Game Review: Horizon Forbidden West

It’s hard to believe Horizon Zero Dawn was released on the PlayStation 4 all the way back in 2017. At the time, the gaming landscape hadn’t seen anything as unique and as compelling as the world of Horizon. Not only treading new ground with a female lead for a Sony exclusive, Horizon Zero Dawn did a great job in reinvigorating the open world genre at a point in which it was suffering from an overabundance of stale entries. It seems only fitting in retrospect that five years later Guerrilla Games are out to prove once more that they know how to make a truly memorable open world experience with their sequel; Horizon Forbidden West.

Developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Horizon Forbidden West serves as the next instalment in the Horizon franchise released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. The story of Forbidden West follows Aloy once again as she seeks to save the land from ruin as the environment is being ravaged by a number of natural disasters brought on by the planets degrading biosphere. Her mission will take her far out into the Forbidden West, a vast wilderness on the western coast of America which is home to a fractured group of tribes in the middle of a bloody and relentless civil war. Aloy must learn to navigate this new and dangerous region all the while aiding the tribes to help resolve their conflict and fighting new types of machines which inhabit the new lands. To say any more would rob you of a lot of the captivating allure this game has going for it in a narrative perspective. It’s seriously impressive to me how this game manages to not only continue the narrative of the original game in such a seamless manner but also how it takes it into lots of new directions and continues to expand on the world and the people who inhabit it. The stakes for Aloy have never been higher and now she’s cemented herself as the saviour of Meridian she finds herself burdened with even more responsibility to take her gifts out further into the lands and save the world from potential ruin. Aloy grows as a character so much in this game and her journey is filled with so many defining moments which only reinforces how engaging a character she is to follow throughout the story. It’s not just Aloy either, Forbidden West is filled to the brim with some truly interesting characters both new and familiar. The characters and the interactions they form with Aloy are easily some of the best aspects of the game. Everyone feels properly defined and fleshed out to a point where you can easily lose yourself just talking and exhausting all their potential dialogue options. 

It's not just in the narrative and its characters that the game’s writing shines with. I honestly find the worldbuilding in the Horizon franchise to be nothing short of top tier. The amount of creative effort it must have taken to imagine a world so unique and expansive is just beyond my comprehension. I was always astounded by the level of imagination on display in Zero Dawn, but in Forbidden West’s case it seems to be building on top of the already impressive foundations and even surpassing it. The level of creativity in the different terrains and the tribes that inhabit them is impressive all on its own, but when you factor in so many other concepts like the history of the machines and the world before, this game is rife with so much originality it’s absolutely inspiring.  When I look for a game to lose myself in, the easiest way to do it is by defining a world that feels layered and in depth and Forbidden West accomplishes that feat with complete ease. One of the biggest highlights of the worldbuilding for me was just how it manages a wonderful mix of visual storytelling on top of the written format. The fact you can look at a certain vista or locale and see a visual story being teased gives you the perfect incentive to go and dig further and explore the story behind it. It cannot be understated how impressive a feat this is as it’s a feeling very few video games can often generate in its audience so effectively.

To branch off from the worldbuilding, it’s worth devoting an entire section of this review to talk about the visuals alone. Visually this is easily one of the best looking PS5 games I’ve ever played and that’s saying something considering this game was designed to also be playable on the PS4. The level of detail on show in the environment itself is mesmerising to behold. What helps showcase the visual scale and fidelity behind the environments is the fact the game holds a number of vast and varied biomes. These biomes each feel distinct in their own ways with their own weather patterns and their overall design. The scale of each biome is impressive too, as you feel a real sense of depth to the locations and the many beautiful locales that are hidden away within them. The idea of Horizon is to present what our planet would look like after thousands of years of inactivity and that concept of nature washing over the man-made landscape is prevalent all throughout. Seeing all these modern-day places changed and ran over by the natural environment feels so captivating. As I previously noted, exploring these environments and soaking in the views are easily some of the most enjoyable parts of the game, there’s just so much beauty layered within this world and it will easily entice you. It’s not just the environments either, I was notably impressed by the level of visual design in the character too. There’s a serious amount of detail buried within the way they move and express themselves. Facial animations in particular stand out for just how lifelike they are, there’s no challenge in recognising the little nuances you often see in people’s reactions and expressions and I think it’s an incredible feat worth recognising.  It’s not just the characters that have benefitted from the impressive animation and visual refinement either; as the machines you go up against throughout the game have been given a serious amount of consideration in their own designs. Everything from their size and scale to their small mannerisms and animalistic behaviours feel so distinct and noteworthy. The characters and machines feel just as integral to the visual achievement of the game as the environmental design, everything combines together to form a wonderfully vivid and memorable visual experience you will be hard pressed to find elsewhere. 

