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Horizon Forbidden West: First hands-on preview IGN

Not a game or world that I am interested in. The concept sounds dumb. Post apoc world with advanced machines but people living in mud huts - okay then.

I hope this is the last game in Horizon.
Zero Dawn explains why the world is like this... except for the lack of racial mixing.

It's part of what makes the world interesting.
 
Let me see here:

A pretty standard open world, enemies dotted around in small groups that you can either avoid or confront.

Hiding in long grass stealth mechanics (assassin creed 3 in 2012 did this)

Small settlements with a few quest givers in each one, plus your standard NPCs that sell armor and upgrade gear. Probably an NPC that wants you collect flowers so you can upgrade your arrow pouch or some shit like that.

A bigger city area but you can only explore like 10% of it. Random lifeless NPCs placed around the do that same thing over and over again regardless of day night cycle. Everyone just lives in purgatory until you come and do their quest for them.

Action that involves some basic melee combos with your staff thing and also some bow mechanics that everyone has done to death 8 million times in every assassins creed game since Origin.

A day/night cycle that does nothing except make pretty sunset shots for photomode.

Probably 3 gigantic skill trees that are melee/archery/stealth focused like every third person game ever

You will probably get a horse at some point to make the dreary act of running across a lifeless open world slightly quicker

Probably a million crafting materials that you have to pick up off the ground everywhere you go and they sparkle or have some weird shimmery effect so you can never miss one. Probably shit like "tree branch" and "native mushroom" and you need to hand them into the spiritual NPC at the little mud hut to get a +5 health upgrade.

Enemy camps that have 4 different NPC types, melee guy, archer guy, fast ninja guy and the big brute guy that probably has a big shield and a big hammer. And he hits really slow you gotta dodge him and attack him from behind like every brute ever.

The camps can probably be either stealthed into or attacked head on and inside there are chests with some measly coins and maybe a few upgrade materials. You probably have to rescue NPCs from the camps who were captured because the side quest guy in the mud hut said "raiders came to our camp and took 5 villagers and we need you to rescue them". Then a big quest marker appears on your HUD that points you to the camp 30 seconds down the road.

So yeah, while it looks pretty. This game is basically a next gen looking third person game from 2012.
Bunch of probably just came out of your ass
 
Feel like I'm being a negative Nancy of recent, but I'm just not seeing it with this one.

Then again, I see the original as overrated and aren't a fan personally.
 
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Let me see here:

A pretty standard open world, enemies dotted around in small groups that you can either avoid or confront.

Hiding in long grass stealth mechanics (assassin creed 3 in 2012 did this)

Small settlements with a few quest givers in each one, plus your standard NPCs that sell armor and upgrade gear. Probably an NPC that wants you collect flowers so you can upgrade your arrow pouch or some shit like that.

A bigger city area but you can only explore like 10% of it. Random lifeless NPCs placed around the do that same thing over and over again regardless of day night cycle. Everyone just lives in purgatory until you come and do their quest for them.

Action that involves some basic melee combos with your staff thing and also some bow mechanics that everyone has done to death 8 million times in every assassins creed game since Origin.

A day/night cycle that does nothing except make pretty sunset shots for photomode.

Probably 3 gigantic skill trees that are melee/archery/stealth focused like every third person game ever

You will probably get a horse at some point to make the dreary act of running across a lifeless open world slightly quicker

Probably a million crafting materials that you have to pick up off the ground everywhere you go and they sparkle or have some weird shimmery effect so you can never miss one. Probably shit like "tree branch" and "native mushroom" and you need to hand them into the spiritual NPC at the little mud hut to get a +5 health upgrade.

Enemy camps that have 4 different NPC types, melee guy, archer guy, fast ninja guy and the big brute guy that probably has a big shield and a big hammer. And he hits really slow you gotta dodge him and attack him from behind like every brute ever.

