In a world completely destroyed by the Faro Plague (a crisis that replicated robots and consumed biomass at a deadly rate), there is one young, brave warrior created to make a change. As they make their way through several beautiful forests, deserts and arctic tundras, they don’t take a second to stop and rethink their goals. Each and every single one of their fights become more and more dangerous as they venture further west.
“Horizon Forbidden West,” has managed to become yet another video game sequel that has outdone the game before. The sequel offers a unique feeling and experience that not a lot of other games have. It has been said time and time again across Reddit, TikTok, YouTube and many other social media platforms; the entire game feels like a huge, playable movie. When gliding down a mountain or riding a machine across a huge desert, it may seem difficult to not start relaxing and just enjoying the view.
“Forbidden West,” is a direct sequel to the Playstation hit game, “Horizon Zero Dawn.” It does a perfect job of getting the player back into the world of Horizon because before the story begins, it gives you a quick, somewhat dramatic recap of what happened during the final battle of part one. “Forbidden West,” also flawlessly pulls off phenomenal world design, human faces, the soundtrack, and, more importantly, plot.
Speaking of plot, after the recap, the story in “Forbidden West” transitions to Aloy and Varl (voiced by John MacMillan), one of her best accomplices, venturing through quite a few beautiful, yet dangerous series of enclosed forests, caves, and abandoned facilities. As you go through many obstacles to revisit Meridian, where you left off, you begin to get a feel for just how messed up the world is.
This sequel takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have resorted to using primitive skills in order to stay alive. The story takes place in the year 3020, and your main goal is to deactivate all extremely dangerous dinosaur-like robots and restore both earth and the human race. In this franchise, you play as Aloy (voiced by Ashly Burch), who is a young, strong, and independent girl that just so happens to be the savior of one of the three major human cities in the nation, Meridian.
Alongside all of the abandoned buildings, factories and facilities, there is a new obstacle to face, the blight and the resurrection of HADES. The blight is a red spread throughout all types of plantation and minerals, it is basically poison to anything and everything. HADES is the previous main antagonist Aloy faced in “Zero Dawn,” his goal being to exterminate all life and to restart the terraforming process of the earth regardless of whether the attempt at a better world was a success or not.
Now with plot knowledge and some character background, there is much to be discussed regarding the graphics, music, and design for this game. The part that makes this game so much more evolved and realistic than other games made recently, is the fact that you can barely tell the difference between playing and watching a cutscene. No matter where you are when venturing forward, there is always something beautiful to look at.
The soundtrack, just like “Zero Dawn,” does a phenomenal job of capturing a primitive and dangerous, yet beautiful ambiance. It’s fairly easy to tell that the main composer of this game, Joris de Man, used very unique instruments like the didgeridoo, bullroarer, and several different kinds of native flutes. Most of these instruments are labeled as “outdated”, so it must’ve taken a lot of skill to pull off hundreds of songs using them.
The gameplay is also extremely realistic and amazing, even offering a few extra details to actions compared to “Zero Dawn.” In “Forbidden West,” after Aloy gets done sprinting 70 or so steps, when she stays still for two seconds, she begins panting, trying to catch her breath, and turns a bit red. When she draws her bow, her body is now physically shaken. She has many more callouts when gathering items, destroying enemies, and even just jumping around. She’ll shiver when it’s snowy, complain when she gets wet, and pant a lot when it’s sunny.
It’s a pretty rare thing for most gamers to want much more after finishing the game, because of how bland and unexciting the video game industry has been recently. However, the experience gained from playing the Horizon games makes it worth being on any Playstation gamer’s shopping list. Wanting more from a game after finishing it is probably one of, if not the best possible feeling a game can give you.
