News game Horizon Forbidden West: First impressions after 3 hours of play on the exclusive PS4 and PS5!

In Horizon Forbidden West, expected on PS4 and PS5, Aloy embarks on a fateful journey through the lands of the forbidden West, in a post-apocalyptic America. His mission: to stop the spread of a devastating plague that threatens to end all life. The young huntress once again finds herself battling hostile machines – many of which are more advanced and even more dangerous than the enemies she fought in the previous game, Horizon Zero Dawn.

A huge undertaking, not only for our heroine Aloy, but also for developer Guerrilla. The studio faces the complicated challenge of expanding the world it has already designed for the first installment and improving the original significantly. At present, we are confident that the studio is up to this mammoth task. In fact, we left our exclusive gaming session fully satisfied.

GamePro was able to play Horizon Forbidden West for around 3.5 hours on PS5, at a nice 60 frames per second. In this session, we completed the new Arena Challenge as well as two longer main missions set at the beginning of the story. In these missions, Aloy is still preparing for her journey to the Forbidden West and has yet to leave the familiar mountain ranges of the original game. So we haven’t had a chance to experience the Pacific coast of California yet, but we have been able to familiarize ourselves with some of the new game mechanics and machines. As part of this preview, we were also able to interview the game director, Mathijs de Jonge.

More abilities, more weapons, more varied combat

With Horizon Forbidden West, fans of the first episode should find their feet immediately. But the first encounter with a monster-machine shows just how much Aloy’s skills have evolved since Horizon Zero Dawn. It’s crucial to make good use of new mechanics – after all, the machines have also learned new tricks.

In the first moments, we found ourselves facing an “Acid-Bristleback”, a huge machine-boar which threatens the inhabitants of a small village located near the border of the prohibited West. The beast rushes at us and would have crushed our heroine if we hadn’t dodged the attack by rolling to the side. But no time to rest: the Bristleback sends out a poisonous green cloud, constantly draining our health bar as we suffocate.

We could, of course, use our hunting bow and empty our quiver until the monster fell, but that would be wasteful. We act smart and equip the Poison Arrows we just obtained, aiming our projectiles at the beast’s poisonous reservoir on its back; fighting poison with poison causes a chain reaction : The tank explodes, the boar loses almost all its energy and the greenish explosion spreads around, also damaging nearby enemies.

Later, we got to try out one of Aloy’s many new weapons, the Spike Thrower. These are powerful spears that Aloy can throw at her enemies from a distance. Launching one of these projectiles takes longer than firing an arrow, but does a lot more damage, and can even pierce an enemy’s armor – the fact that the spears explode after a few seconds is particularly nice. It’s hard to describe the joy of placing a spike through a Bristleback’s metal body and watching its armor explode.

Lackluster and repetitive melee combat was one of the main criticisms leveled at Horizon Zero Dawn, and Guerrilla fixed that issue in this sequel. Via the skill tree, there are dozens of melee abilities to unlock (heavy attacks and shield breakers in particular) as well as special combos, giving more variety and importance to these action phases. During our session, we didn’t get a chance to try out these new skills ourselves, but we’re still excited.

Weapon skills similar to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

To survive the dangers of the forbidden West, Aloy will therefore have more than new weapons: she will also have to call on her new skills. As in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, for example, she now has a set of special abilities: She can use up to three special moves per weapon, which can be chosen via a weapon wheel.

Switching between special abilities can be tricky in the middle of a battle, but it’s worth it considering how powerful they are. For example, with our hunting bow we can shoot three arrows at once, causing much more damage than a single arrow. Aloy can also fire multiple arrows into the air, unleashing a hail of arrows that will fall on her opponents and hit multiple targets simultaneously. However, these special attacks cannot be used at all times – watch out for Aloy’s yellow stamina bar, which automatically recharges over time.

A violent fight against the “Slitherfang”

Later, game director Mathijs de Jonge showed us the‘Arena, a new side activity where we face crossed machines over the course of the adventure on several levels of difficulty (amateur, advanced, pro). This activity requires us to master all the skills we have obtained so far. In the Arena, we come face to face with a very large snake-machine, also known as the Slitherfang, which truly shows the breadth of Horizon Forbidden West’s combat mechanics.

In order not to be crushed from the first moments, we must combine our abilities, weapons and elemental attacks. We decide to freeze the snake with ice arrows, which slows it down considerably, then we send it to hell with our explosive spears and we shoot its toxic tank three times while the slow motion is activated, thus destroying its only means to poison us. Many weapon changes and frantic maneuvering later, the Slitherfang is finally brought down.

Forbidden West’s combat mechanics require great tactical finesse as well as the ability to aim, dodge, and combine your skills. Weaker monsters can be taken down by a few arrows, of course. Corn the complexity of the combat system motivates us to think creatively and trapping even smaller machines rather than eliminating them in a quick and easy way.

Horizon meets Zelda: Breath of the Wild

But it’s not just the battles that are more varied and exciting than in Horizon Zero Dawn. Exploring and traversing the open world is more fun than ever, thanks to a number of new free roaming gadgets, including:

• The Ailegid, which allows Aloy to hover over terrain and reduce fall damage, similar to the paraglider in Zelda: Breath of the Wild (but with slightly less range than BOTW).
• The “Pullcaster”, which allows Aloy to break down walls and discover hidden treasures or paths.
• The breathing mask, which allows our heroine to dive indefinitely.
• The grappling hook, with which Aloy can hoist herself up to certain attachment points, move from one platform to another or launch herself into the air.

Exploration in Horizon Forbidden West is particularly interesting when certain moves are combined. Not only is it stylish, but it’s also extremely useful in combat. For example, we use the grappling hook to rise in the air, activate slow motion and aim at enemies below us. Then we quickly pull out our Ailegid and glide elegantly to the ground, where we finish off our opponents one by one. All these movements control each other wonderfully and work together to create a dynamic that makes us feel like a real superheroine.

Climbing has also been improved significantly. Gone are the little yellow ledges that told us where we should go next. This time we’re climbing over procedurally generated cracks that we can highlight with our focus scanner. Integrating this new climbing method into the environment is much more organic and gives us more freedom to climb and explore the open world.

The promise of an unforgettable open world

We were only able to see a fraction of this open world during our playtime. Mathijs de Jonge later confirmed that the world of Forbidden West is slightly larger than that of the original game. It also promised more side missions and activities, for a very solid overall lifespan.

But more doesn’t always mean better, of course, and that’s why Guerrilla has tackled another gripe Horizon Zero Dawn has: side quests. The studio wants to improve the quality of missions outside the main story, to make them more varied than in the past and to offer plots with strong emotional resonance. If they manage to achieve their goal, Horizon Forbidden West Could Surpass Its Excellent Predecessor, having the potential to become one of the best open-world games of all time thanks to its complex combat system and impressive machines.

The verdict

Horizon Zero Dawn stood out from other open-world adventures with its scenic post-apocalyptic universe, monster machines, and thrilling combat, which made it my favorite game of 2017 (alongside Zelda: Breath of the Wild) . After this session, I firmly believe that Horizon Forbidden West can surpass its very good predecessor. Guerrilla Games improved key mechanics like combat and climbing. There are more weapons, more abilities, and more possibilities to take down your opponents. If the story is up to the game mechanics and the title is able to captivate me with the quality of its gameplay and the emotional weight of its side quests, we could already have our first contender for the title of GOTY 2022.