REVIEW

Horizon Zero Dawn Review

by Luke Walsh, March 9th, 2017

Horizon Zero Dawnis a game I have been wanting to review for a while, since seeing the demo at E3 I could not wait to jump into a brand new open world. Being set around 1,000 years from today, humanity has regressed from a ultra-surreal futuristic life to a primitive tribal people surrounded by mysterious high-tech remnants and animals made from machine parts. Real animals still scour the landscape but they are overshadowed by the massive mecha beasts which now own the nature claimed lands.

The story from the start is an intriguing one with many questions you want answers to as you follow in the footsteps of Aloy, a redheaded outcast of her people. Forgotten and “cursed” technology falls into Aloy’s hands at a young aged, named the Focus and allows her to glean info from the world around her. Making the standard “focus” mode seen in many games before a key part of the story was a refreshing take on a quite familiar mechanic.

The beginnings of the game you watch Aloy grow up and start to question to world around her, she wonders why she is an outcast, who her mother was and why these mechanic beasts are controlling the lands and becoming progressively more aggressive to people. Her story is something I found myself quite attached to, it i hard not to start to like Aloy as a character and watch her transform as the story progresses, accomplishes huge feats. She also has a sarcastic sense of humour which is well narrated to the people she meets along the way, if you have similar humour, you’ll like her dialogue.

Once you get out into the world, combat plays a centre role in everything you do and deserves all the credit it can get. The world is mixed with many different metal beasts (26 different species to be exact) that are ready to attack and crazy bandits who only want to enslave and mistreat the other tribes of the world. With Aloy’s arsenal of different weapons, traps, and items there is a massive amount of excitement when you enter into battle. Sneaking up to a monster, to only head into full on battle diving out of the way, while sliding in slow mo and attacking its weak spots, make for some high intensity action.

As you start with a bow and arrow, you’ll soon come to realise it will be your most trusted and used tool out of all your weapons. As you progress you will also gain access to elementally charged arrows, slingshots that throw bombs and weapons that can tie down enemies or stun them to give you the upper hand. Adapting to each combat situation with these array of weapons is easy to get used to and you won’t need to worry about being in too much danger when you decide to bring up the weapon wheel mid-combat as time slows around you giving you some seconds to make your choice.

Once you learn to control Aloy, it will make you feel almost super human, a proper warrior of the wilds being able to hunt head-on into an enemy, swop round and shoot an enemy’s weak spot all in one fluid motion. Finding the enemies weaknesses are supported by the Focus, which before battle starts allows you to sneak up from a distance, scope out the enemy and then engage. Once you have done this a few times over, each monster’s soft spots will be etched into your memory allowing you to fight much more quickly. If you get into trouble though, dodge rolling out the way is a viable and useful option but never underestimate the tried and test “running for your life” approach. Although Aloy, has a range of primitive souped up weaponry, at the core she is still human and the game reminds you of this when you get too cocky.

Even with the vast array of weapons and tools at your disposal I always found the bow and arrow was the most useful. The other weapons are cool to play around with but their real world application is hard to master when being bombarded by multiple enemies, as they are pretty precise in how you use them. The Tripcaster which allows you to send out lines of electric wire to stun enemies is great for the stealth set up but almost impossible to use when in combat as it is just too slow. Traps again are useful for small paths and bottlenecks but getting an enemy to trip them is quite hard as their activation range is very confined.

You do also have melee attacks which can help you in dire straights but I found it to be quite inaccurate. A lot of the time I was trying to hit something but a lot of the machines are too quick for you to get a decent hit on them. Getting too close is also an easy way of getting killed, a lot of the machines can take a significant chunk of your HP bar if they get in a good swipe. Horizon does do a great job at rolling out new enemies for you to fight at a good pace, along the journey there is never a moment where you feel it is the same ole fight.

Stealth like a lot of these games is a very valid approach, sneaking up on enemies in tall grass, using the Focus to find out their weakness and setting up a couple of traps can help you win a tiled battle. That does not mean you’ll always be able to win in stealth as even with skills to do extra damage, some of the bigger beasts just have a lot of health for a silent takedown not too work. It can be fun though to set up an ambush by using the Focus to track a machine’s path and attack just at the right moment. Further along the story, Aloy will also learn how to override machines which becomes a critical mechanic in traversing the landscape more quickly or getting the mech animals to fight alongside you depending on which animal you override. As you upgrade your skills, overrides can last for longer giving you time to build up a small army to take down your opponents.

