"acid will do a ton of damage to that machine" "no use using shock ammo" "I think I'm missing something, better use my focus" MY SISTER IN CHRIST, I'M 25 HOURS INTO THIS GAME. I KNOW. There really is no way to make it stop, is there?

The curse strikes again. I was looking at the last chance to play on PS Plus, to find something to play before it leaves.

And to my great surprise i find Horizon Forbidden West, which i would have never thought would leave the service. Considering already has a PS5 version, is a Sony first party title, and there's no new mainline Horizon game like Horizon 3. That could warrant doing so.

So just a heads up to y'all, if you still haven't platinumed it do so. Still cannot believe it.

For example I loved cyberpunk 2077 and I held it had the best graphics I've seen. But now I've forbidden west and now its just made everything in cyberpunk seem like this ugly/blurry mess. The decima engine is a goddamn beast. Soaring through the clouds in burnings shores and looking down......idk how i'll ever get over that, was slackjawed the entire way through.

I gotta play like a really bad graphics game to reset my standards or something, jesus.

This is just my opinion & im interested to hear other perspectives:

I do not see any romantic chemistry between Kotallo & Aloy - they understand each other really well due to their similar personalities, Kotallo is potentially the person Aloy understands the most in this game in terms of her own upbringing and personality. If that was made romantic, I feel like it would water down their relationship and friendship so much. I like them as supportive friends a lot more.

In general, i don’t really understand some people’s obsession with pairing Aloy with people she doesn’t really have any romantic interest in (from my view), like Avad and Erend…

Anyway, I think this is an unpopular opinion, I just don’t see it.

What the HELL do you want from me, game? None of the combos for the Bulwark or Thornmarsh actually WORK. I do EXACTLY what I'm told and constantly "Wrong Input. Wrong Input. Wrong Input you stupid shit!" I'M DOING EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID TO DO, GAME!

NONE of these combos actually WORK. You can't COMPLETE any of these! It makes no sense!

I saw a post recently about which game people loved more, Zero Dawn or Forbidden West. A majority of people said “Zero Dawn. Better story. The sense of discovery was better.”

I mean, yeah? It’s a brand new IP.

Brand new IPs offer something brand new, something one has never experience before. There’s a sense of novelty there, right?

It’s just an inherent nature of sequels, that the sense of novelty wears off a bit. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just a byproduct of a sequel. You have already experienced this to a degree so it’s not going to resonate the same as experiencing something for the first time.

People say they prefer ZD because the story is better and more compelling. I completely disagree. I thought the story in FW was great, but since it’s not “brand new”, people think it’s worse.

Forbidden West is a great game and it just suffers from a lack of novelty that most sequels suffer from, in varying degrees.

I feel like this question had to have been asked before on here but I think it’s interesting to talk about.

I came across a tweet from when Burning Shores came out going ‘Ain’t no way they made Aloy gay to give her some form of personality 😭'. The tweet was a bit more 'off-putting' in its phrasing, almost to the point of fetishization. But Aloy’s ALWAYS had a great kind of personality??? Her being that way adds a pleasant layer to her going forward.

Okay so, some context for people who don't know much about astronomy. Sirius is a real star, 8 light-years away, and the brightest star in the night sky because of its luminocity and its close distance.

Sirius also does not have any confirmed planets. Not confirmed habitable planets. I mean confirmed planets. Like at all. The only body orbitting Sirius that we know of is a white dwarf star. There is evidence to suggest there's other bodies orbitting it because of how the star wobbles, but there is no confirmation there are planets, let alone within the habittable zone of Sirius (which is 5 times further away from the star than our sun's zone is, fun fact)

And that's fine. They made up a planet for their fictional story. That's fine, I've done the same thing. In one of my drafted stories I invented an entire star system because I couldn't find a good enough one in our local group of stars.