The camps can probably be either stealthed into or attacked head on and inside there are chests with some measly coins and maybe a few upgrade materials. You probably have to rescue NPCs from the camps who were captured because the side quest guy in the mud hut said "raiders came to our camp and took 5 villagers and we need you to rescue them". Then a big quest marker appears on your HUD that points you to the camp 30 seconds down the road.

So yeah, while it looks pretty. This game is basically a next gen looking third person game from 2012.
When you put it that way ...
 
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Looking really good. Probably gonna skip launch so I don't rush it for Elden RIng but I'm keen to get my teeth in when I can.
 
Let me see here:

A pretty standard open world, enemies dotted around in small groups that you can either avoid or confront.

Hiding in long grass stealth mechanics (assassin creed 3 in 2012 did this)

Small settlements with a few quest givers in each one, plus your standard NPCs that sell armor and upgrade gear. Probably an NPC that wants you collect flowers so you can upgrade your arrow pouch or some shit like that.

A bigger city area but you can only explore like 10% of it. Random lifeless NPCs placed around the do that same thing over and over again regardless of day night cycle. Everyone just lives in purgatory until you come and do their quest for them.

Action that involves some basic melee combos with your staff thing and also some bow mechanics that everyone has done to death 8 million times in every assassins creed game since Origin.

A day/night cycle that does nothing except make pretty sunset shots for photomode.

Probably 3 gigantic skill trees that are melee/archery/stealth focused like every third person game ever

You will probably get a horse at some point to make the dreary act of running across a lifeless open world slightly quicker

Probably a million crafting materials that you have to pick up off the ground everywhere you go and they sparkle or have some weird shimmery effect so you can never miss one. Probably shit like "tree branch" and "native mushroom" and you need to hand them into the spiritual NPC at the little mud hut to get a +5 health upgrade.

Enemy camps that have 4 different NPC types, melee guy, archer guy, fast ninja guy and the big brute guy that probably has a big shield and a big hammer. And he hits really slow you gotta dodge him and attack him from behind like every brute ever.

The camps can probably be either stealthed into or attacked head on and inside there are chests with some measly coins and maybe a few upgrade materials. You probably have to rescue NPCs from the camps who were captured because the side quest guy in the mud hut said "raiders came to our camp and took 5 villagers and we need you to rescue them". Then a big quest marker appears on your HUD that points you to the camp 30 seconds down the road.

So yeah, while it looks pretty. This game is basically a next gen looking third person game from 2012.


You could break down every single game like this and they would all sound generic as fuck on paper.
 
I'd be more interested if GG made a sci-fi action RPG or even a new FPS series.

I don't want them to revive Killzone as they had their chance with that but something new and fresh would be awesome.

Sony's first party titles are saturated with open world RPG experiences - Days Gone, Ghost of Tushima, God Of War, Horizon, Spiderman, Wolverine etc.
Agree on the open world thing but I wouldn't call them RPGs. More like adventure games.

A new multiplayer FPS would be nice considering Call of Duty is probably going away in a couple years. I wouldn't be against reviving Killzone but I'd rather something a bit more present day. Would be cool to revive Socom as an FPS with a CoD like online multiplayer.
 
Not a game or world that I am interested in. The concept sounds dumb. Post apoc world with advanced machines but people living in mud huts - okay then.

I hope this is the last game in Horizon.
You sound dumb.

The story is one of the most Original and interesting stories I have ever experienced, there is nothing that comes close.
 
Yeah its a formula and the industry hasn't been able to break out of it for years. The only things improving are graphics.


Have to disagree here. Gameplay is evolving as well. Plenty of games out there that innovate each year. You can take even a big triple-A title like Uncharted or The last of us 2. The gameplay is improving a lot with each installment. As I said before, a good game doesn't need to invent the new wheel.
 
Let me see here:

A pretty standard open world, enemies dotted around in small groups that you can either avoid or confront.

Hiding in long grass stealth mechanics (assassin creed 3 in 2012 did this)

Small settlements with a few quest givers in each one, plus your standard NPCs that sell armor and upgrade gear. Probably an NPC that wants you collect flowers so you can upgrade your arrow pouch or some shit like that.

