Horizon Forbidden West™ Complete Edition Steam Charts & Stats

[Simple Review] I love the gameplay, combat, upgrade. I loved the puzzle oriented approach to missions and couldrons. Graphics are better than 99% of the games. Beats Zero Dawn at everything but the plot of the game. The plot of this game makes incredible promises that it failed to deliver towards shallow ending with insane plot holes. The explanations at the end of the game felt superficial and more like paving a way for the sequel. Don't play it for story. Similar feedback for the DLC plot also, even more unconvincing and weak. Another biggest annoyance is that, it is the WOKEst piece of entertainment created by mankind, I tolerate some of that stuff all the time but it really tested my patience. The plot really felt like a weak platform to deliver politically correct cringe-worthy messages and caring less about the realism. It doesn't even respect the fact it is based in a primordial setting, something that The Witcher would never did. After all the killings I felt the game had a Batman like feel where they won't show Aloy killing the real villians by hand, IDK why it's such a taboo given the threat in the game and the time that it represents. They should better hire someone who writes manga.

HFW is one of my all time favorite games. There's so much lore/world-building and so many weapons to suit your preferred combat play style. I love that GG was able to expand the moveset for the spear; melee is so much more useful than in Zero Dawn. Overall, I'm happy with the performance on my RTX 4060 Ti. It's maybe not as optimal as performance on the PS5, but it's leagues better than how the game runs on PS4. Do with that what you will.

Is good. Cannot really say if the story line yet goes to bonkers... (then again I might be too merciful nowadays.)

Getting this game to run properly has been less like launching a blockbuster title and more like trying to tune a broken radio with a coat hanger and prayer. It claims to support ultrawide monitors but that’s like saying a rotary phone supports Wi-Fi. My resolution settings are missing like socks after laundry day. Occasionally, the game uses the whole screen like it remembered it has potential, but most of the time I’m treated to a 4:3 image squashed into my 21:9 ultrawide, stretched like pizza dough and just as greasy-looking. Naturally, I did what any dedicated player would: I dove headfirst into forums, updated every driver I could think of (including my toaster, just in case), and explored the modding community like I was on a pilgrimage. Spoiler: still broken. It's like trying to fix a leaky sink in a burning house. But let’s pretend, just for a moment, that the tech issues are fixed. Let’s say the game boots up perfectly, widescreen and all. Great! Now we can talk about why I still hate it. Despite my excitement, this sequel is... boring. Like, "background noise during a dental appointment" boring. Which is incredible, because I’m the easiest sell when it comes to cinematic, story-driven games. You throw some characters, drama, and cutscenes at me, and I’m usually clapping like a seal. But here? I felt absolutely nothing. And that’s before we even get into the visuals—which are a crime against cones and rods. Everything is drenched in this aggressively beige-yellow filter, like someone spilled Dijon mustard all over the color palette. The whole world looks like it’s been preserved in nicotine and sadness. The art direction must’ve been inspired by vintage sepia-toned depression. Then there’s the lighting. Oh, the lighting. It’s like they let a theater kid direct the lighting for every scene, and the only tool they had was a tactical flashlight. Every character looks like they’re lit for an Instagram thirst trap gone wrong. Harsh hero lighting? Check. Studio spotlights? Check. 99% of the game takes place outside in the sun? Check. And all this is slapped on like the devs were terrified you might not be able to see the pores on someone’s nose. The result? Cutscenes that look like they were filmed in a 1997 weather forecast green screen studio. Nobody looks like they're in the same environment, hell this even happens when multiple characters are sharing the same screen! And it's not even consistently awful. Some scenes look fine. Others look like someone smeared Vaseline over a lens and pointed it directly into the sun. The lighting is so unnatural it rips the characters out of the world like they’re in two different games entirely. Immersion? Dead on arrival. The worst part? Underneath all this, I know the game is mechanically solid. It plays almost exactly like the first one, which I adored. But I can’t enjoy any of that because I spend more time squinting at cutscenes than playing. Every time a new one starts, I alt-tab out like I’m dodging a pop-up ad and head straight back to the mod forums hoping someone, somewhere, has cracked the code. Sony releasing a PC port with this little care in visual and resolution options is baffling. It feels like they handed us a five-star meal—then shoved it through a fan and asked us to enjoy the experience anyway. I want to love this game. Truly. But right now it feels less like entertainment and more like a high-resolution eye exam wrapped in sunburned sandpaper. If I wanted to feel this disappointed by something I used to love, I’d rewatch the final season of Game of Thrones. I'll force my way through this because I have hope that like the first, I'll enjoy the second rendition of Aloy's quest. But it's going to be a long slog...

Continues the story of Aloy and her friends, adding more diverse gameplay to an already pretty neat format. Looking foward to the final one.

