I was so excited to finally buy this game on the first day of the first major Steam sale since I assembled my first new gaming desktop in 11 years. After watching the intro video, I was ready to get started but was stunned to be presented with a "Game Data Collection Settings" option. I read and re-read the options, confirmed there was no way to opt out of data collection completely, searched online to confirm that there's no verifiable way to opt out, and decided to uninstall and refund the game. It's a shame, too, because it looks amazing, but I refuse to support this type of practice.

Here are screenshots with the details of the Game Data Collection Settings: https://imgur.com/a/x16tO4j

Most people likely won't care, but I'm posting this review to raise awareness that Horizon: Zero Dawn collects data and you can't opt out of data collection.

It's just an all around excellent game. Satisfying gameplay, a gripping narrative and your actions actually having an impact (side quests). The ending, as is the case for a lot of games, felt very rushed. It seems like some of the time they spent mid-game could've been spent more end-game, but it all paid off in the end.

I really like the protagonist. She's not a girl boss who's just here to slay the women haters and destroy sexism. She's actually a very thought out character with genuine, canon, reasons to be as capable as she is. I had very few moments where I felt like something was shoe horned in for the sake of diversity or whatever. Everything felt very natural.

The story was structured in a way to get you to keep going forward to find out what's going on which I found very alluring. You always think, "1 more mission and I'll finally find out why xyz." And the main character shares your sentiment so it feels like you're on this journey with her. The ending was meant to be more emotional than sensical, I found. It's very abrupt, but it obviously sets up the sequel.

I found some of the gameplay mechanics to be a little repetitive. A lot, A LOT, of the side quests just relied on you to go to point A, find tracks, press G, follow tracks, end quest. Or, follow tracks, interact with 3 items, follow more tracks, end quest. It didn't really have much more flavor than this. But on the odd occasion your reward was to yell at someone being an idiot. As for collectibles, I went for all of them. It was a lot of Skyriming around mountain sides because I couldn't figure out where the actual start point was to get higher up. It worked for me, but a lot of time was spent wandering around looking for stuff that blends into the environment. It's not bad or good, but it did wear me out towards the end of the game.

I'd recommend this to anyone who's a fan of open world RPGs and a good story.

It was a fun, relaxing, sometimes stressful, but mostly relaxing game to play. I am a big fan a RPG's so this was right up my alley.