When Horizon: Zero Dawn
released on PC in 2020 it quickly became one of my favourite games of
all time. I loved the world, the characters and the story, but I also
loved the combat and the creative range of options available to the
player. So, as you can probably guess, I was very excited for the
sequel to arrive on PC and I spent nearly two years avoiding spoilers
for the game as best I could.
As I said in my First
Impressions post, Forbidden West is probably the best PlayStation to
PC port yet. I have absolutely nothing negative to say about the game
from a technical point of view. It runs flawlessly and looks
absolutely stunning. It’s a real step up in terms of visuals from
the original game, particularly in terms of faces and facial
animations. The game is simply gorgeous to look at.
And, overall, I thought
Forbidden West was excellent. It’s a fantastic game and a great
sequel. I want to make that clear now, because this is one of those
reviews where I’m probably going to spend more time talking about
the aspects I didn’t like more than those I did. Because as
excellent as Forbidden West is, I don’t think it’s as good as
Zero Dawn and I want to explain why in the hope that the next game
won’t repeat or double down on these mistakes.
Talking about story is
always tricky when you want to avoid spoiling things but I’ll do my
best. The story of Forbidden West picks up around 6 months after the
end of Zero Dawn and sees Aloy attempting to locate and retrieve a
back-up of the Gaia AI. The story is essentially split into three
acts.
The first act is about
finding Gaia and revealing a new threat. The second is restoring Gaia
to full functionality whilst coming to better understand the new
threat. And the third is about defeating the threat and setting up
the next. I’m not going to talk about the DLC in this review as
I’ll cover that separately for reasons I’ll explain later.
The big problem the
story of Forbidden West has, is that what made Zero Dawn so
compelling from a narrative point of view – discovering what
happened in the past and uncovering the truth – is something that
Forbidden West sadly lacks. That was to be expected, to a degree, as
the ‘big’ mystery of Zero Dawn simply can’t be replicated here
– it’s already solved.
Now, I can’t say I
didn’t find the overall narrative of Forbidden West pretty
enjoyable, especially during the first two acts. There’s a real
sense of focus and structure to the plot as you attempt to locate and
retrieve Gaia and are then confronted with an unexpected new enemy.
It’s intriguing and it made me eager to press on. However, I’d
say Forbidden West’s narrative problems start to become noticeable
in the second act.
Whilst I liked the
structure of it – hunting down the missing pieces of Gaia to
restore her – the new enemy you face makes little to no appearance.
You’re still very in the dark as to who they are or what they
really want. The story relies far too heavily on long exposition
scenes as you converse with Gaia or other characters, and this
problem sadly persists throughout the rest of the game.
There’s a
particularly annoying one around the start of the third act in which
the game pretty much just stops so Aloy can sit down and chat for
fifteen minutes. It’s like the game doesn’t trust the player in
the same way Zero Dawn did to put the pieces of the puzzle together
themselves. Everything is relentlessly over explained through
dialogue, rather than allowing the player to discover and learn
through gameplay. That’s something Zero Dawn did brilliantly as you
felt you were learning alongside Aloy.
In Forbidden West, it
just feels like every important plot detail is just thrust upon you
and Aloy through lengthy conversations. This means that you never
really feel that strongly about this new enemy one way or another
because they don’t actually feature that heavily throughout the
entire game in . . . actual gameplay. What you know about them and
who they are is just told to Aloy through others. It’s that old
‘show don’t tell’ rule and Forbidden West likes to tell and
tell a lot.
The same is true of
another enemy – a rebel leader – who also barely features
throughout and then, in the third act, her plot is abruptly resolved
in a pretty weak final mission. In fact, I’d say much of the third
act is a little weak. The last mission in particular doesn’t feel
like something the game has properly built up to.
Once again, that’s
something Zero Dawn did really well – giving the player a real
sense of all those plot threads, enemies and allies, all coming
together for a final showdown. You don’t really get that here. None
of the plot revolving around the rebel leader or the local tribes
really means anything at the end which is pretty disappointing
because those were the strongest narrative aspects of the game as a
whole. The last mission feels so disconnected from everything else.
It’s like the game wants to compartmentalise everything rather than
tie everything together in a meaningful way.
I’m also not sure I
like the concept of the next threat the game sets up at the end. I
did, at first, when it seemed mysterious and interesting. But, once
again, rather than leave it somewhat ambiguous as to what’s coming,
the game seeks to over explain what it is through lengthy and
unnecessary dialogue that takes any sense of excitement away. It just
doesn’t sound very compelling.
Okay, time to reiterate
that, overall, I did still like the story. There’s some cool stuff,
some interesting twists, and some fun revelations. It’s just not as
well paced, structured or composed as that in Zero Dawn. I did like
Aloy’s development though. I feel like that’s one thing the story
really did do well because it was at least a little more subtle about
it than everything else.
