True gamers always play as women, cause the hitbox is smaller.

My wife’s boyfriend says the game feels like oatmeal. You can spruce it up all you want, but at the core it's oatmeal. Sometimes it's damn good oatmeal, but it regresses to something bland eventually.

As a 37 year old that only came back to gaming after a 2+ year break because of zero dawn though, this game is easily in my top 5 games of all time. The story of primitive man, rising up out of the ashes of an Al catastrophe. What is not to love. Truth is playing this game has restored my faith in open world games again. Not gonna lie, l've taken days off work and called out just to stay and play this. Hope my boss doesn't read this, but if you are... I regret nothing. And I'm the one who poops the toilet lid.

By far, overall, one of my favorite gaming experiences of the year. There is nothing like finally getting the Sunwing for the first time. Eyes literally watering with awe. And riding it from one end of the map to the other, watching the sun set and rise, bookending your journey through the night skies. Actually what's more fun is jumping from the highest peak, sailing through the air down towards the valley below, then calling the Sunwing to scoop you up mid flight, climbing to glorious heights into the sky, and when you get near a beach, seaguls fly towards you and follow you around as if you're part of the same flock! My jaw dropped at least once during every play session.

Horizon Forbidden West is a massive game, bigger and better than Horizon Zero Dawn in many ways. Massive in this context does not just refer to the scale of the game world but also to the gameplay. Forbidden West basically aims to be an RPG, an open world sandbox and a cinematic action game all at the same time. For me personally the game succeeded in many of those areas, though I will say it is more of a slow burn than the first game. While it’s not a perfect game I was positively impressed with what it offers. The most obvious improvement is the generational leap in graphics technology and production value. Even generic side characters are now highly detailed with good voice acting and detailed character animations.

The game is gorgeous and the new additions to the game’s traversal makes a world of difference. It’s a beautiful world that’s worth trekking through due to the sights alone and it really is impossible to overstate just how impressive this game is from a technical standpoint. Forbidden West’s open world is leagues better than Zero Dawn’s. Not only is it more beautiful, there’s far more diversity in mission design and the shear vertically of the landscapes combined with gameplay systems to accompany it completely changes traversal. The biggest change though is how well thought out, lived in and believable the world feels. Yeah there’s some dumbness, like hostile machines hanging out about thirty feet from human camps, but for the most part things feel way more purposeful this time around.

I see a lot of people try to dunk on Forbidden West for being a “generic open world game” and I really just think that’s ignorant. There’s not a whole lot of repeated content and even the missions with similar structure (like the Tallnecks) are all so entirely distinct from one another and sometimes so insanely creative that I struggle to understand how anyone criticizing this has played through this game in any sort of attentive way. Does it have the traversal creativity and freedom of Breath of the Wild? No. Does it have the discoverability factor of Elden Ring? No. It's not trying to do either of those things either.

I think a lot of the side content is there for people who just want more to do - anything to do - but it isn't necessarily intended to all be completed by every player. I think in games like this there's no shame in not doing everything on the map. Guerilla’s goal was clearly to create a bustling, believable and alive setting with loads of characters with interesting problems for the player to immerse themselve’s in. For me, they entirely succeeded here. Forbidden West however does one thing better than Zero Dawn and most open world games: the world carries on AFTER the campaign, rather than resetting you BEFORE the final mission. This is one of my biggest criticisms with open world games and I'm glad the world and the characters continue on, which makes me feel far more connected to this specific save than if it reset to before I finished the game.

I’ve also heard a few people state that they preferred the story of the first game and I can see where these people are coming from. I think the Horizon series is facing similar challenges as the Matrix trilogy where the biggest mystery and “fish out of water” storyline is already resolved in the first entry, making it much harder to find new compelling stuff to keep people interested for the sequels. I genuinely believe that Guerilla did a great job though. After a rather awkward tutorial/intro section the story starts to ramp up and introduces compelling new characters, locations and mysteries which are fun to explore as the story progresses. And I will not lie in that the higher production value of the sequel also had an impact on my enjoyment of the story. It’s just much easier to get immersed when all of the characters are so well acted.

Movement is greatly enhanced. It’s still not on a Zelda level and climbing still sucks but otherwise your moveset is greatly expanded with a grapple hook, diving underwater, a paraglider and more new abilities which I won’t spoil. The open world is fun to explore and content rich. It still generally follows the Ubisoft formula of open world design but unless you really can’t vibe with that type of open world design I think you will have a good time as Guerilla applied the formula well and paid close attention to make it feel distinct from the first game’s map.

Combat in Horizon Zero Dawn basically peaked after 20-25 hours of playtime and stopped evolving much from there. Forbidden West seems to have taken inspiration from Monster Hunter in how it introduces more RPG-like elements to create more depth and more endgame content. So not only are there many types of weapons and monsters but you can also level up your weapons and encounter different varieties of each monster with different elemental weaknesses. 80 hours in, there are still weapons you can upgrade to become even stronger if you want to. Combat feels a bit heavier. There are also many new skills you can upgrade to unlock alternative weapon modes, special abilities for Aloy or to just become stronger, carry more stuff, etc.

Something that left me with mixed feelings is how progression gating can occur within the open world. Generally, you can go almost everywhere you want as soon as you reach the Forbidden West. However, certain puzzles, collectables and quests you may encounter during exploration require that you have access to specific abilities which you unlock during the main quest. So early on exploration can be quite frustrating if you are unaware of that and don’t like backtracking. Additionally, puzzles aren’t always great and can sometimes feel like they were developed in a vacuum and then shoehorned into the game rather than fully embracing the sandbox of movement abilities and environmental obstacles that the core game inherently offers and using that as a basis for all the puzzles.

I rather loved it despite the flaws. Forbidden West is, imho, an improvement in every single way. You just need to make peace with the fact that nothing will ever be able to recreate the sense of wonder in Zero Dawn. This game is a masterpiece that leaves a mark on you and the feeling of wanting more. And if you must take anything with you after finishing this fantastic game, let it be to always remember when life gets rough and your feeling lost or lonely, you just gotta become a strong independent brave woman.

10/10

If you turn on FSR and Frame Generation, it runs amazing on the Steam Deck. I played through the entire story on Deck. I have no idea why its not a "Verified" game for Steam Deck.

---{ Graphics }---
☑ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☑ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☑ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10