Humans can also be an enemy, with bandit camps set up across the massive open world and even though you can go in guns (arrows) blazing, the stealthy approach I found was always the best option. There is something somewhat satisfying to hiding in the tall grass and taking out enemies one by one, or hitting them with a precision arrow from a great distant for a silent headshot kill. Like other games, if you take down an enemy their body will be available for the world to see which is mildly annoying. It’s hard to believe that Aloy has so many skills at her disposal but can’t hide a simple body so her silent murderous rampage can continue a little longer undetected. Usually what happens when you choose to raid a camp is take down a couple bandits, and their friends from a mile away notice the arrows sticking out their chest and come to investigate. In the end, you have either one pile of dead bodies or the whole camp is searching for the “ghost” who wastes enemies until you are spotted trying to take out another unsuspecting bad guy.

Clearing out the camps, and rescuing Nora folk are just one of the side quests you can come across in the wilds. Lending itself to Assassin’s Creed you can also climb up Tallnecks, ginormous brontosaurus type machines which act as viewpoints on the map, lifting the fog of war and displaying more of the surrounding area. Each one is heavily guarded usually with Watchers and a variety of other metal animals which will require you to plan ahead to make your way up to the top. You’ll also be able to delve into ancient bunkers to overcover remnants of the past and pick up loads of different side quests from people as you go on your merry way. All these combine make the world flurry with life and has enough distinction between them to make it repetitive.

Exploring Horizon Zero Dawn’s world is just astoundingly beautiful and haunting at the same time, moving through the world is rewarding and challenging. You’ll journey over snowy mountains, hard hot deserts, stunning green forests and even when capped at 30fps on a normal PS4 is aesthetically perfect. The meld of nature taking over civilisation and seeing broken towering building reduce to rubble has a post-apocalyptic feel that reminds me the world may be beautiful but dangerous. The world is so packed with unsuspecting moments, you’ll have a lot to talk about with your friends. I still clearly remember fighting a t-rex type machine and thinking it would be ‘Skyrim Dragon’ easy…20 minutes later of one hellish battle and retreats I managed to subdue the creature, only to be caught by Watchers and flying Stormbirds and killed.

When you die it is not overkill, but as campfires that you use as save points are pretty far in between and fast travelling is restricted to consumable items, adelinde does get pumping when you are near death as the trip back might be a long one.

As big as the wildness is in Horizon, settlers are not too far in between. Reverting back to tribal systems, each faction you come across has its own history, backstory and theory or religion for what has happened to the world. Nora believe in the “All seeing Mother” which is actually a relic from the past and other tribes interact with Aloy and other differently depending on their political stance. Nora don’t usually leave their homeland as it is forbidden, so travelling can come up a lot with “Don’t usually see many Nora around here” which adds much more weight behind the back stories of the world.

In each settlements you will find missions both main and side quests, merchants and more. The main missions are well crafted and inweave with each other to create a compelling story which fits in Aloy trying to figure out who she is, why she was abandoned by her mother and what is happening in the world. Side quests offer some alternative storylines and there are a few decent ones but you will come up against a lot of fetch and kill quests. Zero Dawn does not have the same level of crafted narrative for their side missions that The Witcher 3 does so well as it would be better if missions and side quests where better connected. You’ll jump from exploring abandoned old age civilizations, to solving murders, helping tribes with political issues and fighting against a cult like tribe. Outside of that, Horizon wants you to craft your own story in a way based on what you do in the world, the dialogue choices you make to shape Aloy’s decisions and come to the breaktaking and heart wrenching finale.

Beautiful, well crafted, action packed are just some of the words that I could use to describe Horizon Xero Dawn. It has a lot of mechanics to juggle and does so with a lot of polish to make it a well oiled machine of gaming. Every creature is extremely well designed with different looks and behaviors to make them satisfying to hunt and use in the wilds. Even though side quests could be better, the main story is an addictive mysterious narrative you want to solve and the further down the rabbit hole you go the more gratifying the result is.