Horizon Forbidden West's New Machines Are The Game's Biggest Step Up
Horizon Forbidden West faced a monumental task when it came to the new machines. The wide range of designs - a mixture of animals, dinosaurs, and entirely invented creatures - formed the backbone of the world building, and were generally agreed to be the game's strongest asset. It never felt like Guerrilla Games was holding anything back for a sequel either, instead going hog wild (and bull wild, crocodile wild, and eagle wild) with its range of designs. Forbidden West needed to do something special to top its predecessor, and in the machine stakes, it goes above and beyond the biggest of expectations.
We knew the scale of the game was going to be bigger this time around, but making the game bigger is easy. Or at least, it's as easy as anything on the triple-A scene is, which means it's still pretty damn difficult. But in the grand scheme, making a map bigger, adding more collectibles, even more machine sites, is just a matter of volume. All the money in the world can make your game grow almost infinitely in size, but you can't buy creativity. Thankfully, the new machines aren't just bigger, they're so much better.
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The Slitherfang was revealed back in December, and I worried Guerrilla had gone too big too early. The snake was a huge upgrade on the creatures that came before, but to show it heavily in the marketing seemed to be blowing the surprise, and no one likes a snake that blows too early. When I encountered it during one of the first missions, my fears were exasperated, but they should have been allayed. Much like the heavy marketing to the elephant (actually called Tremortusks in the game), the reason we got to see the Slitherfang
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