Horizon Forbidden West review: Rise of the machines

digitaltrends.com:

Midway through Horizon Forbidden West, Aloy discovers a video from the old world. A holographic figure stands in front of the White House and delivers a hopeful rallying cry for a country at war. “True courage means facing [our] fears with conviction instead of cynicism,” the long-dead speaker firmly declares. It’s a line that sums up Aloy’s entire raison d’être, making her the perfect hero for her “techno-nihilist” times.

Horizon Forbidden West is a sequel to 2017’s hit Horizon Zero Dawn. It once again drops players into a postapocalyptic world where humanity and nature alike have begun to reform following a man-made catastrophe that filled the world with deadly machines resembling malevolent versions of Boston Dynamics robots. Despite its gloom-and-doom premise, it’s not a cynical game. Instead, it presents a bright and beautiful open world full of tribes that have found ways to coexist with machines without sacrificing nature. Aloy sees the potential utopia growing amid the decaying cities, like a rose in concrete, and is determined to save it. She’s persuasive; I was right there with her.

Though it’s not without its technical hiccups, Horizon Forbidden West is a strong addition to the PS5’s growing collection of hits. Guerilla Games solves many of the biggest gripes players had with its predecessor to create a gorgeous open-world game with better traversal, more varied combat, and awe-inspiring machines that are a joy to tear apart.

Upon firing my first arrow, I immediately remembered why Horizon Zero Dawn captivated me in 2017: Its combat is unmatched. The main hook of that game is that players use arrows, traps, and stealth to deconstruct detailed machines piece by piece. Horizon Forbidden West doubles down on