PlayStation fans across the world have been enjoying the recently-released Horizon Forbidden West, the much-anticipated sequel to Guerrilla Games' Horizon Zero Dawn. This is great news for Guerrilla, as Zero Dawn became the subject of ridicule for some angry fans, who claimed the game's overworld was uninteresting, the narrative was unoriginal, and the gameplay was mundane.

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Guerrilla Games have implemented a significant number of improvements both big and small in their sequel, creating a more enjoyable experience for gamers to enjoy, and helping the Horizon franchise get the recognition and respect it truly deserves. From a hugely diverse and mesmerizingly beautiful expanded map to a massive array of new terrifying machine enemies to fight, these improvements were desperately needed and helps Forbidden West come out of Zero Dawn's shadow.

Better Side Quests

Aloy aims her weapon in Horizon

Many gamers would agree that one of the things that make video games such great and enjoyable experiences are the many things players can do that are separate from the main story, such as finding collectibles and completing side quests. Unfortunately, one of Zero Dawn's biggest criticisms was its boring and repetitive side quests, massively hindering the game's overall enjoyment.

Guerrilla Games have listened to the fans, improving the quality and excitement of Forbidden West's side quests, so they now respect the player's time, rather than waste it. This is a fantastic and much-needed improvement over its predecessor, guaranteed to keep fans entertained and engaged throughout their entire journey across the Forbidden West, not just parts of it.

Engaging Cinematics

Horizon Forbidden West Cinematics

Another part of Horizon: Zero Dawn that left fans feeling disappointed was its many cutscenes. This cinematic feature has become a significant part of most story-based videogames, so it was sad to see Zero Dawn's narrative be ruined by its poorly animated characters and mundane camera angles.

Luckily, Guerrilla Games have upped their game in terms of cinematics in Forbidden West, filming them with full-motion-capture, more exciting acting, and improved character facial animations. The improved animations were one of the things Reddit fans expected to see in Forbidden West, so the new cinematics truly help the game stand out from its predecessor.

Free Climbing

Horizon Forbidden West Climbing Better Fix

Inspired by the infamously great Nintendo Switch game, The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, Aloy can now free-climb across the whole open-world map, improving on Zero Dawn's very restricting climbing mechanics, and giving players so much more freedom.

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This brilliant improvement helps Forbidden West's world breathe and feel more alive, helping fans get more immersed and more mesmerized by the beautifully tragic post-apocalyptic US. The updated climbing feature makes Aloy's movements feel more natural and fluid, resulting in the game being so much more about the player's own experience and choices, rather than a restricted path that fools players into a false sense of freedom in Zero Dawn.

Improved Stealth

Horizon Forbidden West is attempting to bring more dynamic combat opportunities

Zero Dawn was highly praised as having some of the best stealth-action gameplay in recent times, however, the stealth gameplay got quite tedious and lackluster relatively early on into the game.

Forbidden West hugely improves upon its predecessor's stealth mechanics by adding many more tools and small gameplay details that add up to create some awesome tension-filled moments. Furthermore, enemies have also been improved in terms of the game's stealth mechanics. Now, they actively search for Aloy and communicate with each other, making the already-tense situation even tenser, and forcing players to quickly make split-second decisions that could drastically change the battlefield, making Forbidden West's stealth gameplay so much more enjoyable than Zero Dawn's stealth gameplay.

Improved Human Enemies

An enemy in Horizon Forbidden West

Most gamers agree that one of Horizon Zero Dawn's worst features is human enemies. The concept was amazing - getting into brawls with other humans in a world where machines rule - however, the game failed to make this a genuinely exciting and interesting mechanic.

Luckily, Horizon Forbidden West has hugely improved upon human enemies, giving them specific personalities, behaviors, and combat styles based on the class they are a part of. For example, enemies in the Champion class will act like a wolf, circling their prey (Aloy) with an intimidating stance, whereas Rebel class enemies will act aggressively and animalistically, feeling more confident as part of a group. Enemy AI even actively looks for Aloy's weaknesses and shortcuts to make combat even more diverse, massively increasing the tension and enjoyment of battling human enemies, as opposed to in Zero Dawn.

Many More Machines

Horizon Forbidden West How To Override The Tallneck in Shining Wastes

Any Horizon fan will be familiar with the mechanical beasts that freely travel around the dystopian overworld, having become the dominant species of the Earth, and Aloy's greatest threat.

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Despite there being many different types of machine enemies in Zero Dawn, most of them were strikingly similar, and as such became somewhat predictable and lost their unique charm. In Forbidden West, a huge, diverse range of new machines have been added for Aloy to face off against, each acting in their way so the player must learn how to defeat them and survive. This makes the world feel so much more immersive and real, demonstrating a mechanical version of our real-life animal kingdom, massively improving upon Zero Dawn.

New And Improved Skill Tree

The skill tree screen in Horizon Forbidden West

In Horizon Zero Dawn, players could pick up new skills throughout their journey to expand Aloy's abilities and help her become more powerful as the story progressed. However, the skills were confusing to understand, with many gamers criticizing Guerrilla over its unclear progression mechanics which are a significant part of the RPG genre.

Thankfully, Forbidden West introduces a skill tree that combats this, which focuses on 6 distinct progression-paths players can choose to go down - Warrior, Trapper, Hunter, Survivor, Infiltrator, and Machine Master. Each different path focuses on different skills, such as the stealth-based Infiltrator class, and the melee-combat focused Warrior class, offering more diverse options for the player to enjoy their journey in their favored playstyle. Furthermore, players can unlock specific outfits for Aloy across the game's world that increase specific class skills' abilities.

Underwater Gameplay

Making all new animations for Forbidden West would have wasted resources and possibly contributed to employee crunch

One of the coolest improvements upon Horizon Zero Dawn is Forbidden West's new underwater mechanics, an awesome new gameplay feature that allows Aloy to traverse swiftly underwater, making Forbidden West similar to some other great open-world videogames.

This fantastic feature opens up a whole new previously-uncharted beautiful area of the world for gamers to explore and enjoy, helping to open up the world even more and increase the feeling of freedom. Moreover, enemy machines can dive into the water and chase after Aloy, meaning that the player's sightseeing might be cut short, but is instead replaced with an intense underwater battle - something that Zero Dawn completely missed out on.

More Interesting Characters

Horizon Forbidden West Improved Narrative

One of Horizon Zero Dawn's biggest criticisms was its rather mundane script, creating a narrative that had some incredible story moments and a great plot, but voice acting and characters that didn't reflect the story well. Instead, the game's beautiful soundtrack and the stunning world would elevate the narrative, when in reality every story-telling mechanic in the game should have done this.

Horizon Forbidden West allows characters to feel multi-dimensional, giving them better lines, facial expressions, acting, personalities, and more. Even side characters who players only see in one mission feel more alive, helping Forbidden West become more consistently immersive and keep players engaged throughout their journey. Therefore, Guerrilla Games has crafted a fantastic script that encapsulates all story-telling elements, so that characters actively elevate the journey they are a part of, rather than just relying on other mechanics, something that Zero Dawn did heavily.

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