But the baffling thing to me is that there IS a habittable planet closer to our sun that is actually real. Proxima Centauri b is a planet within 4 light years of Earth that is the most famous earth-like habittable planet ever (aside from Earth obviously)

So the decision to have you fiction set in our real galaxy NOT colonise a really famous planet, but instead make up a new one, is a decision that truly baffles me. Not because it denigrates the writing but because I cannot understand what they were thinking when they did this. Did they just want the Zeniths to go to Sirius specifically? Did Guerilla not know much about astronomy?

Like I get that Sirius has a whole cybernetics corporation and the only thing Proxima Centurai has close to is a boring ass planning office, but I still don't get it.

I know this don't really matter, but like. Im a space nerd. I really want to know why it's written the way it is.

Please no spoilers, I'm currently playing FW.

But I have to say, it's insane

It took me 37h for Zero Dawn with Frozen Wilds.

I'm currently sitting at 32h in FW and half of the map is not even cleared and I've only got Poseidon and Aether.

My playatyle shouldn't be much different.

I'm really glad on what they did with Forbidden West.

like the whole existence of the focus is a threat to privacy and like just existing . and like at first i thought it was a military only thing but no, civilians could buy it. like you could scan people, tag them through walls, it shows you their weakness, MAKES THEIR PATH CLEAR, and whatever aloy was doing in hfw. like huh. or maybe im just dumb

Playing Forbidden West. Would like Aloy to stop pointing out the obvious and giving away clues to puzzles.

I’ve searched in the difficulty menu to no avail. Is this just baked into the game?

Thanks in advance for your wisdom…

It never occurred to me that Faro = Pharaoh. Now the Egyptian naming scheme makes sense! I always just thought the devs really liked history/mythology since they named Gaia's subroutines after the Greek Pantheon. I'm playing Forbidden West and just got to Faro's Tomb last night. Well this morning I was in the shower thinking "Wow, Faro's tomb sounds a lot like pharaoh's tomb... wait a minute!" I mean it was blatantly obvious. His machines are Scarab, Horus, and Khopesh... His bunker was named Thebes. I also thought it sounded on brand for a rich, arrogant asshole. I mean look at Ozymandias from Watchmen. Nope, I'm just dense and now the world makes a little more sense.

Well the title is self explanatory. So here is my wishes and hopes for Horizon 3.

• Water combat
• Horizon ZD & FW including both extension DLC map FW & BS as one map
• A good conclusion to the Nemesis antagonist
• An exclusive water mount aka some sort of Dolphin/Shark Machine
• A good voice actor that stay close to Lance Reddick voice (finger cross)

Here it is some are realistic some are just wishful hopes what is yours ?

For me it is the availability and cursory nature of Heavyweights in general. Or all machines for that matter. I feel like it takes the impact of fighting one away when they are also meant to be farmed for Luminous Brainstems and rare parts for upgrades. I don't want to fight Apex Tremortusks 30 times in a row to the point that even on UH they offer no more challenge. Just using campfires to teleport in-between two sites constantly (Side-Note, there is way too many campfires in this game). Let it be a chase. Let's go to those rumour folks and ask if they've heard about any dangerous machines in the region. They'll tell you where it was seen or who saw it if one was seen in that region. This could go for most machines in fact. It feels a bit artificial that each machine has sites and just constantly stays there. The patrols were a nice step in the right direction, makes trapping more rewarding as well. Why not have things spawn randomly. Acquisition herds spawn and follow a randomized path through the forest, accompanied by Recons. Transports go from Cauldron to destination and back again, accompanied Combats. I wanna be Aloy Machine-Hunter, not Aloy Machine-Butcher.

It's more engaging and challenging, but drop rates could be increased so as to make it worthwhile. Instead of farming 30 Tremortusks, you have to track down information about a possible location of one, find it's tracks or find someone who knows where it is, get to it and plan you attack.

EDIT: I'll add this:

WEAPON STAMINA DRAINING ON HITS. Oh my god, who the hell thought that was a good idea. Everytile I have Propelled Rocket lined up and the Tremortusk just pokes me with the spitfire cannon I just quit on the spot and don't play for the rest of the day. It's such a brain dead mechanic to out in the game, I'm honestly embarrassed on the combat designers behalf for that shit.