Without spoiling the game, I will say it is a good game but did not impress past the previous game. In comparison to the first game in the series this one seems to lack where the first games seemed to excel in. For my run I beat the game on Ultra Hard on my first playthrough and Easy for my second to collect the remaining achievements. The biggest part of Aloy’s character is her strong will and determination and how it is portrayed more through her actions rather than her words. In the first game we see her develop into a well-balanced leader while in this game it seems her development is very inconsistent or backtracking at times. When it comes to main systems such as ammo creation, travel, skill trees etc. there needs to be huge quality of life revamp for those. Games notoriously get easier or more manageable as the game progresses but with these systems there lacking slowed the progress of the player. I still think Aloy is a good Female Protagonist but the writing needs to be more consistent for here development through the game and the game needs a lot of gameplay adjustments. 7/10 For the DLC it is some of the worse writing I have seen in a long time. I would recommend not playing it or not even recognizing it to be canon to the main story. Super rushed and seems as if a whole different writing team wrote it. Aloy has probably met hundreds of people up to this point in her story and never has she been so out of touch from her character until the moment she hits the Burning Shores. 2/10

simply AMAZING! I love the continuity from the events of zero dawn. The extra effects and new things that can be done are refreshing. This is definitely a step up from the previous game.

I finished the game, and did most of the side quests, so I think it's a good time to review Good - Characters: the character development is great. It was already extremely good in HZD, and it still is here. - Combat: the combat makes perfect sense for Aloy's character as it did in HZD. It's about fighting smarter, not harder. - Graphics. - Music. Bad: - Story: the story was good up until the end. Some characters have stupid twists and their motives make no sense. Also they suddenly reveal a new big bad at the end. WTH was that about. - Final boss fight: Most anticlimatic final boss ever. And boring, to boot. - Villains: the villains motivations make no sense. Like, why are you so evil? They are just evil for the sake of being evil. Their plans make no sense at all. - Upgrade paths. Extremely boring to farm upgrade materials. Also considering some stuff has 60% drop rate and you could kill the same enemy 5 times and not get it. It's already a chore to farm, but they add a new twist by making you farm something that is not guaranteed to drop and is not sold by anyone. The RPG mechanics are non-existent, this game feels like an old Assassin's Creed game in terms of its "RPG" mechanics. Basically, the only way to upgrade your character at some point is to upgrade your gear. DLC Review: The DLC is fine, I guess some people liked the final boss fight but I personally didn't like it. There isn't much to it, a few new enemies, a kind of interesting new area but not much else. The hub for the DLC area is a CPU bottleneck area, and I have no idea what Guerrilla was thinking when they decided to make it like that. I am not asking for top of the line performance, but maybe they could have debated if it was necessary to pile on so many assets and NPCs in that area. It doesn't enrich the experience at all. The new weapon from the DLC is cool though, I'll give them that. I liked Zero Dawn's DLC better.

Horizon Forbidden West is somehow even better than Zero Dawn. Being a true sequel, it has all the original flavors of crazy machine animals that we love to hunt and adds tons of new ones. You also get many new weapons to use on them. The graphics and animations are improved with gorgeous scenery and more immersive story-telling. There are a few downsides. The introductory tutorial part is much longer than the first game, and it takes a while before you can roam the open world. There are far more puzzles and cliff navigation which can get old and detract from the main gameplay loop. The climbing in particular became tedious for me. Apparently the developers are fans of the Tomb Raider games because there is a very similar feeling to them here. On the plus side, once you get to the open world, it's vastly larger than the first game. I was amazed to discover new biome after new biome and all the new creatures that came with them. Every region has a distinct feel to it, along with weather and tribes. There are many ways to customize your experience, including difficulty sliders. You can make enemies just as squishy as you, if you'd like. Can also disable elements of your HUD, setting them to dynamic or off completely. It's incredible to explore the Forbidden West without overlays, no map, just going wherever you feel like and discovering everything as you go. The minigame Machine Strike is a bit of a miss. Most people won't find it interesting or enjoyable, so feel free to skip it. The skill trees are larger and not bad, but still a downgrade from the original's sleek design. Mid-game, you'll find yourself scrolling across them, having difficulty finding something that looks useful. Tripcasters are quite nerfed, but they were too powerful in the original. Instead the other weapons feel better and offer more choices. Hitting the perfect shot from a sharpshot bow and seeing the machine stagger from the impact is very satisfying. Stealth can be useful but is still weak. Even with max level when it says "nearly invisible" you can be spotted quite easily by an enemy's peripheral vision. Boss fights begin with them already seeing you as well, so stealth is completely useless on them.

After beat the main story. now, i understand why its less remarkable than Zero Dawn. Let's keep it short. The world building and the lore continues as expected and become quite interesting. But, Aloy as a character seems never really developed after Zero Dawn. Instead, She became a bit too arrogant and reckless for no good reason and those bad trait never been solved. She is now just 'THE PROTAGONIST'. Gameplay wise well its more grindy, there's so many skill and weapon type that the controls aren't enough to be able to use all of them in less clunky way possible. Stealth mechanic is so basic i just don't care anymore. Its Just a - OKAY sequel. i recommend it because i like new robot Spinosaurus and cool robot stuff to hunt. Nice graphics visual doesn't make a Game of the year contender anymore does it Sony? tell Guerrilla Studio to write a better character next time.