Yesterday, we saw our first glimpse of gameplay for Horizon Forbidden West, and things look much improved from Zero Dawn. There’s a few caveats to this, of course. We’ve only seen a tailored slice of gameplay in a very linear quest, and it’s hard to extrapolate the quality of a full, 40-hour plus game off the back of a 15-minute clip curated by the studio. Nevertheless, while a lot of the attention will be placed on the fact that Forꦗbidden West is graphically gorgeous and the cool new machines, what is most impressive is that the sequel seems to be actively building on Zero Dawn’s foundations, which offers a bit of hope that what’s hiding behind this vertical slice is more of tඣhe same, and not 40 hours of arduous traversal and empty wilderness.
I’m not going to retroactively argue that Horizon Zero Dawn was a bad game off the back of seeing Forbidden West’s potential. It’s in my top five for the last generation thanks to its varied combat and wide range of environments, but being the first PlayStation game I’d played after a decade of being on team Xbox, my experience might have been coloured a little bit by that. Anyway, I loved Aloy’s first outing, but when you weren’t actively fighting off beasties, it was a bit rough around the edges. The core story concept was solid, but the pieces never quite seemed to fit together, and the characters were largely forgettable. That happens with new IPs - very few games nail it at the first time of asking, and Horizon did better than most. A sequel is the opportunity to build on the first game’s strengths and tweak the missteps. For the record, Days Gone probably sh൩ould have got this chance too, and it’s a shame it seems like it won’t, but the conspiracy that reviewers colluded to🌜 kill the game or that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a lack of wokeness spelt the end is ridiculous - that’s probably an issue f🅰or another day though.
Despite clearly being inspired by Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed, and Tomb Raider, traversal was probably Horizon Zero Dawn’s weakest aspect. Aloy was an expert at jumping from cliff face to cliff face, scaling heights, and shimmying along crevices, but it was all a tad predictable. Each foothold had white paint and a glowing ‘GRAB HERE!!’ sign. You never felt like you were exploring, so much as you were following a set path. Tomb Raider had a bit of this, but Rise especially gave you more control, and Assassin’s Creed has long built in multiple pathways for clambering up buildings. This can become frustrating in AC when you try to reach for a window ledge and instead leap across the street, but there’s a sense that wherever you want to go, you can probably get there. Horizon Zero Dawn didn’t have this freedom. You could climb most surfaces in the game, but only if you did it in the c♏horeographed ways Guerrilla wanted you to.
There was a smidge o𓃲f this in Forbidden West’s gameplay reveal too. When Aloy jumps across the trees, you can see her body jerk slightly as the running animation turns into the jumping one. That’s not going to be an issue that makes Forbidden West a worse experience, but it does hint at the fact the choreographed feel of the original may still exist. If you aren’t lined up with the branch correctly, will you still jump? Luckily, the addition of a grappling hook adds much-needed creativity and control.
There once was a time when every game 🀅had a grappling hook, and while that trend has now bitten the dust, Forbidden West is bringing an improved version of the gadget back. We see Aloy zip across sheer drops and launch the hook into walls, giving you much more agency over how you approach the world. It seems like Lara’s pick from Tomb Raider, but instead of only being used on specific surfaces, it looks like any rock face is fair game. If that’s the case,𝐆 the world of Horizon is opening up, and Horizon’s gameplay will finally match Aloy’s agility.
Another key reason traversal in Zero Dawn felt lacking was because the world was so sparse. There were only a handful of structures in each location in the wild, and even without the choreographed clambering, there were only so many routes to take. What we’ve seen of Forbidden West shows the world to be incredibly dense, with trees, rusted street cars, sand dunes, cliffs, and wooden cabins to interact with, and that’s before you he🐓ad underwater.
There’s a completely new landscape when Aloy is swimming, but even on foot there’s a load more for her to climb, jump off, duck under, or grapple hook into. There’s no way to know how well this density carries over to the rest of the game, but the fact Guerrilla went on the front foot to combat any complaints about sparseness shows the devs have𒁃 been listening to criticism and have🦩 hopefully folded that into Forbidden West’s wider design.
Right now, we've seen a 15-minute burst of what will likely be a 40-hꦺour game, and those 15 minutes were specifically chosen by the studio. If you ask most games to show you their best 15 minutes, they could make themselves look like a masterpiece. The jury is still out on how well Forbidden West can deliver on its potential, but Zero Dawn o🔯ffers a solid foundation. If this slice is to be believed, the studio recognises where Zero Dawn wobbled, and has committed to making sure Horizon doesn't make the same mistake twice.