A bigger city area but you can only explore like 10% of it. Random lifeless NPCs placed around the do that same thing over and over again regardless of day night cycle. Everyone just lives in purgatory until you come and do their quest for them.

Action that involves some basic melee combos with your staff thing and also some bow mechanics that everyone has done to death 8 million times in every assassins creed game since Origin.

A day/night cycle that does nothing except make pretty sunset shots for photomode.

Probably 3 gigantic skill trees that are melee/archery/stealth focused like every third person game ever

You will probably get a horse at some point to make the dreary act of running across a lifeless open world slightly quicker

Probably a million crafting materials that you have to pick up off the ground everywhere you go and they sparkle or have some weird shimmery effect so you can never miss one. Probably shit like "tree branch" and "native mushroom" and you need to hand them into the spiritual NPC at the little mud hut to get a +5 health upgrade.

Enemy camps that have 4 different NPC types, melee guy, archer guy, fast ninja guy and the big brute guy that probably has a big shield and a big hammer. And he hits really slow you gotta dodge him and attack him from behind like every brute ever.

The camps can probably be either stealthed into or attacked head on and inside there are chests with some measly coins and maybe a few upgrade materials. You probably have to rescue NPCs from the camps who were captured because the side quest guy in the mud hut said "raiders came to our camp and took 5 villagers and we need you to rescue them". Then a big quest marker appears on your HUD that points you to the camp 30 seconds down the road.

So yeah, while it looks pretty. This game is basically a next gen looking third person game from 2012.
You left out

12 valor surges aka special moves which will be a great addition to combat

The much better parkour

The shield glider

Underwater exploring

The card game

Battle arena

More open world puzzles

More machines to override

Better animations and voice acting

And they're most likely holding a few surprises back
 
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Zero Dawn explains why the world is like this... except for the lack of racial mixing.
Pure speculation, but...

It is given that Zero Dawn would have wanted to include as much racial diversity as possible to guarantee a healthy gene pool. But what if, even without being taught anything, people have an in-built preference for other people with similar physical features? Bit of an inconvenient truth, and I don't think this will ever be discussed in detail in the game, just a theory.
 
You left out

12 valor surges aka special moves which will be a great addition to combat

The much better parkour

The shield glider

Underwater exploring

The card game

Battle arena

More open world puzzles

More machines to override

Better animations and voice acting

You're not wrong, those are all new things for Horizon. That's just more stuff that we've seen before though. You're basically just describing stuff that Assassin's Creed has already done.

So either Horizon is just a run of the mill third person action game with awesome graphics or Assassin Creed was waaaaaaaay ahead of its time.
 
Feel like I'm being a negative Nancy of recent, but I'm just not seeing it with this one.

Then again, I see the original as overrated and aren't a fan personally.

The way Im summing up the first game is that theres a lot of quest which involve tasks which repeat a lot for really broad purposes.

I can see the narrative directors fallout new vegas pedigree, the difference between zero dawn and new vegas is that the quests are more self contained which lead to and build up to the overall plot.

Forbidden wests quests need to be more self contained, they need to fun, varried and exciting on there own.

Games these days are way past where "go here and kill these enemies" is an acceptable, unless the game is offering deep combat, Ai or other mechanics.

This is not an issue just for Horizon though.
 
You left out

12 valor surges aka special moves which will be a great addition to combat

The much better parkour

The shield glider

Underwater exploring

The card game

Battle arena

More open world puzzles

More machines to override

Better animations and voice acting

And they're mostly likely holding a few surprises back
No doubt these things will make the game feel better.
 
Let me see here:

A pretty standard open world, enemies dotted around in small groups that you can either avoid or confront.

Hiding in long grass stealth mechanics (assassin creed 3 in 2012 did this)

Small settlements with a few quest givers in each one, plus your standard NPCs that sell armor and upgrade gear. Probably an NPC that wants you collect flowers so you can upgrade your arrow pouch or some shit like that.

