Horizon: Forbidden West | Games of the Year 2024

gamesindustry.biz:

In late 2017, I interviewed Guerrilla Games' Jan-Bart Van Beek about his original pitch for what would become Horizon: Zero Dawn, how the studio designed this world, and the lengths the team went to in order to make this new IP stand out.

It was one of those interviews I did with a twinge of guilt because I hadn't played the game, despite it being on shelves for more than six months by that point. I was interested, certainly, but to me Horizon: Zero Dawn was just "that game with robot dinosaurs I should check out at some point."

Back in April this year, I was fortunate enough to catch Van Beek at the BAFTA Game Awards… where I formally apologised for not playing his game prior to our conversation, because both Zero Dawn and its sequel Horizon: Forbidden West are comfortably among my favourite PlayStation games of all time. (It's a close call between them and Insomniac's Spider-Man games. Don't make me choose!)

Let's address the Tremortusk in the room: the 'robot dinosaurs' are more than just cool-looking enemies to bash. They are central to a combat system I find genuinely refreshing.

The vast majority of games I play tend to feel like battles amount to 'whittle down the enemy health bar until it falls down.' If it's a boss fight of some sort, you might have to find a weak spot for faster whittling, but by and large, it's a case of keep bashing until dead. In Horizon, the component-centric design of the machines allows for something much more varied and ultimately more fun.

Scan any machine you encounter and you'll be able to highlight specific parts of the beast – and breaking them will have specific effects. Destroy the antenna and your enemy won't be able to call for reinforcements. Hit a tank of flammable liquid with fire arrows and you'll cause a chain reaction (i.e. a massive explosion) that takes off half its health. Rip the cannon off and you can use it yourself. Detach the claws from burrowing machines and they'll no longer be able to hide underground. You take