Horizon Forbidden West Standard Edition – PlayStation 4

Free PS5 Upgrade. Unless you have bandwidth caps from your internet provider, and/or have limited hard drive space; cheaper to get PS4 version for $10 less at launch (MSRP) and do the free digital upgrade.

Open world game. Although the core gameplay loop is the same; it’s a massive step up from the original Horizon Zero Dawn in terms of what you can do with quality of life changes

Step up similar to Street Fighter 1 to 2, Mass Effect 1 to 2, Uncharted 1 to 2, Mario Galaxy 1 to 2, GTA 4 to 5, or Persona 4 to 5

Area is much larger in this game and has focus on underwater exploration. Game gives you way more options in weapons and upgrades. Can be overwhelming at times; best to experiment a bit and see what fits your gameplay style.

–Story:

Takes place right after Horizon Zero Dawn DLC Frozen Wilds.

Going more West: traversing California, Nevada and Utah (previous game we went to Colorado, Wyoming and Utah).

There’s a plague, Aloy goes to the Forbidden West to investigate. More advanced civilization for main antagonist

Main story, side quests, and character interactions are written well. They give a realistic tone on social politics and how things are in the world without giving lengthy exposition

–Graphics:

Extremely detailed for an open world game especially on the PS5 fidelity mode

Facial animations are good. Most look like normal people and not all super models

Able to adjust HUD display a great amount

For PS5 there’s Fidelity and Performance mode:
Fidelity = 4k 30fps
Performance = 1080 60fps

–Gameplay:

Gameplay is like Horizon Zero Dawn, but more expansive

6 skills trees compared to 4 in the first game. Each also contain more branches

There’s Valor abilities that act like ultimate/special moves that does a powerful attack, temporary buff, turn invisible, or help escape from battle. Need to charge up meter for combat, and only can equip one valor ability at a time

Side quests doesn’t feel like you’re doing errands or just reward quests. There are giving sparingly so it doesn’t feel like you’re overwhelmed. Each of their own mini story attached to it like they’re dlc. More quality than quantity compared to other open world games. Unless you feel that you’re underleveled; best to save side quest for later when you get flying mount to save time

There are way more enemy types where you must learn their weaknesses, behaviors, and attack pattern

Can rest to change time of day to encounter enemies for specific drops

More combo potential for melee combat especially if you use the Warrior upgrade tree

Grappling hook. Able to pull down door/vents, move box crates, and climb for traversal/ environmental puzzle solving. Works like grapple hook from Uncharted 4

Able to ride on mounts and paraglide (with shield wing)

Underwater exploration : more for traversal and puzzle solving instead of combat

More scalable terrain, and items to collect. Climbing is not free form, game does highlight what you can/cannot climb by using focus scan ability… or go into options and have them always highlighted

You must reach the top of Tall Neck or giraffe type mech to reveal large parts of the map (like reaching the tallest building in Assassin’s creed games). Some require multiple steps to reach instead of just climbing

Gear upgrades are more manageable. When you reach your carry capacity, extra inventory is transferred to your base stash

Focus/scan ability has quality of life change. Able to scan entire enemy without having to circle around them at different angles. Also able to tag weak spots and keep them highlighted when focus ability is off

Weapon and ammo types can be overwhelming at first when you compare stats, and figure out what’s super effective against enemies. A lot of micro managing early on. During the end game as you get more overpowered weapons and have gone through upgrades trees for more damage/perks is when you can focus less on your inventory

Traps can now attack air type enemies

Custom Difficulty: able to lower difficulty of specific gameplay elements like Exploration (game tells you exactly where to go), HUD display (show as much as you like), and Combat (enemies less HP)

Duel Sense Haptic feedback on PS5 is very good

Overall, extremely good sequel. Has its flaws you have to work around, but very fun game once you get into it. Best open world game I played in a while.

Bought as present. Husband is loving it!

This game is an odd mix of Monster Hunter and Skyrim. The world is enormous and ripe for exploration, as are the people and their many quests. It depicts a very power hungry dynamic relationship with sharp divides between the working people and taskmasters. Have only played for around fifty hours but have loved every minute of it. The only downside to this game, is that the subtitles are really small and difficult to read.

A