A bigger city area but you can only explore like 10% of it. Random lifeless NPCs placed around the do that same thing over and over again regardless of day night cycle. Everyone just lives in purgatory until you come and do their quest for them.

Action that involves some basic melee combos with your staff thing and also some bow mechanics that everyone has done to death 8 million times in every assassins creed game since Origin.

A day/night cycle that does nothing except make pretty sunset shots for photomode.

Probably 3 gigantic skill trees that are melee/archery/stealth focused like every third person game ever

You will probably get a horse at some point to make the dreary act of running across a lifeless open world slightly quicker

Probably a million crafting materials that you have to pick up off the ground everywhere you go and they sparkle or have some weird shimmery effect so you can never miss one. Probably shit like "tree branch" and "native mushroom" and you need to hand them into the spiritual NPC at the little mud hut to get a +5 health upgrade.

Enemy camps that have 4 different NPC types, melee guy, archer guy, fast ninja guy and the big brute guy that probably has a big shield and a big hammer. And he hits really slow you gotta dodge him and attack him from behind like every brute ever.

The camps can probably be either stealthed into or attacked head on and inside there are chests with some measly coins and maybe a few upgrade materials. You probably have to rescue NPCs from the camps who were captured because the side quest guy in the mud hut said "raiders came to our camp and took 5 villagers and we need you to rescue them". Then a big quest marker appears on your HUD that points you to the camp 30 seconds down the road.

So yeah, while it looks pretty. This game is basically a next gen looking third person game from 2012.
All of this described most of the open word games, this is the formula and will not change in the near future but you know that already, I wanted to know what you wanted to be there for you to be consider this or any other game "next gen" or whatever. And yes I agree with what you said and we will probably have to do them 100x times is this game but this is how most of the games are and we play for the fun combat not the npc that needs 3x chicken breast from the butcher that is 1 min walk from him but he waited all his life until you come to get them for him.
 
Pure speculation, but...

It is given that Zero Dawn would have wanted to include as much racial diversity as possible to guarantee a healthy gene pool. But what if, even without being taught anything, people have an in-built preference for other people with similar physical features? Bit of an inconvenient truth, and I don't think this will ever be discussed in detail in the game, just a theory.
I believe this would be the most accurate probability.

At the end of the day, we generally gravitate towards others we can more easily relate to, in the short term. Long term relations broadens the potential for outward mingling.
Since the New Dawn humans are relatively young and still in tribal era, it would make sense that racial mixing isn't very common.

That or Gorilla just wanted all the visual diversity they could put in. :^P
 
not the npc that needs 3x chicken breast from the butcher that is 1 min walk from him but he waited all his life until you come to get them for him.

Haha well yeah atleast you get it. To be honest I'm not sure what's next but I think RDR2 was a glimpse into where games could go over the next decade.

It's not really my job to know what's coming next, that's up to the studios that want me to buy their game. I hit open world third person fatigue 2 years ago and haven't touched one since. Not because I dont think they're fun but because the formula is so played out that if all you can give me is prettier graphics then I'm not interested anymore.

Give me something like Dragons Dogma mixed with Valheim mixed with Monster Hunter mixed with Read Dead Redemption. I dunno.
 
You're not wrong, those are all new things for Horizon. That's just more stuff that we've seen before though. You're basically just describing stuff that Assassin's Creed has already done.

So either Horizon is just a run of the mill third person action game with awesome graphics or Assassin Creed was waaaaaaaay ahead of its time.
I think most of us can agree that gameplay in most (if not all) games has made snail paced improvements, in the last 2 decades.

That doesn't mean that Forbidden West hasn't received a big improvement, compared to Zero Dawn.

Dismissing the game for playing catch up in features doesn't mean it's not worth a play.
 
That doesn't mean that Forbidden West hasn't received a big improvement, compared to Zero Dawn.

Has it really though?

What's the big new feature that Zero Dawn is bringing to the table? They have the glidey thing that they ripped off from BOTW and you can swim underwater now. Aside from that it looks like the same game with nicer graphics.
 
