With Horizon Forbidden West celebrating its first anniversary in February 2023, gamers have begun to crack some of the gameplay elements that many players did not know existed. While the acclaimed open-world action-adventure game gives plenty of guidelines for Aloy to conquer mechanical monsters and human enemies, there are plenty of aspects that often go undiscovered during the first few playthroughs, which compromise their overall success.
Luckily, those who've hit a roadblock in Horizon Forbidden West will benefit greatly by using the most obscure hack, tips, and actions that many players often fail to notice.
Choose A Time Of Day
Unlike its predecessor Horizon Zero Dawn, players can alter the time of day to their choosing in Forbidden West, a feature that comes in handy when dealing with low-visibility nighttime playthroughs. There's nothing more annoying than being unable to decipher the environment and pinpoint enemy locations, so using the little-known feature is bound to help players of all stripes.
To choose a specific time of day, a player must locate Shelter. Once the Shelter is found, sit on the stump across from the campfire and an option will come up, allowing players to opt for Morning, Afternoon, or Evening. Players can do this anytime they want during the game, making it much easier to navigate during the daytime hours.
Fast Travel
Many players spend hours before discovering the newfangled Fast Travel option in the 2022 western-themed RPG, arguably the most beneficial hidden tool the game has to offer. Horizon Zero Dawn had a Fast Travel option but required crafting packs to do so. Forbidden West has added an alternative to the crafting requirement and allows players to Fast Travel whenever they want to wherever they want, saving immense time and energy that allows players to optimize their playthrough.
To Fast Travel for free, players must find a Campfire, Shelter, or Settlement and enable the option from there, which grants them the ability to instantly go anywhere on the map. What's great is how players can now travel to The Base as well as various hunting grounds, ruins, salvage yards, etc., something that wasn't afforded in the predecessor and gives players great latitude to traverse the map freely.
Quick Swap
When fighting enemies in such a stressful open-world video game, it's easy to remain focused on the target at all times and continue to use the default weapon at a player's disposal. As such, many players fail to realize they can use the Quick Swap option to instantly toggle between the two most recent weapons obtained in Aloy's arsenal. However, players should use this tool as it gives versatile options for defeating various foes, especially when taking on large enemy groups at once.
The Quick Swap option is turned off by default, meaning players must actively enter the Control Settings and switch it on. Once doing so, players will have a much easier time mounting deadly combo attacks on enemies, which is paramount for defeating them and looting their collectible items.
Bypass Inclement Weather
Similar to playing at night, traversing the sprawling open-world map in the driving rain is no fun in Forbidden West. Thankfully, players can bypass torrential downpours by enabling an option most players never discover. To avoid bad weather, players need to save their place, exit, and reload the game. Rainy days and snowy nights will quickly turn to bright sunny days and clear moon-light skies once this is completed.
A simple, effective, yet often overlooked hack, changing the weather to better conditions in Forbidden West is ideal for maintaining visibility, hunting more efficiently, sniping more accurately, and getting through the game much faster. However, it's also important to note that if a certain mission is built around a specific weather pattern or event, then the trick won't work. But for all other instances, changing the weather is a Godsend indeed.
Summoning Mounts
In Zero Dawn, players could only summon an overridden Mount by unlocking an ability. This has led many Forbidden West players to fail to realize that a new convenient way of beckoning a Mount is available in the popular open-world 2022 game. Players can utilize the Mount Whistle from the Hunter's Tools and instantly summon a Mount.
To access the Mount Whistle, players need to open the Hunter's Toolkit and press Up on the D-pad. Rather than waiting to unlock the ability required as in the past, using the Mount Whistle is another time-saving mini-miracle most never discover in the game. Moreover, most gamers fail to realize that summoning an off-screen Mount will teleport 20 meters before charging toward them, which is much faster than an on-screen Mount that manually saunters toward a player.
Motion Aiming
For those with debilitating accuracy issues in the acclaimed video game sequel, enabling the little-known Motion Aiming option may provide a serious boost. Buried deep in the General Settings menu, players can enable the Motion Aiming option, which is turned off in default mode, as a way of using the PlayStation controller's Gyro features, something that has become popular in Fortnite, Modern Warfare 2, and others.
While it may take a while to master, employing the Motion Aiming option in Forbidden West will greatly increase a player's accuracy at close and long-range, which is helpful for sniping, taking down large enemy groups in close quarters, and fine-tuning the aim using immersive motion sensors. Those who find the option swear by its effectiveness, making it another ideal option most gamers rarely uncover.
Skip Through Dialog
While certain cutscenes and dialog exchanges are vital to the plot, there is nothing worse than slowing the momentum of a playthrough by listening to a long, droning speech that has no bearing on the story. Fortunately, there is a way to speed up the process that often goes unnoticed by experts and beginners alike.
By pressing X during a Cutscene, players can skip through a few seconds of dialog and speed up their playthrough. However, it's important to remember that X is also the button to choose a dialog option, so it's vital to avoid using the left stick when attempting to skip speeches.
Zoom-In Using A Bow
To spot hidden enemies and items, using camera zooms is extremely beneficial. Alas, most players never realize that Aloy can vastly improve her vision by using her Bow to zoom in on whatever she needs to examine closer. Players must pull the Bow by pressing L2 and pressing R3 (down on the analog stick), which will enable the Concentration feature and allow Aloy to zoom in for a much clearer view.
Aside from giving Aloy a much better view to find items and aim at targets, the Zoom-in feature doesn't nock an arrow, allowing Aloy to retain her ammo in the process. Speaking of, players can also save ammo by hitting L2 after aiming an arrow, which will instantly cancel the shot without wasting valuable resources.
Highlight Data Points Using Focus
For such a massive open-world map, finding various Datapoints in the game can be a real nuisance. No matter the area, Aloy will encounter areas with various objects of interest that are impossible to spot with the naked eye. Players often fail to realize that using Aloy's Focus will instantly mark the Datapoints with glowing pink icons that make life much easier.
Many players also gloss over the helpful Audio Datapoint function, which can be accessed with Aloy's Focus by pressing Triangle. This enables Aloy to listen to the audio Datapoint during the playthrough rather than reading it from a menu and even allows Aloy to comment on the gameplay afterward. Aside from the added immersion, being able to quickly spot the pink Datapoints will save immense time and effort.
Missable Silver Trophy
When collecting trophies in Forbidden West, many players overlook the missable Silver Trophy called All Machine Types Scanned. The reason most miss the trophy is due to the little-known requirement of scanning Specter and Specter Prime before fighting them during the "Singularity" mission and re-scanning them after defeating them.
The quasi-glitch is something many have called to be rectified in DLC upgrades (per Game Rant), which may be addressed in the recently announced Horizon Burning Shores DLC. Regardless if it's fixed or not, most players never even know how to attain the All Machines Scanned Silver Trophy, which robs them of the full reward benefits.