#guerillagames

4/2/20

Developed by Guerrilla Games, released February 2017

...Yet another big game I was late to the party on. Horizon Zero Dawn got a lot of praise when it came out, but I never got time to play it; Three years later, I can finally see what all the hype was about. Horizon Zero Dawn is a beautiful and detailed open world action-RPG with tons of things to do and see. Its deep combat mechanics, breathtaking environments, crafting, exploring, and character interactions make this one of the best games in the genre. Its enigmatic story was a blast to uncover, and rivals some of the best of the science fiction genre in gaming. Horizon Zero Dawn is is a massive RPG that will satisfy the tastes of those who enjoy epic titles, such as The Witcher 3, Far Cry, or Mass Effect, all the while establishing a brand new IP.

Horizon Zero Dawn couldn’t be a further departure from Guerilla Game’s Killzone series. We play as Aloy (Ashley Burch), a hunter in the forests and mountains raised by her adoptive father Rost (JB Blanc). The story takes place in the deep post post-apocalypse, where the Old Ones have left behind rusted skyscrapers and mysterious underground ruins, forbidden by the Matriarchs to be entered. The game never establishes where physically on Earth the game takes place, but contains biomes from all hemispheres. Life has reverted back to clans and tribes, with no advanced technology or luxuries whatsoever. Each tribe is distinct and has their share of superstitions and philosophies. The world is also populated with machines in the wild that resemble animals, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and behaviors. 

The machine combat is Horizon Zero Dawn’s biggest draw and its most unique aspect. Aloy can use several weapons to help take down these foes, ranging from bows with elemental arrows, to a slingshot that launches bombs, and a weapon that ties down machines with metal cables. The game does a great job of putting you in the mindset of a hunter. Many of the low level machines are easy enough to take out, but often run in packs. The idea is to lure away individuals from their pack and take them out silently (if possible) and whittle down numbers before things get too chaotic. The game gives you tons of tools like tripwires, mines, and other traps to help prepare for fights. I love this beings every encounter starts off in stealth, and if you’re good enough, many of the enemies you face (machines or human bandits) can be taken out quietly.

Machines have plates of armor, and several weakspots to target before they can be killed. Every machine has a different build, and its components are all weak to one element or another. Aloy gets a tool called a Focus, which is one of the only working pieces of tech from the Old Ones. It essentially gives the game Batman: Arkham vision, allowing you to see animals, people, machines highlighted through walls, and see their patrol paths. The Focus also lets you scan machines and learn where their weakspots are, and what element (ice, shock, fire, etc) that component is weak to. It’s fun to study the machines and eventually learn better and better how to take certain ones down. Each machine drops different kinds of loot and eventually you learn which machines to hunt to get which kind of loot.

If I had to give Horizon Zero Dawn one complaint is that there’s actually too many machines, and too many of them behave too aggressively. Virtually all of the machines will be hostile, and encounters can turn into an assault from every angle in seconds. Sometimes during a battle I would get so focused on running, dodging, and shooting, my fight would spill into the site of another animal herd, making them join the fray as well. Too much of the time I would get frustrated being drawn into fights I didn’t even want to start, and battles would get far too frustrating to be enjoyable. I did however always love the fights with just Aloy and one big machine. The t-rex and polar bear machines were my favorites, acting like stand-alone boss fights. If there were 20% less machines in the wild and they behaved 20% more docile, it would have been more realistic and more enjoyable.

Horizon Zero Dawn feels like a lost BioWare game that BioWare never made. I wasn’t expecting such an emphasis on story and characters, nor how much time is spent in dialog. Much like Mass Effect or Knights of the Old Republic, Horizon Zero Dawn lets you chose responses during dialog to find out new information and learn about your quests. The amount of main quests and side quests was truly impressive, usually involving exploration, combat, and several conversations before a climax. Next to The Witcher 3, I think this game has some of my favorite side quests in any game I’ve played. It lead me to completing every single main quest and side quest that had any narrative appeal, and nearly all of them subverted my expectations in some way. 

The environments are visually stunning, and the world has a beautiful day and night cycle. I can’t say how many times I would stop at a vista or a moonlit grove and just breathe in the scenery. From  a Wyoming mesa bathed in orange light from a sunset, to a midnight blizzard atop a snowy mountain, the environments in this game were consistently gorgeous and varied. I also never ran into a character or background NPC that I ever saw copied (aside from city guards and hostiles). The voice acting all around was very good as well. I can’t think of a single weak performance in my entire 55 hour experience with the game. Aloy gets a lot of concentration on her character development, and it begins when we play as her as a child. The developers and actors did a great job making us care for her and identify with her plight. She does get a bit sardonic for my taste late in the story, but its the only chink in the armor of an otherwise excellent RPG protagonist, one who stops at nothing to help anyone she comes across.

Rivaling the best juggernauts in its genre, Horizon Zero Dawn fits in with the best of the industry. From the well crafted quests, to the emphasis on character, to the environments, to the deep combat mechanics, this game is easily one of the best exclusives on the PlayStation 4. Other than the sometimes frustrating machine encounters and battles, I enjoyed myself throughout the experience, plus the Frozen Wilds DLC expansion. I hope Guerilla Games continues this series, as Horizon Zero Dawn has laid the foundation for a fantastic new series. Some room for improvement here and there, but as it stands, this game is definitely an action-RPG fans of the genre need to own and play.