TLDR: Horizon is a must buy for open world fans. While not providing anything pushing the boundaries of the genre, the incredible spontaneous action against gigantic creatures and stunning visuals make it entirely worth the $60. Think of the game as taking the best elements from The Witcher, Shadow of the Colossus, Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed.
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Horizon: Zero Dawn is perhaps the most visually stunning open world gameto date, beating out the remarkable visuals of Witcher 3. Even when played on a standard PS4, the game provided an unparalleled field of view and granular levels of detail. All this — with quick load times — gives me faith for an amazing future for open world games.
The game has five or six different biomes, all diverse and beautifully crafted. The map is small enough to move from rainforest to American Southwest desert to snowy alpine scenes relatively quickly.
The actual “game-y” elements do nothing new to the open world genre. The side quests are pretty bland assortment of fetch this or kill that. Horizon takes many small elements from other open world games. They have climbing objectives that reveal map details like Assassin’s Creed, missions to clear camps of bandits like in Far Cry and tracking skills lifted straight from Witcher.
Where the game sets itself apart is, of course, with the robots. At any time you can stumble upon a massive creature, leading to truly epic moments of life or death struggle. Each machine animal presents unique challenges and methods to beat it. Not since 2005 in Shadow of Colossus have I seen such epic encounters with massive monsters as a core part of the game.
The combat is smooth and intuitive, and the additional weapons you can buy are both innovative and useful. I do wish there was a bit more customization and crafting options, but the simplicity seems an intentional decision to not overwhelm the casuals.
The actual humans on the other hand are pretty weak. Their AI is lacking compared to most modern games and it appears that the men and women in the villages do not have personal lives of their own. They just stand around waiting for you to come to talk to them so they can demand you fetch them some shiny object. Compared to the machines, which are animated beautifully, the humans fall flat.
The machines actually look like they have a purpose. They are either grazing, or digging in the dirt, or lurking in the water. Some crablike machines have containers on their backs and appear to be transporting items for unknown purposes. Ironically, the machines are much more lifelike than the humans.
The plot of the game centers around the asexual female protagonist Alloy. As a lead, her personality is kind of a drag. She switches from wet blanket, chiding other characters for their drinking or moral flaws, to doormat, accepting crappy chores from the countless side characters (90% of whom are assholes). The game offers very few likable characters, even with the star power of Cedric Daniels (Lieutenant Daniels from The Wire).
But despite its lackluster characters, the overarching story is solid. The plot offers up its mysteries sparingly. It takes until nearly the end of the main storyline to figure out the most important questions: why the apocalypse happened and why there are giant robot dinosaurs everywhere. Despite the absurdity of the last part, the game actually does offer up a convincing explanation.
There’s been much ado in the gaming press about Horizon‘s politics. Some describe it as the “wokest” game of all time, which is true to an extent. By no means does the game try to hamfistedly insert politics about gender or feminism, but there is a “girl power” vibe, although in a strange “post-gender” way. The game seems to exist in a universe where gender differences are virtually non-existent, both when it comes to physical capabilities and societal standings. Even sex or physical attraction appear to be lacking post-apocalypse.
Alloy comes from a matriarchal society and does battle against patriarchal ones, but that feels incidental. Only one guy (from the past) seems vaguely misogynistic, but all the other characters, even the baddies, are entirely post-gender in their thinking.
The game is also very diverse. Each tribe has an even mix of different modern-day races. While that’s no doubt a good thing for modern day social progress, it doesn’t really make sense in the post-apocalyptic future. If these small, cloistered tribes existed for hundreds of years, you would think after a while there would just be a bunch of mixed race people, not distinctly black and white races. It’s almost like the people of Horizon intentionally did not interracially procreate. That’s not woke at all! But I digress …
In Horizon, gameplay clearly overshadows the rest of the game. Wandering around, finding monsters and engaging in spontaneous bouts of mechanical violence with hulking apex predator robots is much more fun than anything to do with the lagging story and uninspired side quests.
Despite my many complaints, Horizon is clearly an elite-tier game, masterfully crafted and beautifully designed, a worthy buy for any open world lover.
I reviewed this game from a PS4 review copy provided by Sony.
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