Horizon Forbidden West Reviews
It’s absolutely gorgeous, the controls are tight and responsive, and the new weapons are a blast to play around with. The addition of the Pullcaster and underwater exploration were huge improvements to enhancing the gameplay. It’s a rich world that easy to get lost in. Even after beating the main story, I still want to go back and see what secrets I can discover.
Small gaffes aside, Horizon: Forbidden West is everything I'd hoped for from the first game - and a lot more. It's a beautiful piece of work that deserves all the time a PS4 or PS5 owner can give it. It's a must-have in any game library and should be at or near the front of your rotation.
The combat is tighter, and the game is prettier. But it failed to iterate on its open-world at all, which is an essential part of the game. It feels dated, and the invisible force field that surrounds the machine spawns feels extremely janky. The most important addition is the wide variety of machines you can now fight, and that makes the game worth it alone.
Horizon: Forbidden West is undoubtedly a beautiful game, with expanded lore and a pretty good story (minus a disappointing sequel-baiting third act.) The platforming is still terrible though, some of the design choices are questionable and Aloy’s constant chatter is borderline game-breaking. Having said that, there’s been a good deal of improvement and care put into fighting machines – which is still this game’s biggest draw. There’s nothing quite like the adrenaline-soaked fights with the larger behemoths in this world. Forbidden West is not perfect but this is a solid sequel to one of the better open worlds in recent times.
Horizon Forbidden West is a true next-gen experience that is a worthwhile playthrough for anyone that has access to it. While the story has some issues, it was still engaging enough to see through to the end.
Horizon Forbidden West is a phenomenal game. It does everything it aims to do to a very high standard. However, it does very little to expand upon Zero Dawn outside of refining the formula.
Horizon Forbidden West embraces everything about its predecessor and makes strides in producing an even more compelling world to explore, with intense combat and story moments, and shiny new robo-dinosaurs to punch in the face.
Horizon: Forbidden West is a worthy sequel to Zero Dawn, reaching new impressive heights in terms of story, gameplay, mechanics and the open world design.
Any sequel to a highly-successful game runs the risk of falling short of expectations, but Forbidden West is one of the rare instances where the hype surrounding a game didn’t lead to crushing disappointment. By borrowing from all of the successful elements of Zero Dawn and building on them, Guerilla has ensured that this game matches the quality of the first.
The Guerrilla Games team managed to create an experience that is clearly characterized as a natural evolution of the first game. In Horizon Forbid West we are rewarded with exactly all the fans of the first game wish for: deeper characterization of Aloy ; an expansion of the post-apocalyptic world; concise plot development; guaranteed beautiful graphics; and of course, more machines to hunt! The capacity and security of the part of the studio, are notorious and in order to provide an experience that meets what we wished for!
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
I’ve seen a lot of people say they have skipped Horizon: Forbidden West to play other games like Gran Turismo 7 and Elden Ring. I’m in the middle of Elden Ring now, and I feel like I have my training wheels on. But I wouldn’t skip Horizon: Forbidden West, as I feel like this is going to be one of the best games of 2021.
Horizon Forbidden West is the most standard big budget video game you can find and that is the game's most glaring flaw because as much as everything looks and feels expensive, it also feels as by-the-numbers as possible and lacks the kind of personal touches a product needs to become a true masterpiece.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Instead of honing in on what made their world so exciting to explore in 2017, they've made it prettier but sacrificed the narrative, which takes a deep dive into ridiculous and uninteresting in the last third.
There are dozens of stories across Horizon Forbidden West that are every bit as cool, engaging, and thoughtful as that one. That makes it somewhat disappointing that the main story doesn’t quite hit the same heights in the end, as there’s a sagging middle that takes a little of the wind out of the finale. But it’s not something that’s worth sweating over, as the company that Aloy keeps consistently makes the trek work taking every step of the way.
Horizon Forbidden West is a success in almost every way even if it sometimes does too much in its open world. Guerrilla Games takes everything great about Horizon Zero Dawn and improves upon it all while offering up an engrossing narrative with memorable characters, exciting battles, and a whole lot of fun.
It takes everything good that was in the first part, builds on it by smoothing out practically all the rough edges of the first part.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
A questionably massive escapade through an uncharted territory that takes Aloy beyond her comfort zone, fulfilling her conviction in finding out her past, and what the intent was behind her creation. A sequel which seeks to decidedly push the envelope with everything that made Zero Dawn a success, and turn it into one of PlayStation’s keystone franchises for years to come, only personifying it by relaying an excellent chapter in one of gaming’s greatest mascot’s celebrated journey. The Horizon series has sought itself to be PlayStation’s pick over its gold standard collection of first party titles, and Forbidden West sits firmly amongst as one of gaming’s greatest, ever.
Horizon Forbidden West contains a ton of interesting and new concepts that help evolve the franchise, but it could have gone further when it comes to performance.
In the midst of a number of popular open world games that seek to reinvent the wheel, Horizon has instead chosen to polish and refine the typical open world format. And that’s not a bad thing at all; while innovation is important, I’d argue iterative improvement is just as important.