By 
Killzone Sunrise
Horizon was made by Guerrilla Games of Killzone fame. When I found this out I was shocked like ‘These guys can make stuff besides Killzone?’ Apparently they took a big risk to develop this game and I’d say it’s paid off. I didn’t keep up with the hype or news about this game so it was quite the sleeper hit for me. It’s just a really solid overall experience.
Rare footage of me talking about plot. In the game you’re a girl named Aloy that’s been exiled from the tribe for being a little girl. Populating the world besides the humans are these big ass robot animals. Remember Zoids? Zoids were the best. They’re like Zoids but mindless, Zoids had pilots. The humans are sort of primitive but it’s not like they’re cavemen, still somewhat definitely evolved in a homo sapien sort of way. Humans with their primitive technology have to hunt these machines to survive. Throughout the course of the game you discover that this is Earth far into the future. What really gripped me to the story was uncovering the mystery of these robots and how humanity became like this. How you discover about the world is ever so elegantly integrated into gameplay with getting a glimpse of the past as well as voiceovers and relics of those who came before. There is a ton of exposition but I just found it all really interesting and well done so I got really absorbed. Revealing all of it at the end was really quite the moment. These types of mystery thrillers are my favourite sort of story so it was thoroughly enjoyable. I almost didn’t pay attention to the story of the present people and their tribal politics, though the crafted world and characters were really fleshed out and all of the NPCs were enjoyable to converse with. Except “Travis Tate”, fuck that guy. Speaking of conversations, the lipsync and voice acting were thoroughly top notch. Even more shockingly I’m pretty sure all of the lipsync outside of full cutscenes were done by a machine. Eyes and expressions are really well rendered. I can’t quite put my finger on it but to me a lot of the NPCs look like famous celebrities.
The beginning of the game starts off real slow. Snail’s pace. Aloy falls into a cavern system where the game teaches you movement basics and gives you a piece of “future” tech. Tech from the past. It’s like an earpiece that projects holograms that only she can see and hear called a Focus. From there I spent like 10 minutes walking around listening to audio logs and reading exposition. When I was playing I remember thinking ‘This is going on way too long’. But in retrospect it was a good introduction to the mysteries the player would be uncovering through the course of the game. After a bit the player is taught the core loops of the game, hunting and gathering. This is an open world “hunting” game. Kill machines for materials, other materials are gathered off the ground. The next thing that happens is that your caretaker puts you through some sort of Rocky training montage, sans Eye of the Tiger. Why couldn’t I get to play through this montage as practice I’ll never know. Now that Aloy’s all grown up the game lets you roam the open world. Maybe it’s a message on how you let children start to go out the older they get, but I might be reading too much into it. One of the first side quests I completed gave me a spear upgrade and then I never upgraded my spear again, as this was the only quest that did that. Afterwards I had this quest to retrieve a Scrapper Heart from, you guessed it, a Scrapper machine. Though I already had one from playing in the world, it wouldn’t let me turn the heart in which was a bummer. Later in the game after dozens of hours I didn’t have a Thunderjaw Heart but the quest one was a 100% drop I suspect, which was really nice.
Stealth is OP in this game, I remember clearing most of the game with it, especially against the humans. Any sort of “whistle” or “lure” button is surely broken in any game. It’s also fairly easy to abuse the leash range. The hitbox detection to stealth human enemies also seems a bit off. It’s clear a lot of the budget went into ranged combat and the monsters. Especially so the player is more “hunter” than anything else. The melee combat just feels really clunky and sometimes you have to resort to that. What I’m not a fan of is being hit from stuff off-screen so it would have helped to have like a prompt to dodge, especially since the game loves UI. They love UI so much that dozens of hours into the game I’m still getting tutorial messages. In some of the areas where there’s a lot of enemies on the screen you just have to use your melee to clear some because they don’t leave you space to aim.
The open world is fantastic. Lots of stuff to collect and it’s so easy due to the Focus mechanic and the maps you can buy that reveals the area. During one of the tutorials it asks you to home in on a signal far away and watching a giant Satellite Dish walk around was truly epic. One of these collectibles are some mugs. Though since they’re far in the future they think of people from the past as really god-like figures. Later in the game when you meet this NPC who trades the mugs the ensuing conversation is hilarious. He says we use the mugs to conduct rituals and Aloy just chimes in like ‘Maybe they just drink from them?’ and he gasps as if she’s speaking blasphemy.
Some minor stuff. At the first part of the game you fight a few machines in your homeland with a bunch of allies for help. At the end of the game they have you return to the same arena against double the enemy forces alone, which is a good way of showing how much the player has progressed. Dialogue will branch depending on what you have done or how far in the story you are, which is great. Side quests are either funny or serious and both are really excellently done. While I was playing they kept mentioning the Banuk tribe but I didn’t see their home base so I expected it was DLC. Sure enough, the upcoming DLC features them. Aloy’s condescending look like ‘You done fucked up now’ when she bends down to look at NPCs she’s beaten is fantastic. MGSV has spoiled me but I couldn’t play audio logs outside of menus so I couldn’t listen to stuff while I was travelling around, that was really annoying. The game’s UI is already cluttered to the max, just a little more wouldn’t have done anything. There was a quest in the game where some poor dudes steal from some rich dude that I thought would have some sort of branching moral ‘Robin Hood type’ choice for our Heroine but it resolves itself peacefully as long as you follow and complete the chain.
I tried to Platinum this game but encountered some glitches where I wasn’t being awarded the trophy I was supposed to get. It seems a few people online are also subject to this so it’s not just me. I’m not the biggest fan of open world sandboxes but I felt the world was the just the right size. Not too big, not too small, a nice amount of content in it. Might get around to editing this when the DLC comes out, but that’ll be in years to get all of them out.
Update:
Horizon: Zero Dawn is coming out for the PC! It is the first Sony Exclusive to ever do so.
