3.5/5 ★ – patjans5's review of Horizon Zero Dawn.

After five years of trying and failing to push through some pretty heavy open-world fatigue, I finally beat Horizon Zero Dawn. I have some mixed opinions on certain things, but overall It's a pretty great game. Horizon Zero Dawn is an open-world rpg developed by Guerrila Games. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting, where modern civilization is wiped out, nature has reclaimed itself, and the surviving humans resort to primitive tribes. Even stranger, most animal life is extinct, and in their place a variety of machines, each made to look like different animals, both current and extinct. You play as Aloy, a young women rejected from her tribe, forced to live in the wilds and adapt, until a certain tragedy forces her to look for answers to not only her own life and past, but the mysterious world she lives in. As a story Horizon Zero Dawn is just fantastic. Of course it suffers from pacing issues, as most open world games like this do, but whenever you get to a main mission, you're greeted by a well written, thrilling, and emotional ride from start to finish. Aloy is a great protagonist, one who fully embodies the curiosity and bravery that's such a consistent theme in the game. Aiding her on the journey are a variety of supporting characters, most of which are also well written, some even having branching stories that're also worth experiencing. The same cannot be said for a majority of the side missions though. It seems the same level of care wasn't applied to a majority of the side content, mostly resorting to a copy and past structure where you either run and collect things for someone, or follow a trail from point a to point b. This is where that open-world fatigue kicks in, because aside from the main story, plenty of collectables, and a wide variety of machines to take on, there's not much there of substance. Zero Dawn follows the Ubisoft approach to open worlds, like capturing bandit posts, or climbing tall opjects to unlock areas of the map. It's a beautiful map and world the devs created, but look closer and there's definitley things to do, just things not more than leveling up and gaining XP. But man is the open world of Zero Dawn beautiful. The eerie and mysterious ruins of a once familiar civilization now comsumed by nature never stopped feeling wonderous. And with plenty of collectables, the game practically begs you to explore. The only thing that can get in the way is the multitude of machines and other threats. The map is quite large, sometimes requiring you to move from one side all the way to the other. And if you're someone like me who doesn't like to fast travel, It's tough to casually explore this game, or even reach objectives, without running into a group of machines every few minutes. And unless you want to spend hours upon hours collecting resources because you're out here killing every machine you come across, you're sometimes forced to use the fast travel just to get from one area to the other. Thus, fast travel became my friend towards the end. Combat is also a mixed bag for me, the obvious highlight being the battle against the machines. Horizon Zero Dawn is a challenging game, but a fair one at the same time. You're given a wide range of weapons, skills, armor, and potions that'll help you fight against different machines. It's important to think on your feet, and even do some prepping before a big fight. Once you master the usage of these items, these fights will be so much fun, and so ridiculously rewarding when you finally win your long and grueling battle against a Thunderjaw. Unfortunately machines aren't the only enemies in the game, some are humans, and I really don't think the devs focused a lot on the man to man combat. Overall it feels clunky, and just... off whenever it happens. Still, stealth is a thing, and it's always a blast to clear out a bandit camp without raising a single alarm. Graphics are beautiful even after five years, but there's still quite a bit of texture glitches and texture pop-ins as you explore. Of course it's nothing game breaking, but just consistent enough to be noticable. The same cannot be said for the facial models, which look fine, but man do they looks weird when characters talk. It's like everyone's a robot with human skin put over it who still can't manage to make human facial emotions yet. But I don't want to end on a sour note. I really do think this game is great, I just remember the hype that surrounded this game upon it's release, and after experiencing the full package, it's not perfect. But still absolutely worth playing.