So, what’s next? Forbidden West is just too damn big. I think it’s best described as ‘overstuffed’. On the one hand, there’s some excellent side content to explore. In fact, all of it is excellent in terms of side quests and objectives. The game does a fantastic job with all of its side characters and missions. There was absolutely nothing that didn’t feel worth my time.
The problem is, the
game also shoves in a lot of unnecessary and pointless filler content
in the form of the firegleam and metal flowers. I kept hoping they
would lead to something more interesting than another bloody supply
chest but I was always mistaken. The Relic Ruins were also kind of
annoying because they devolved into ‘push this block to climb up’
kind of puzzles. Speaking of supply chests, the bloody things are
absolutely everywhere.
Forbidden West is a
game that’s sadly bloated by too much stuff. Your inventory is a
never-ending mass of machine parts, outfits, weapons, potions, traps
and ammo. There’s just too much to keep track of. There’s new
weapon and ammo types, but frankly, very few of them feel useful or
effective. I love the outfit variety, but the upgrade system is such
a tedious chore in that every single item has multiple upgrade tiers
with multiple item requirements. It’s a terrible grind, even if you
just want to max out a couple of outfits or weapons – especially
the higher tier stuff which requires multiple rare machine parts that
don’t always drop on a kill.
Combat in Forbidden
West feels faster paced than Zero Dawn with more aggressive machines.
Whereas in Zero Dawn I’d spend more time planning my strategy and
using traps or tripwires to create ‘kill zones’, I rarely did in
Forbidden West. I think that’s a combination of the faster paced
combat and more agile machines – that always seem to jump over or
around tripwires and traps – and how much a pain in the ass the UI
is to actually select what you want to use.
You have an active
inventory of tools such as potions and traps, but with so many new
trap and potion types, it becomes an absolute chore to try to scan
through on the fly and select exactly what you need in the middle of
a hectic fight. In the end, it’s just not worth the bother. The
same is true of many of the new weapons and ammo types in particular.
Aside from the powerful blast variation of the spike thrower, none of
the new weapons or ammo types felt worth the inclusion when the most
effective and fast way to take down any machine was to just stack up
on their elemental weakness and then target their weak points after
stripping any parts you need.
I do like the new
abilities you can activate in a fight for various boosts or weapon
skills though – they add a nice twist on the utility of each weapon
type and how you like to play. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not
saying that more options are bad. I’m saying the options themselves
are kind of bad. Most of the new ammo types feel more like novelty
items than actually useful tools.
A great example is the
shield variation of the tripcaster which is neat the first time you
try it, but then realise it’s totally useless in a fight. Or
‘sticky’ ammo – it’s undoubtedly fun to use, but I typically
never bothered with it in actual fights because it just makes killing
things slower. Or the canisters you can attach to machines and then
detonate . . . or I can just hit them with elemental arrows to
achieve the same effect faster. There are better, more efficient,
more effective and simpler options – that’s the problem. A lot of
the new stuff just feels totally redundant.
I still really like the
combat though. Stripping machines for every part is still as fun here
as in Zero Dawn and the new machine types are great. I also
appreciate the attempt to make melee combat better and they really do
make it better but it’s still not very good. It still feels wild
and imprecise and once again – not as effective as just using your
bow.
One problem I do have
with the combat in this sequel is how easily Aloy gets knocked off
her feet. So many of the new machines like to jump right on top of
you and even if you dodge, it’s easy to be knocked off balance. If
you’re fighting a pack, it can result in a irritating chain of
knock downs one after another as they continually fling themselves at
you. Like I said earlier, the more agile and aggressive machines
don’t leave as much room for tactical play. You don’t get to
control the flow of the fight the way you could in Zero Dawn.
I did warn you this
review would seem overly negative so let me say once again –
Forbidden West is excellent. I just don’t think it’s as excellent
as Zero Dawn. It’s too bloated and overstuffed and it falls into
the trap of feeling the need to over explain everything to the
player. That’s why I’m going to do a separate review of the DLC –
because I need to take a break.
So here’s what I want
to see in the next Horizon game – dial it the f**k back. DON’T
TRY TO GO BIGGER. In fact, GO SMALLER. Keep it tight, and more
focused. Let us learn alongside Aloy. Don’t rely on tedious
exposition dumps. SHOW DON’T TELL. Cut back on all the traps and
potions and ammo types. We don’t need more. Seriously. No more.
I’m all for variety
and giving the player creative freedom but too much of the new stuff
feels ineffective in practice. If you’re adding in new stuff, make
sure it’s actually useful and serves a particular purpose. Make
sure exploration is more rewarding than endless supply chests.
I really want to be
excited for the next game and maybe the DLC will help with that, but
I am worried that the developers will just push for bigger again when
that’s not what made Zero Dawn special. It’s not what makes this
game special despite its problems. Horizon is special because of its
world and characters and cool robot designs and fun combat. The next
game doesn’t need to be three times bigger. No. Just no.
8/10
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