A few years ago I played Horizon Zero Dawn on a PS4 Pro and it became one of my favorite games of all time. To see it come to PC (and GOG at that) was unexpected and amazing. But unfortunately I had to stop playing after a few hours. Even after all the patches, the game still suffers from severe audio issues, which have been reported by players since launch. The audio for voices sounds extremly compressed and scratchy and there are high pitched audio artifacts. I suffer from tinnitus and hypersensitivity to high frequencies. Therefore listening to conversations ingame is painful and exhausting. I contacted the Guerrilla support multiple times, but never received an answer. It's heartbreaking to own a PC version of Horizon Zero Dawn and not being able to play it.
On positive side, the world is quite beautiful and the concept is interesting with robots like animals roaming the world. On neutral side, the game replicates Ubisoft open world formula. There are watchtowers, bandit camps etc. The execution of the formula isn't as good as in Far Cry or Ghost Recon: Wildlands though. Also note that this is not a roleplaying game. It's less of an RPG than Assasin's Creed. Your only choices are which side quests you're going to do.
But what really killed this game for me was combat. Sneaking around and planning trap placement was fine but once discovered the fight turns into palyer running like a headless chicken. You cannot stop to aim or reasses situation because something will charge at you, shoot you or throw a projectal at you. There's no taking cover either.
It didn't help that the story was told in rather heavy-handed fashion. The game hammers player with 'corporations are corrupt' and 'automation is bad' messages rather than subtly hinting that through environmental story telling or ambiguous diary entries. Side quests were also nothing to write home about. Rather generic and I couldn't get myself to care about any character in the game (including the main one).
Speaking of main character, I couldn't empathise with her motivation in the prologue at all. She's an outcast from birth (for reasons she doesn't know), essentially everyone in the tribe hates her, but somehow she desparately wants to pass a trial which will make her a member of the tribe, the tribe whos people mostly hate her. Oh, and if she passes, it's likely that she's going to loose her adoptive father who she deeply loves. So yeah, I didn't buy those motives. If this was an RPG, I'd choose not to go through the trial and justs hit the road to explore the world.
I need to admit that I haven't finished the game, but after like 10 hours I stopped carrying about the plot so I doubt finishing would change my opinion on the writting.
Horizon: Zero Dawn is a bit dated now (graphically and technically), but it's still a nice game.
The setting is quite unique: You enter a world where humans live in primitive tribes. The main character belongs to the Nora tribe, where people live in primitive wooden huts, their villages are often surrounded by wooden palisades and watch towers. The Nora survive by hunting. However, it's not just animals that roam the wilds: Machines (robots in animal-like shapes) also frequently roam the wilderness. As the NPCs will tell you: The machines used to be calm and peaceful, but have become more aggressive over the last 10-15 years. Also, ever more dangerous types of machines are appearing.
I won't spoil the story here, suffice to say that it's unique, captivating and takes a few surprising turns. You'll uncover secrets about a sect that unearthes machines slumbering in the ground, covered by the centuries of dust. And that's just the beginning.
The game has a huge open world, and it's kind-of engaging to explore (there are some surprises), however there's not much to do in this world. Some side quests here, some hunting challenges there... (Don't get me wrong: the world is certainly doesn't feel empty.) On the positive side, the things that you *can* do offer a good amount of variety, and don't feel generic.
What I don't like about the game is that the controls feel clunky and slow, and your character's strength plateaus quite quickly. The skills you unlock through levelling don't make your character that much stronger, and when you buy new bows (or so) usually they don't make more damage to the enemies than the previous ones, they just offer an additional type of ammunition. (However, I find myself using mostly two types of ammunition: One to deal damage, and one two detach pieces of the machines I'm fighting, usually to deactivate their most dangerous types of attacks.)
Overall, it's a solid game. Expect 40-60 hours of gameplay. Get it when it's on sale.
The Witcher 3 was superb. I just don't care for swordplay, and the quests bundles got too dense, and while it started off challenging, it soon became too easy even on hardest difficulty.
That's different in HZD. I was not expecting much; my expectations are entirely left behind. I couldn't stand the horrid voice acting in Skyrim and the idiotic writing, and that damn world filled with apples and cups. HZD gets it right: It simplifies everything, leaving all the small bits to your imagination (not that there's no detail, quite the contrary, it's very very meticulously done, it's just that you can't pick it up and stick in in your inventory). The voice acting is top-notch (not everywhere but where it counts). The writing is very good, even if the premise is utter nonsense (machine animals?!), but I can suspend my disbelief if the rest is decent. It's exceptionally well orchestrated. And speaking of orchester, the music is really noteworthy. The costumes and makeup are good. The way the protagonist moves is good. Even the climbing is good. There is some rudimentary level-up system that seems to be stolen from the Far Cry series, as is much of the crafting, but the rest seems stolen from the Witcher, and that speaks for it.
Horizon Zero Dawn even does Monster Hunter World better than MHW: The beasts are not giant bullet sponges, there are real meaningful tactical choices to make, and even the "little" machines are fun and challenging. Even the weapons are better than MHW. This is turning into the best FPS-ish RPG I've ever played (back in the day, that was the original Deus Ex).
I play it on a decent laptop, on which it performs without a hitch.
It comes highly recommended.
