If you loved Horizon Zero Dawn, this is the sequel that truly expands everything you thought was already great.

Horizon Forbidden West takes everything that made the first game special and elevates it. The world is absolutely breathtaking vibrant landscapes, detailed settlements, underwater exploration, massive machines roaming freely it all feels alive. Guerrilla truly pushed the boundaries here. Every region feels handcrafted, and simply traveling from one objective to another can turn into an unforgettable experience.

The gameplay was so amazing. Combat feels smoother, deeper, and more strategic. The new weapons, skills, and traversal mechanics add real variety. Fighting machines is as thrilling as ever, but now it feels even more dynamic and rewarding. Exploration is more fluid, side quests are meaningful, and the world invites you to get lost in it.

This game was fabulous. The world, the gameplay everything just clicked for me.

I know for some the story didn’t capture them as it did for me, but for me the story was better this time. We get to know so much more about Aloy her origin, the world, and all the unknown mysteries surrounding the old ones and what’s coming next. It felt more personal and more ambitious. Watching Aloy grow and carry the weight of everything on her shoulders was powerful.

And honestly, even if this game might not be for everyone, if you’ve played Horizon Zero Dawn, you should at least try this one. Just for Aloy.....it’s worth it.

9/10 ⭐

I played only 14 hours so far , but it's enough to give positive review to Forbiden West .
I played Horizon Zero Dawn on my PC , and it was one of those games that made my PS4 worth it of purchase . Forbiden West is worthy succesor .
I read through negative reviews before doing mine , and i can say plenty of those people are one who would give negative reviews to games like Witcher 3 or Skyrim . Most of it is total nonsense based on their personal point of view .
I have RTX 4070 , i7 13700F and 32GB ram - and game works smoothly for me ... Extremly smoothly ...

I want to preface this by saying I think the game is wonderful and a very worthwhile experience. I have a habit of focusing on more critical points over praise, despite the positives outweighing the negatives massively.

Horizon Forbidden West is a brilliant package which improves on the formula from the first game in nearly every way. The game offers a healthy variety of options in its gameplay and is paired with another great story to accompany this. Furthering many plot points and characters from Zero Dawn and giving answers to many of the story beats established there.

I think the games strengths are primarily in the machine combat and character writing:

Fighting machines is always engaging and the tear, component and weapon removal mechanics make for a really fun gameplay loop. Recognising and focusing on machine weak spots and components provides a satisfying growth of knowledge in the player, allowing for you to assess each encounter and engage in a planned assault which will become second nature as you progress into the game. That being said I found that despite a larger amount of weapon variants in this game, I mostly continued to use the hunter bows over any other category as when familiar with the machine you are facing it is more efficient to focus on tearing off components with high damage arrows and then finish the last of its health bar through weak spot damage. The utility based weapons with elemental effects and other mechanics feel sluggish and incredibly underpowered even when at their max upgrade. Additionally when triggering elemental states on enemies I found that it would often wear off so fast that you miss out on bonus damage. Upgrading late game weapons is also a chore and will require grinding machine locations to get the percentage based part drops you need. The game initially is a lot harder than the first, and at a higher level machines tend to spawn as Apex variants which almost always come equipped with plasma build up weapons. This mechanic relies on you crafting potions repeatedly to cancel out a timed explosion when the status effect is applied. Overall this is negligible as you will stomp most encounters with ease at the mid to late game. My final point on gameplay is that the game introduces several tools which are unlocked as you progress through the story, this enables you to access previously inaccessible locations and traverse the world in new ways. I do believe these mechanics become stale quite fast, an example being the ability to use a rebreather that opens up underwater locations without concern for oxygen, however there is little content which makes use of this feature. Typically you will dive for collectibles and evade enemies along the way as there is no water combat system to retaliate with.

When it comes to the characters we see several returning from Zero Dawn and a welcome host of new personalities. The game features some great quality voice acting and talent, my favourites being Kotallo and of course Sylens portrayed by Noshir Dalal and Lance Reddick respectively. Each one is incredibly personable and it is such a miss we don't get to spend more time in the world with them. I was surprised when accompanied by an ally at how much dialogue they have for engaging with the world and mechanics despite characters only joining you in person for the occasional mission or side quest. Aloy stating she has to go alone or that she will meet her companions at a location was so frequent that it was incredibly obvious this was to avoid having to travel around with them, perhaps the devs worried it would be a nuisance or it was mechanically not feasible. The option does occur on a few quests to choose between meeting someone at a location or travelling through the open world with them to the destination, this would be good if it were the norm allowing more player choice. I hope that in the sequel we get more time and ways to engage with these amazing characters.

On the topic of characters I must criticise Aloy constantly speaking aloud on every single action she undertakes, this is a problem of modern game design where I assume devs are concerned that players need their hand held to find objectives and understand game mechanics, but the repetition of "hint dialogue" after many hours of play becomes very noticeable and annoying.

The story itself I think is a great natural step from the events of the first game and captured my interest rapidly; I found myself wanting to find out more about the new environment and antagonists, I love the notebook entries for characters and hoard of collectable datapoints to expand on the lore. The only negatives I can raise with the story content are minor:

Thousand year old sealed ruins conveniently have campfires and lanterns lit, also you will find fresh medicinal berries, tribal potions and machine parts in ancient storage containers. This requires suspension of disbelief but it does Harkon back to (poor pun intended) Skyrim's dungeons being full of present day gear and lit candles.

This one is really nitpicky but I am massive on futurology and it seems like an oversight, major spoilers ahead.

The plot deals with the return of the Far Zenith organization which were established in the lore of the first game as a faction of super wealthy individuals who attempted to flee Earth upon a colony ship when the Faro plague had almost finished wiping out humanity 1,000 years ago. Only for the ship to be catastrophically destroyed when they tried to leave the solar system. We learn that this was a ruse and that they in fact succeeded, achieving immortality en route to their destination, the lie was to prevent anyone following them and interfering with their perceived paradise. As events continue to unfold we are misled into believing they have returned to once more wipe out the earths biosphere and create a new world of their own design. During the conclusion of the game it is revealed that the true motive of the organization was to use Earths resources as a sort of fuel stop and then plot a random escape vector into the galaxy at large. This is because they are being pursued by a vengeful sentient AI of their creation.

I find this plot point weak as this highly advanced group believes this will give them peace from their unrelenting hunter. Any AI capable of interstellar travel and with the means to fabricate complex machines near instantly (all of which we see in game) would undoubtably consume planets and asteroids to create a horde akin to von Neumann probes allowing exponential growth for the goal of eradicating its creators. Time would be of no constraint to this entity, making the Zeniths escape plans futile. Their goals definitely should not align with our protagonists, however it is short sighted to think this would give them peace from their pursuer. Confrontation is the only chance of survival. Whether now or later. It certainly does create a strong start for the plot of the next game as we will have to overcome even higher stakes than before.

I think the volume of text and how deeply I am reading into the story of the series should show that this game is well worth a purchase. There is still so much potential and I am passionate about every aspect provided in this offering, so forgive me for fixating on the downsides. By no means am I using these points to turn anyone away, they come from a place of love.

I'm eager to play the next entry and cannot wait for a taste of what is to come.