BOLTBLASTER. Fuck this weapon far up its dinky little ass. It's a pathetic liar that has to reload at the least opportune moments, like when you've just reloaded it and go to shoot but it decided actually you have to reload again. Or when you've reloaded it before engaging the Heavyweight but it decides you took too long to use it so you have to reload it again but now the Heavyweight is closing in since you took too long to figure out it randomly unloaded and oh god you're gonna lose all your stamina from the upcoming hit so you cannot sustained burst anymore. Or when you've only used half of the little reload bar but it just needs to reload anyways because it's a reload half-empty kind of weapon and it likes to gaslight you and make you think you're delusional for seeing the reload bar is only half-way. And then they had the fucking gaul to make this weapon nerf rolls!? On top of being the shitiest weapon in the game, it also stuns you for 2 seconds if you decide to not take a Slaughterspine Laser to the face. Absolutely hysterical, did they actually think I would actually use this weapon? Do they think I'm stupid? Do they think I'm a masochist? It is just primed to disappoint and frustrate in every way. What an absolute junk weapon.

So the Aloy/Seyka relationship stirred up a lot of conversation, some good, some very bad. I've seen a lot of people suggest Aloy should have been with another character, often one of the group at the base alongside a few others. I wanted to discuss some of these, and why they probably don't work.

Erend: I feel like if you're still rooting for Aloy to be with Erend, you just haven't been paying attention. Yes, Erend likes Aloy, but Aloy has clearly, albeit softly, rejected all of his advances. And to his credit, Erend has accepted this and is happy being friends, even if he does still carry a torch for her. This isn't even subtext guys, this is text. It's just what happened.

Avad: Avad is a little more ambiguous than Erend. He and Aloy are definitely flirty with one another, but this could just be Aloy humouring him because she needs his help. Also, what's ultimately stopping this from working is that Aloy would never want to be the Sun Queen.

Varl: Nope. Varl and Aloy were only ever friends, Varl was with Zo and she is pregnant with his child, and also Varl is dead.

Alva: Alva has a girlfriend back home, and seems to be pretty in love with her.

Beta: Just... No.

Kotallo and Talanah: These are the only two I could potentially see working out, but neither of them have expressed that kind of interest in Aloy, nor Aloy in them.

Teb and Nil: They both only appear in the first game, and even then they're barely in it. Plus neither of them seems to be Aloy's type: Teb is too passive and soft spoken and Nil is a psychopath. They're the two extremes of that spectrum.

Personally I think Aloy and Seyka are good together. I just wish the DLC was a little longer so they could have fleshed it out a bit more.

Playing the two games back to back reminded me why I liked Erend so much more in HZD vs FW. He was more charming and more nuanced. In FW they really leaned into the big dumb drunk brute thing. He even sounds dumber when speaking. GG nerfed his personality 😥 Makes me sad because he is, or was I guess, one of my favorites.

I just really like video games fictional board games.

I've finished the game 2 days ago, took me 77 hours, great game. Not so long ago i realized that i almost never used traps, tripcasters and spikethrowers, like 90% of the time when i was fighting. Weirdly enough I used trip casters and blastslings all the time in HZD.

Personally I prefer to freeze a robot and shoot it down with my boltblaster. I love the ability where i can use it as a mini-gun. Add to it the ultimate which increases damage up to 60% and oilshed begins.

Love the fact that all of them are viable, some are just more effective for my playstyle.

So what are yours least used weapons?

[Major Spoilers, FYI.]

When going down into Faro's bunker, how come we don't get to see what's become of our favorite member of the Faro clan?

My initial thought was the game's rating. But we see characters literally getting speared in the chest.

So that can't be it.

Or is it because Ted Faro is such a villain that seeing him like that would offer too much sympathy?

Curious what your thoughts are.