Visuals are only one part of the package however, so let’s talk about the gameplay. Now if you have played Horizon Zero Dawn then I can pretty much confirm the gameplay feels generally the same, if not with a notable number of refinements and enhancements. There’s a new collection of weapons to utilise throughout your adventure, each offering a unique approach to take on your enemies with. There’s new tools and elemental types to utilise to help you overcome some of the tougher enemies you will come to face in the game. I often refer to the age old saying of “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” and I think that applies to the general gameplay quite a lot. What Guerrilla has done with the gameplay doesn’t feel nearly as ground breaking as the narrative or visual design; but instead, it feels like a genuine attempt to polish the good and trim out the bad aspects which were noted from the prior entry. I’ve always enjoyed the approachable yet all around in-depth offerings that the combat for this series offers, so I’m easily appeased by the approach to refining it rather than redefining it. There is however one large gripe I can’t ignore with this game and it’s sadly the same issue I had with the prior game. The curse of any open world game in my eyes is finding a way to justify the size of your world. Too many open world games focus more on presenting an open world rather than justifying what you should be doing within it. Now I’m not saying this is a serious issue with Horizon Forbidden West. I feel it at least tries it’s very best to keep the player engaged with a wealth of content but the distinction here is not all of this content feels justified. When I’m doing side quests or errand missions I find I’m quite content with the offerings provided. Missions feel distinct from one another and they easily feel well paced and thought out. What doesn’t weigh up in comparison though is the collectable element of the game. The Forbidden West is so big and to justify its size, the game gives you a number of collectable elements that you can choose to follow and I sadly don’t believe the time you give is reciprocated and rewarded well enough. The important thing to note is I want to collect and do side content in open world games, but it needs to offer a sense of justification for the amount of time it’s asking from you and I just feel by the time you’re done with these collectable missions, you aren’t rewarded nearly as well as you should be. One other issue I feel is worth noting is the games upgrade economy. While varied and notably in-depth I can’t help but feel that the higher-level gear and upgrades are needlessly demanding on what components you need to fully upgrade and it makes you have to constantly farm in the hopes of getting the materials you need. This type of approach just reminds me too much of the grindy mechanics of live service games and I didn’t want to feel that in this type of game. I think the higher-level gear should require higher level materials, but fundamentally it feels excessive in how much of it the game asks you to obtain. I don’t feel these negative aspects ruin what I feel is a pretty comprehensive bit of gameplay though. There’s other stuff I didn’t touch on in detail like the updated skill tree and valor power-ups or the updated hand to hand combat mechanics that feel like a really welcome addition to the gameplay to help give you that feeling of a more refined experience. 

After spending all this time writing up this review, I’ve been pondering a constant thought in my head about Forbidden West. I know people will look at this game and see a title that is easily flawed despite its major appeal. I can’t fault people for seeing it like that, because objectively there are issues here that may put people off from considering this one of the best open world games of all time. For me however, on a purely subjective basis I do consider this one of the best open world games of all time. Having had my perspective of the open world genre redefined last year with Breath of the Wild, I was sceptical to see how any future game in the genre could ever top what that game accomplished. I think the important distinction here though is Horizon isn’t trying to be Breath of the Wild and I think that’s the key takeaway. Horizon Forbidden West took everything people enjoyed about Zero Dawn and refined it and kept pushing forward. The game shines brightly with an open world baked in wonder and spectacle and it never wavers in delivering to you a truly uncompromised experience all throughout. I enjoyed every second of my 100+ hour journey through the lands of the Forbidden West and I am sad to finally leave it behind. That raw emotional response the game has generated in me in light of its absence just speaks to how much I appreciated the experience it presented.