wow this thread hmm
I actually beat both. Started Horizon first, played about halfway through, then jumped onto swtich for zelda.
At first I was really into horizon, really loved it, but zelda was different, it was like horizon was the pinnacle of the open world third person action rpg game refined to a t, and then Zelda was the evolution of open world on a totally new level.
I played for about 120 hours of zelda beat the 'story' and jumped back into horizon, which felt jarring at first, but ultimately got my grove back with it and finally beat it.
My take is zelda is a better open world game, perhaps THE best open world game in existence. However as my first zelda, (aside of the original nes ) that i ever beat, its really light on story and I couldn't get into the lore at all. (Also i hated the ending)
Horizon's story was absolutely fantastic imo, very satisfying, but fairly weak exploration wise. Lack of that ability to climb anything really felt awkward after playing zelda.
Both games have strong points. Zelda has massively better exploration and game play mechanics, maybe the best in the business.
Horizon is a new ip, using the old open world formula. It was almost an experiment, and damed good one at that. Really glad it turned out well. I expect part 2 to be amazing.
if we could somehow get a combination of the two, it might end up being the best game ever created.
crosses fingers for cyberpunk.