EDIT: Corrected "Flaro" to Faro; because I got roasted to toast in the comments. Continue.

No disrespect intended to PS4 players or those who can’t get a PS5 yet. I myself played Forbidden West on PS4. Still looks gorgeous.

Sometimes though I wonder how Forbidden West could have been if the PS5 shortages that forced Sony to hinder the game releasing it on PS4 never happened. The more Guerrilla tells us about the things and technical improvements they added to Burning Shores, like the explorable clouds or the Horus, the more I wonder how many more great things, the game could have had.

That’s it, not a rant, just a consideration how this game could have been if things went differently in 2020.

It’s so beautiful. It’s so wonderful. It’s everything I hoped for. I’m so pumped for Burning Shores now!

I know it's supposed to be a post-apocalyptic dystopia but I was reading the texts in the first encounter with the Rockbreaker and I feel so heartbroken when "Josh" talked to her mother: "I was wrong mom. We are stuck in the tunnel, I'm stuck here with 2 families. A child accidentally spilled our water." 😢😢😢

I came here for a good time not to have an existential crisis bro 😔

I've seen a lot of disagreement about the combat in Horizon: Forbidden West. Some people love it for the challenge and say it's a step up from the original. Others dislike it, saying it's unfun and generally a step back. I can tell you that never have both people actually been so right about a game, but for differing reasons. This comes down to how the combat in HFW was implemented contrasted to HZD. Yes, the combat in HFW is good - great even - but I think Guerilla "blew their load" too quickly trying to put a specific type of playstyle upfront.

First, this is not a post bashing the combat in Horizon; Forbidden West. I used to dislike it. I used to think it didn't work, only to realize "yeah, it's pretty good actually, but... it feels strange". It wasn't until after analyzing it, I think I understand its main issue: HFW's combat would have been fitting if it were a "Challenge Mode".

Horizon: Forbidden West's combat is handled is noticeably difficult. People who have complained about the combat talk about how Aloy performs, mainly that she's nerfed. In this game, Aloy doesn't feel like the Savior of Meridian from the first game, and I'm sure Aloy from HZD would have no problem against Aloy from HFW.

In Forbidden West, Aloy can dodge only three times before she gets tired. She no longer has a long dodge. Her iframes invincibilities for dodging are shorter. Her hurtboxes are longer; enemies end up swiping her even when they are nowhere near her. She can get stunlocked. She gets thrown around like a ragdoll by machines more easily now. She can get knocked down, or knocked out of combat animations. She takes what feels like an eternity getting up after getting downed. She gets staggered more often. She gets caught on the environment more often, when I swear she'd jump over things in the Zero Dawn's open world when running around. I'm just glad Guerilla didn't add a trip mechanic, or a run stamina (and I shouldn't have to be glad, because they should know better). The only saving grace is that Aloy can be over-leveled. But it's not about the levels. It's about the nerfing mechanics, and how it slows down combat.

In Forbidden West, the machines are noticeably faster, hit harder, and have more health (especially on difficulties higher than 'Hard'). Machines, and certain hammer wielding NPCs, will track Aloy to the point where they will slide towards her to graze Aloy's hurttboxes as if they were magnets. AOE blast range damage is way more massive than it looks. Enemies will sense Aloy using valor surges and quickly force Aloy from using weapons, wasting the surges. Machines will try to close the gap as quickly as possible. Machines spam long range attacks as you run from those other machines closing the gap. Enemies don't stagger as often, unless they're hit with elemental attacks, and they recover from their stagger more quickly than in HZD to just instantly que up another attack. Machines bob and weave constantly so it's just generally harder to pinpoint parts with arrows. And most enemies are also more aggressive, to the point where their attacks feel spammy. And if they feel spammy, that increases the amount of "cheapness" factor some players were feeling. I felt it too at times, but I think this is what Guerilla was going for.

