 hours (never finished) and thought it decent, but vastly overhyped as it is essentially a Ubisoft checklist game in a new setting!

Awesome game. Can't wait for the sequel. Liked the underwater stealth mechanics shown off as well as the new environments. Hoping , 1) we can override robots underwater for better traversal, and 2) better melee.

Beat it, but didn't care for it at all. Beautiful, but boring and uninteresting.

I enjoyed the game a lot. I thought it was very well done.

it was okay game, liked some of the things they set up in the story/world, but got tired of the gameplay

It was a great game but yeah it sometimes felt Ubisoft were looking over their shoulder and saying 'hey put loads and loads of stuff in that bit there) it felt a bit cluttered.

There aren't many open world games that get this right though. AC Odyssey does it best for me, moreso than W3 or pretty much anything else.

It will be interesting to see what they've learned from looking at all the open world games that have released since HZD. Hopefully less is more will be a thing with the sequel.

Horizon had the unfortunate burden of releasing three weeks before Breath of the Wild, which changed up a lot of the open-world formula and would inevitably get compared to each other. I was playing Horizon last night and there was a point where I was chasing a waypoint, only to make it to a cliffside and realize the objective is hundreds of feet down. Instinctively, I tried to open my sail cloth, only to realize no such mechanic existed.

Horizon implemented a lot of linear level design philosophies in an open space, which was incredibly refreshing and something I hope open-world games continue to do in the future.

Mechanically, they didn't quite stick the landing, as I get stuck on the environment at least once in every combat encounter, and there were many times I thought I was following a path in the game's world, only to find that it lead me to a part of the world that I couldn't access.

I hope Horizon 2 fixes a lot of this because, as is, it's almost an incredible experience, and some fine-tuning in the sequel will really give the PS5 an advantage over the competition.

The main game was great. The side-quests and subsequent voice-acting? Shite.

Graphically, and performance wise, Guerilla/Decima/Kojima Productions did wonders. It runs well, and it looks excellent.

Waiting for the rumored PSVR version. With PS5 power, of course.

You really wouldn't want to experience that on Sony's last gen VR though, right? The headset itself couldn't handle higher resolutions.

It's a bit weird if PSVR was such a success that Sony haven't at least announced the next version. Still way too niche and too small a market place for them to confidently invest in is the feeling I get.

One of my favorite games this gen ... in fact, i think this may be my second favorite game this gen behind Breath of the Wild ... And the sequel is the only game i'm hyped for the PS5 at the moment.

I'm yet to beat it. The concept is cool, but the combat got old quick for me. The whole being able to see where a Dino would go kinda took away from the game. Just my opinion. I do plan to restart it within the next few weeks. With so many good games, it's hard to focus on just one anymore.

I never got farther than 5 hours for 2 reasons. 30 FPS and it felt like I was playing an assassin's creed game with a bit better story.

Dude, patience. Sheesh. Sony is working on the next psvr. They've already confirmed several times they are developing new tracking VR tech, new controllers, etc. etc., with the patents to prove it, and even hardware demonstrations, as with the latest PSVR finger tracking controller demo. They also confirmed a long time ago their commitment to VR in general. They said they were not going to release the next psvr alongside the PS5 because they did not want to crowd the launch. It's coming, you just have to wait.

As for experiencing HZD on psvr, I would bet there is a strong possibility the VR version will be a PSVR2 launch game. But if not, the original psvr+PS5 will do nicely, considering all of the headset's power comes from the console. The resolution is not the same as the Index or anything, but the upped power will have a huge impact on the visual quality, and all other elements. Just look at Wipeout VR, a PSVR exclusive, to understand that really sharp visuals are entirely possible. Astro Bot, too, among others.

I intend to restart it soon in anticipation of the sequel.

I originally started it too soon after Breath of the Wild and I felt too restricted in Horizon by comparison. I stopped playing early on.

Now that there's been more of a gap, I can focus more on what Horizon does well.

Haven’t played it yet but I think that it looks like a really good game that I’d definitely enjoy. I actually recently bought the Complete Edition. I’ve been scooping up a bunch of PS4 games because they’ve been on sale for like $10 - $20 Canadian and I want to get the physical versions of them while I can.

I love it !!

Great game wondering when their going to announce the release date for the PC version this game will be even more enjoyable with M/KB and 60 fps.

The first few hours were enjoyable, besides the extremely mediocre writing.

Then it opens up into an Ubisoft game, and I lost interest 5-10 hours later.

So I'd give it a 7/10. The combat and graphics were good, but everything else was bland.

It seemed like a good thing for Sony fans to play while Zelda came out for Switch.

I pretty much agree with the OP. I enjoyed it but got bored and I was more invested in Persona 5 and Breath of the Wild. I feel like it came out with too many other excellent games that had me more interested.

I'm willing to give it another chance this summer since there were certain aspects that had me interested.

It seems like some people think it was fantastic, but most that it was fairly mediocre. Sony is hyping it as the premier game to get a ps5 for. I wonder if Horizon can really carry that hype.

For Ps4 it was Infamous. I think that franchise is at about the same level as Horizon interestingly enough. Competent, but below the top tier (GoW, TLOU).

It's aight. The combat is more interesting conceptually than it is in practice, the backstory that was told was more fun to follow than the actual Aloy stuff, mostly because she sucks. I ended up Platinuming the game, because the compulsive shit was fairly easy to do since you can locate the collectibles mad quick.

The dungeon side missions the game had going on had mad room to be explored and expanded upon.

It's better than most western made third person and open world games, but that speaks to how wack most of those are. 6/10, mildly interested in the sequel to see improvements.

I've never played it, but your description of it sounds like what I would've thought about it, had I played it. So, since I'm very fed up with Ubisoft-esque checklist games, I decided to not play it. Decided to try out The Witcher 3, and that was a mistake as well.

If developers looked at Breath of the Wild when designing their next open world game, that'd be great.