Horizon Zero Dawn™ Complete Edition

I played the game twice on PlayStation 4 and got all the achievements. I would like to have a DRM-free copy as well but many players raised their concerns this is not a DRM-free copy (see more comments on this below). POSITIVES: - The story is a masterpiece. It is very immersing and you want to keep playing to know more. - The character is very likeable and the voice helps understand Aloy’s feelings well. - Visually speaking, it is an incredibly beautiful game! - The control is easy and intuitive. - You can get all the achievements in one gameplay. - The music is memorable. WHAT COULD BE BETTER: - Having the game truly DRM-free without data collection. CONCLUSION: The game is a masterpiece and a must for a proper Gamer. It is worth paying the full price for it. My five stars are for the game. However, if you are concerned about your privacy and want a DRM-free game, then you may buy it here or anywhere else.

When I can play the game, it's enjoyable. The world is rich and the story is interesting. Keyboard and mouse controls aren't the best, so I'd recommend using a controller. My computer is well above the recommended specs, and yet it crashes multiple times over an hour. It crashed the very first time I launched it, and it hadn't even opened the game yet. I left the game on the menu while I got up to get a drink, returned to find it had crashed. The game is four years old, and these issues should have been fixed by now?

3rd paragraph talks about system reqs. tl;dr: for 60 fps you need a recent 4c8t or 6c6t CPU otherwise you will get big FPS dips to the 40s or 30s as your 4c4t CPU hits 100% usage and runs out of power in battle/NPC-heavy scenes. First off, I loved this game and it was quite fun to play and keeps your interest as long as you don't do too many of the side quests (I did maybe 1/4 of them). This open world RPG guides you through the story more carefully than others like Morrowind or Skyrim, but then I'm a noob at RPGs. If you really like the environment, which I did, it's fun to kill some time taking down different machines to get some resources. I very rarely was short of any resources and never bored at any time. You can max out your gear by about 2/3 the way through the story so you can stop that progression and focus on finishing or doing more side quests if you like. Re: system reqs. Minimum listed above are for 1080p 30fps on Original settings but the game is also quite *CPU* demanding in scenes with many NPCs or fights with many machines. So a 4 core 4 thread processor like a Core i5-7400 or Ryzen 3 1200 (@3.7 GHz, one of my machines) will easily dip to 40 or 30fps during these scenes with 100% CPU use. So the above recommended Core i5-2500K may be too slow. In simpler scenes, slower CPUs will deliver 60+ fps even at 1440p (GPU depending) but not when you need it during battle. A 6 core 6 thread processor like a Core i5-8400 (one of my machines) is enough for 60+ fps during these parts of the game, at 90% CPU use. The recommended CPUs are 4 core 8 thread parts and I'll bet those dip into the low 50s during fights. That's not bad though, especially if you have an Adaptive Sync monitor. What I used: Ryzen 3 1200 @3.7 GHz RX 5600XT 8GB Prefer Quality, Clouds and Water turned down 1440p 60+fps w/ dips into the 40s or 30s in fights w/100% CPU use Core i5-8400 GTX 1080 16GB same settings 1440p 60+fps, not often over 70. 60-90% CPU use

Just finished this and it was good. Can't say I'd bother again, as the replay value is low. While the world and it's machines are colourful, detailed and engaging the cast of characters is not. The story is good, with lots of flavour-text, but the dialogue is pretty ropey. Things that need fixing in the sequel; facial animation, the climbing mechanic, a sense of humour, consequences and customization. Got it on sale and enjoyed the experience.

So this is the thing: it's a game that, of all games, reminded me a lot of Elex with its post apocalyptic scavenging world and generally mean characters. Once you get a bit further on it and open up the skill branches it gets better, but then, blam, respawns and RNG in loot that makes this closer to a loot game than an rpg. Going from A to B always means that you will find respawning enemies, and if you like to play stealth like I do, you will find yourself doing the same loop over and over again in a way that I never saw in other open world crpgs like Skyrim, and on the other side of the equation of Elex or Piranha games (which tend to feel empty after a while). I know that there are some people who actively enjoy this loop of the same mechanics over and over again with the same enemies in the same spots just for a slightly different loop, and that may work very well if you like to play in non subtle melee, but stealth games usually work better in tightly designed levels. Having said that, HZD is incredibly beautiful, has many game options to make it play fluidly, the main character is lovely and the first hours are just magical. However, kind of ironcally, makes me want to go back to Elex, even when that game irritated me much much more.