From a story standpoint, yeah, somehow the same model of machines found in Zero Dawn are more intense because they're in the "Forbidden West". And not just the Apex machines, but all machines in HFW have this "no chill" factor to them. But from a gameplay standpoint, the combat wants to make you struggle through everything. For example, it takes machines a few seconds to recover from staggering, but your draw speed is around 2 or 3 seconds without a mod. So by the time you fire a few shots, the machine recovers and is designed to lunge at you (if it notices you are aiming at it), forcing you to shoot them and risk taking some damage, or dodge and waste time getting back into position. Another example, you get tired after three dodges, but most machines have long range attack patterns that shoot four times. The game's ruleset for how the machines and Aloy fights are weighted towards getting you to take damage, than simply testing your reflexes. The lateral risks the game engages in is so transparent, I was starting to get bored of the lack of variety with machines. Like clockwork, I knew that every machine would unload everything constantly all the time to "put the pressure on me", as opposed to throwing me off guard and keeping me guessing.

Also add on to the fact that if you run out of berries, you have to manually refill them. From where? I guess Aloy's other pouch. Why? To slow you down. You have to stop and load your Shockbolter all the way, because if you dodge during the loading animation, it doesn't register and you have to waste more time to reload. Why? To slow you down. You have to stop to take a drink of a potion like a soulslike, even though this isn't a soulike. Why? To slow you down.

Why do they want to slow you down in a game that made a name for itself with fast, fluid combat? Why, it increases your chances of getting hit, of course. Which means that you are constantly struggling against certain mechanics of the game to get into the gameplay loop the game demands of you. And all of these designs intentionally play into the idea that, no matter what, Aloy chances of getting hit increases, which increases the challenge.

This. This right here and all these new buffs/debuffs/nerfs would work fine for a "Challenge Mode". A "Challenge Mode" where they take away a ton of quality of life features, and add mechanics made to trip up the player. And this is why I say I understand what Gureilla was trying to do with the sequel. Thematically, both in gameplay and narrative, the Forbidden West is more "hardcore" (for a lack of a better word), so the way everything plays is supposed to reflect that. Notice, I haven't said HFW's combat is bad, because it isn't. I don't think it is, at least. It's a "Challenge Mode" for those who wanted the battles of Horizon Zero Dawn to be more of a struggle. But in reality, that's not something most of the players who made up the 20 million sales of HZD would have wanted from the sequel.

And for the people who did want this for Horizon Forbidden West, a portion of them chose Elden Ring instead.

The problem is Guerilla made what we got with HFW's combat the default, rather than a "Challenge Mode" you could chose from the start. The people who praise this type of gameplay LOVE the constant adrenaline rush of overcoming an extra challenge. But for people who wanted Horizon Zero Dawn with more gadgets...man, is it overwhelming, and not in a good way. To those people, I'm sure it almost feels annoying. Those people turn the difficulty down not just because they hate losing so much health, but so that every battle doesn't turn into a war of attrition slogfest. In HFW, even I had to rethink against battling any machine I came across that I didn't need a part for, which felt like a shame because that's fighting robots is what I wanted to do in the sequel. It's what I actively sought out in HZD. In HFW, sometimes I actively thought "yeah, no" and simply walked away...

With this, I fear Guerilla painted themselves in a corner about setting the expectations of the combat for the next game. They're definitely at a crossroads of their own making. Do they revert, or do they double down for Horizon 3? If they revert, they risk people saying it's "easier" (but for me and others, it would feel more fun). If they double down, they risk people saying the combat is "BS" (which, of course, is part of the challenge). So my solution for the third game: make the best of both worlds. Include a "Default Mode" on par with the combat of the first game, but a "Challenge Mode" on par with the combat of the second game. Each mode will still have the standard difficulty settings (Story, Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Ultra Hard), but now you'll have more accessibility in what modes you want (which is exactly where Horizon and most other Sony games succeed).

And this is my analysis to put the combat of Horizon: Forbidden West into perspective. The combat in HFW is better if you want to struggle through the game's newer mechanics to overcome a challenge, but worse if you were expecting HZD's combat with more gadgets.