Horizon Forbidden West Review: ‘An Early Contender for Game of the Year’

The follow-up to 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the most eagerly anticipated titles of 2022, and for good reason. Its unique sci-fi take on humanity’s future set captivated players and made us want to see Aloy’s story through to the end. Horizon Forbidden West picks up right where the first game lets off and takes us into uncharted territory as Aloy tries to fulfill her destiny and complete the mission of Project Zero Dawn.

A new dawn

Aloy defeated HADES at the conclusion of Horizon Zero Dawn, but it might have been for naught. Machines continue to run rampant and attack humans, crops are withering and dying, the Red Blight is spreading across the land, killing anything it touches, and massive storms blow savage winds and rain that threaten to drown out humanity’s last refuges. The terraforming system is collapsing, and it’s only a matter of time before the Earth becomes uninhabitable.

So, Aloy is determined to find a backup of the terraforming AI GAIA. The original sacrificed herself to prevent HADES from using her power to destroy the ecosphere, but Aloy figures there must be at least one backup remaining. The data she has indicates that if she can reinitialize GAIA and reintegrate her subsystems, Zero Dawn can be saved, and the terraforming can be properly completed.

The tale that ensues is one of the most engrossing we’ve seen on the PS5 yet and is an excellent swansong for the PS4. The Forbidden West introduces us to a ton of new characters, including the agrarian Utaru tribe and the warrior Tenkaths. We also get hints at what’s happening outside of the former United States with the introduction of the Quen.

Attention to the lore really pays off in Forbidden West as a lot of questions that were posed by the first game are answered. Unlike Zero Dawn, which revealed the past in small snippets, the floodgates open up here, and the full picture of humanity’s downfall becomes clear.

West of Eden

The gameplay in Horizon Forbidden West is much the same as in its predecessor. There are no significant changes to any of the systems. Instead, it builds on the exploration and combat and improves many of the issues players had with Zero Dawn.

For the most part, you’re going to be doing a lot of exploration. The Forbidden West is covered in old ruins, tribal settlements, mountains, forests, and deserts. This time, there’s more verticality involved, and climbing has been revamped to be semi-freeform. It’s not quite like Breath of the Wild, where you could climb anywhere, but there are many more opportunities for scaling surfaces available.

Aloy also gets some new tools to assist in navigation. These are introduced throughout the game and help you bypass obstacles that would otherwise block you from progressing. The Pullcaster serves as a grappling hook that lets you pull yourself up to anchors. Alternatively, you can use it to pull open vents, clear rubble, or pull crates. Aloy also gets a Shieldwing, which can be used to safely glide from heights, and a Diving Mask that allows her to breath underwater.

Aloy’s new ability to travel underwater is one of the big highlights of the game and is used to significant effect. However, I don’t think the devs used it enough. One of the main missions takes place almost entirely underwater, but then the mechanic takes a backseat for the rest of the game. Since we have access to the coast of California, I would have liked to have seen some side quests diving in the ruins of San Fransisco and more opportunities for underwater exploration in general. As it is, you can dive underwater, but there’s not a ton of meaningful stuff to do there outside of picking up some aquatic plants and harvesting marine animals.

Elemental, my dear

Combat sees a bit of an upgrade in Forbidden West as well. The basics are still the same. Each enemy type has weakpoints and is strong and weak versus different elements. This time around, though, you can cause elemental overloads by hitting specific points with attacks of the right element. Hitting shock coils, for example, with a shock attack will cause it to overload after a short time and explode, which will immediately affect the machine with the stunned status effect. This allows for a quick follow-up with a critical melee attack which can do massive damage.

Because of elemental overloads and weaknesses, it’s less imperative to remove armor this time around. Instead, you’ll want to use the improved scanner functionality to discover an enemy’s weaknesses and exploit them with the proper damage type. There are a few new elements this time around as well: Plasma, Acid, and Purgewater. However, one, Corruption, has been removed.

Because of the added ability to hit enemies with status effects and their increased weaknesses, combat doesn’t feel as grueling this time around. You can also equip new Valor Surges, which give Aloy a timed buff. These correspond to the six skill trees (up from three in the last game) and can do things like increase ranged damage or stealth ability.

Unfortunately, I found myself using machine overrides less and less. Many of the overrides now require you to both visit a cauldron and craft them using very rare machine parts, and the payoff just isn’t worth it. I get that the ability can be overpowered, but combat options have expanded enough to where just outright defeating machines is easy and fun enough that I didn’t want to go on a grand crusade to craft the overrides.

Nobody does it like You

Crafting is still a big part of gameplay and has been moderately improved. The inventory UI is better in general, and being able to refill Aloy’s materials from your stash easily makes crafting in the field much less irritating.

However, one flaw does carry over from the first game, and it’s one we see in many open-world titles. There’s just too much crap to pick up. After every fight, you have to scour the area to make sure you grab every little doodad you’ve knocked off a machine. After the 35 hours or so it took to beat the main story (not to mention the additional 40-50 to knock out the rest of the content), I got tired of hoovering everything up.

I wish Aloy could have crafted a little robot parrot to auto-loot the area, especially since getting some of the rarer machine materials requires you to knock off very specific parts that can be hard to find afterward. At the very least, some sort of auto collection for rare and higher-grade materials would have been appreciated.

I would have also appreciated a cosmetic armor slot. Each armor has unique stats and buffs, so I often find myself wearing an outfit I didn’t like because it fit my playstyle. My Aloy shouldn’t have to look like a frump just because I need those concentration boosts.

Performance vs. Quality

I played Horizon Forbidden West on the PS5 and regularly switched between performance and quality modes. You get a full 4K at 30fps and all the fancy lighting and particle effects in quality mode. However, I didn’t notice a massive difference in visuals between the two modes. Performance mode gets you 60fps with a variable resolution. Despite being lower fidelity, I suspect that most players will enjoy the latter mode more. The higher framerates really make the game come to life and highlight the great animations and combat.

Unfortunately, there were some issues with the visuals, which were only somewhat alleviated by the day one patch. The game suffers from pop-in, which can be extremely noticeable in some areas. Sometimes it seemed like Level of Detail models weren’t loading in at all. I’d be heading toward an object, and parts of it would be hanging in the air until I was right on top of it, and then a building or tree would immediately appear out of thin air. This might be a bug instead of a limitation of the engine or console because it didn’t always happen.

Horizon Forbidden West Review: The final verdict

Horizon Forbidden West is a great sequel that’s full of twists and turns that ended in a satisfying conclusion. I won’t spoil anything, but it takes the series in a very interesting direction that I didn’t see coming when the game began. While not vastly different, the gameplay is a definite improvement over the original.

Aside from some very minor bugs, Forbidden West was a treat to play and is an early contender for Game of the Year. Aloy’s journey across the West is a must-play for PlayStation owners and another reminder that Sony’s first-party studios are at the cutting edge of gaming.