Now Playing: Forbidden West

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