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Has it really though?

What's the big new feature that Zero Dawn is bringing to the table. They have the glidey thing that they ripped off from BOTW and you can swim underwater now. Aside from that it looks like the same game with nicer graphics.

Improvements doesn't necessarily mean "new features". It can mean improving existing mechanics. HZD was already a great game, imo, and if they improved on game play aspects then that is a good thing. If you just don't like Horizon then that's fine, but seems you just want to argue with people who are looking forward to the game for some reason.
 
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One of the most important things mentioned in the interview for me is how they wanted side missions to feel rewarding and not just filler, this has been an issue with modern day Ubisoft clones from the big 3 (BoTW, Halo Infinite, most Sony titles). If they manage to pull that off, we'll done they have solved one of the big issues with the modern day open world game.

They also briefly touched on improved settlements, they didn't go in depth but it sort of suggested that settlements will react if you aid them, if this means having the settlement "grow" so a visible impact when you aid them, that's great, little things like that always make the player feel rewarded even if it's small, to see the world change around their actions.

Overall it looks like it's shaping up nicely, hopefully it's not just all PR talk for once, looking forward to finding out.
 
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Has it really though?

What's the big new feature that Zero Dawn is bringing to the table? They have the glidey thing that they ripped off from BOTW and you can swim underwater now. Aside from that it looks like the same game with nicer graphics.
I personally don't know how much it's improved, since I've yet to play it. I'm in mostly media black out mode, for previews and trailers.

I'm just saying let's avoid making assumptions until we get some official detail on the experience.
 
Feel like I'm being a negative Nancy of recent, but I'm just not seeing it with this one.

Then again, I see the original as overrated and aren't a fan personally.
Original is pretty bad when it comes to open world bloat and mission design.
But I am excited about this new one - if only because I want something on ps5 to play
 
My main issue with original was it just lacked intensity in gameplay department. Take for example sekiro, it doesn't do anything out of the ordinary in core gameplay but everything is so tightly executed.
 
Improvements doesn't necessarily mean "new features". I can mean improving existing mechanics. HZD was already a great game, imo, and if they improved on game play aspects then that is a good thing. If you just don't like Horizon then that's fine, but seems you just want to argue with people who are looking forward to the game for some reason.

I'm just not seeing anything that impresses me aside from the presentation (which frankly looks insane, like possibly the nicest looking character models I've seen before). It just looks like a rote third person action game that I could have played at any point between 2010 and now.
 
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Has it really though?

What's the big new feature that Zero Dawn is bringing to the table? They have the glidey thing that they ripped off from BOTW and you can swim underwater now. Aside from that it looks like the same game with nicer graphics.

Vastly improved melee combat for one, which will help rectify the first games biggest weakness (human combat). Seems to be improvements across the board in other categories too like traversal, quest, and world design. But obviously I can't say for sure until I play it.
 
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I'm just not seeing anything that impresses me aside from the presentation (which frankly looks insane, like possibly the nicest looking character models I've seen before). It just looks like a rote third person action game that I could have played at any point between 2010 and now.

Guess this game just isn't for you then.
 
It seems they have taken a little inspiration from all of the best open world games out there, which can only be a good thing. I'm feeling pretty good about this preview - it feels like we have a game potentially as good as The Witcher 3 to Get stuck into in just a few weeks.
 
This is gonne be the best looking open world game for a while by quite a margin, despite the lighting flaws.
Hats off to GG.
First time since the reveal we`ve actually seen a bit more real gameplay that still looks every bit as good as on reveal with no downgrades in sight.
 
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It seems they have taken a little inspiration from all of the best open world games out there, which can only be a good thing. I'm feeling pretty good about this preview - it feels like we have a game potentially as good as The Witcher 3 to Get stuck into in just a few weeks.
I feel like they'll need to make the world very dense and tightly directed indeed to match W3, but i am nevertheless very hyped and a definite buyer!
 
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