Horizon Forbidden West: The review PS5

 In Horizon Forbidden West, Aloy faces the dangers of the forbidden west to save the world.Almost exactly five years after Horizon Zero Dawn, Guerrilla Games continues Aloy's story in Horizon Forbidden West. The action RPG is clearly designed as a sequel. Accordingly, it makes sense to know the predecessor and, at best, to have played it through. However, that doesn't mean you can't play Forbidden West if you haven't played Zero Dawn, but some of the plot elements, and especially the beautifully written characters, can't unfold their full potential without prior knowledge. A small spoiler note for the first Horizon should also be mentioned at this point. Since the story of Horizon Forbidden West is closely linked to its predecessor, spoilers for Zero Dawn cannot be avoided. For those who haven't played the first part, Forbidden West offers a proper and sufficient review, which, however, cannot cover all facets.

departure to the west

Let's now turn to Horizon Forbidden West directly. As already mentioned, the story ties in with the predecessor. More specifically, the action role-playing game begins a few months after the end of Horizon Zero Dawn. Aloy is still looking for a backup of Gaia to restart the terraforming system and prevent the end of the world. The central premise of the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 exclusive title is already hidden here: saving the world. In doing so, Guerrilla Games presents us with a fairly neat and linear prologue that introduces us to the most important gameplay features. That's also relevant for anyone who's played Zero Dawn, as Forbidden West has seen some adjustments made to combat, climbing mechanics, gauges, and the like. We quickly internalize everything and follow the given path of introduction. Unfortunately, the prologue drags a bit and it may take a little too long before we are finally released into the open world.

At the latest, however, when the time comes, Horizon Forbidden West can again play to all the strengths of its predecessor and, even in the manageable starting area, tempts us to deviate from the story path in order to fulfill side quests or simply explore the secrets of the living game world. This is where the action RPG feels awesome again. The combination of ruins of the old world, buildings of the different tribes and the influence of flora, fauna and machines is fascinating and sometimes we just marvel at the detailed landscapes. Horizon Forbidden West really shines thanks to brilliant visuals, which are particularly effective on the PlayStation 5 but still look great on PS4. Additional effects and techniques such as ray tracing ensure even better graphics on the new PlayStation console. However, some technical quirks and bugs have also crept into the game. However, these are not that serious, can be bypassed and are already fixed with patches, so that the visually impressive presentation can fully develop.

Hunter, gatherer, fighter

As in the predecessor, Aloy is a sympathetic, excellently written main character with many facets and manages to carry the motivating and exciting story wonderfully. Even the somewhat dragging plot sections or the comparatively weak ending are easily outweighed by Aloy and the other no less great and lively characters. It is not uncommon for us to be accompanied by familiar and new characters, which breathes even more life into the characters, story and world and shows a coherent relationship between Aloy, her friends and new acquaintances. However, Aloy mostly stays alone and has to face the challenges of the forbidden west. For this we act equally as hunters, gatherers and fighters, just as survivors.

These terms are not random, as they are also used in the game, for example for outfits, and describe well what awaits us as Aloy. We roam the fascinating world of the end times, constantly discovering new areas, encountering a wide variety of machines, improving our skills and equipment and confronting numerous familiar and new enemies. Guerrilla Games has adjusted the action role-playing game's combat system so that the encounters with machine and hum

an opponents feel even more fluid, powerful and better. This is also thanks to the great Dual Sense controller integration, which really lets us feel the heaviness of a bowstring or taking damage. This ensures that we are always motivated to face off against opponents. Only the missing lock-on function, with which we could always keep an eye on enemies, spoils the positive impression a bit and can sometimes lead to a loss of overview. However, this does not have a really serious effect.

As usual in a role-playing game, we receive experience points from defeated opponents or successfully completed quests, which ultimately grant us a level up. This not only improves Aloy's maximum health, but also gives you skill points. We can earn these by completing quests or other activities. This is essential, as there are six extensive skill trees in Horizon Forbidden West, far more than in its predecessor. In these we learn new passive and active skills that improve Aloy, grant us new attacks and special actions and thus bring us new opportunities in combat, exploration or hunting. The possibilities alone mean that we often think carefully about which skill we want to invest in next. Luckily, skill points aren't that scarce, and even the increasingly expensive points up the skill trees allow us to learn something new on a regular basis.

Survival improvements

In order to be able to defy the dangers of the Wild West, we will regularly receive new weapons and outfits over the course of the game, which will strengthen us in battle and improve our defenses. However, especially with clothing, depending on the category, it is still more suitable for other activities and sometimes it makes sense to quickly change your outfit before a fight. After all, we don't want to face off against a fire-breathing machine with a weakness for that very element. To additionally counteract this, we are allowed to improve our equipment in several stages at workbenches. For this we need different materials, which we get either from killed animals or machines. With the latter, however, you have to be careful, since certain parts of the machines also become unusable if they are destroyed. So we have to separate them beforehand with targeted shots and attacks. For this we are allowed to mark desired parts separately when looking at the machines through the focus. However, this is not necessary on the two easy difficulty levels, as all parts can also be obtained from defeated machines. A nice way to make it easier for newcomers to get started.

In order to specifically find the materials we need to improve our equipment, we can create an order for each weapon and outfit. We can call this up in the quest menu and the world map will show us where we can find machines from which we can get the parts we need. The same is also possible with traders if we lack resources to buy new equipment. But that's not all, we also collect ingredients in the game world that we can exchange with a chef for helpful meals. These grant us time-limited bonuses such as more health or certain resistance improvements. With all the gathering of materials and ingredients, our inventory is sure to fill up very quickly, as in the predecessor, isn't it? no Guerrilla Games have fixed this annoying weakness of Zero Dawn by automatically sending all collected items that no longer fit into our inventory to the warehouse. At chests distributed throughout the game world, we can access this and take out what we need. A real relief that significantly reduces the time in the inventory. More comfort when selling or sorting the inventory is more than welcome and allows us to spend more time actually playing.

Conclusion

After Horizon Zero Dawn, Guerrilla Games has trumped itself once again with Horizon Forbidden West. The action role-playing game is the studio's best game I've played so far. Minor weaknesses in the combat system, story and technology aside, Horizon Forbidden West is simply an intriguing experience. It is incredibly motivating to accompany Aloy on her mission to save the world and to face the dangers of the forbidden west together with her. Sure, Guerrilla Games relies on the well-known processes and elements of the predecessor in some points, but thinks ahead and thus creates an excellent development within the series. As a result, Forbidden West trumps the first Horizon in almost every respect and is only a little behind in terms of story. But that's not really relevant, since Horizon Forbidden West is just a great action role-playing experience at the latest after the somewhat dragging, but also successful prologue. I'm always motivated to explore the huge open world, discover new things or return to familiar places as soon as I've received new tools. The fights also know how to motivate me, while the story and the side quests are always exciting and interesting. Even small side hustles tempt me to spend hours with them and for me that shows the fascination of Horizon Forbidden West, which is not only to be found in the world saving story and the great characters, but also in the living world. This makes Horizon Forbidden West one of the best PlayStation 5 games to date and definitely a Game of the Year contender. Genre fans should not miss the action role-playing game, but at best they should have played the very good predecessor Horizon Zero Dawn including DLC The Frozen Wilds.