A few weeks ago, we got invited to Guerrilla Games in Amsterdam for a press event regarding Horizon Zero Dawn, and today we bring you our review of this fabulous game!
Horizon Zero Dawn
Storyline
The story or plot is all about Aloy, a hunter and archer living in a world overrun by robots. It all starts with Aloy as a kid. Nobody likes her, no one wants to do anything with her because she is an outcast.
Outcasts are wrongdoers, people who have been banished from the tribe to survive on their own in these wild lands. But luckily for Aloy, she was put under the care of another outcast … Roy. Roy teaches Aloy everything he knows, including how to hunt the machines, and how to be stealthy around them.
Early into the Game Aloy falls into a cave, some form of ancient ruins and that’s where she finds a Focus, a device which allows her to see certain things about the machines. Using a focus scan Aloy can detect the strengths and weaknesses of the machines.
Of course, Aloy wants to be accepted into a tribe, sadly the only way to do that it to win the Proving. The Proving is some form of competition involving hunting, fighting and surviving. Luckily Aloy wins the Proving and gets accepted into the Tribe.
At a later point, Aloy learns about The Eclipse, a group of fanatical religions people who worship the demon Haydes. Their goal is to corrupt the machines in order to make them work and fight for Hades.The ultimate goal of Hades, is to destroy the world … and Aloy has to stop that at all cost!
Gameplay
Horizon Zero Dawn is an open world action role-playing game played from the third person perspective. As a player you take control of Aloy, an archer / hunter and help her progress through the post apocaliptic land, rule by robots known as Machines.
In your quest for survival of the world, Aloy has to do many different things. Of course, there is the main storyline quest, but there are also a lot of side quests. Using her Focus Scan, Aloy can learn new things about the machines she encounters and use that information to her advantage.
The game also involves some material gathering and crafting, which allows you to make new things or improve your existing equipment. These materials can be collected form plants, dead machines and wild animals. In some spots you might also find modifications, you can use them to modify your armour and weapons.
Graphics
The graphics are just breathtaking, it is compatible with 4K if you have a PS4 pro. The graphics are actually so beautiful, you could just run around the map and be amazed by impressive views. The world looks very realistic with it’s day and night cycle and the weather changes.
Exploring the forest at night is quite immersive due to the incredible detail in graphics and sounds. Really, this game is awesome!
Types of machines
Before we give you our opinion, we would like to give you a bit more information on The Machines. In total there are 25 different types of machines in the game! All of those (except the 4 boss type machines, and the corrupted ones) can be tamed and used to your advantage.
Some of those machines are even rideable, while others can be used to fight along your side. The artwork on the machines is pretty well done! We couldn’t find 2 types of machines that looked the same, except for the Ice Bellowbacks and the Fire Bellowbacks. The only difference between those two is that one used fire, while the other uses … ice of course!
All in all, the whole Machines thing makes the game even more interesting. It gives you a lot of other options and choices … will you kill a Machine? Just tame it to sneak by it? Or use it to your advantage? That’s all up to the player!
Personal Opinion
I actually enjoyed it more than i expected to. In all honesty … I hadn’t really heard a lot about the game until the press event. Strange thing is … I didn’t even see a single trailer for the game until I actually had the game and wanted to know a bit about it before starting the review.
What immediately attracted me was the story. At the start, the story evolved slowly, but I quickly became emotionally attached to the characters.
For some reasons, the game made me think of Assassins Creed II, which has a similar approach (open world / quests / collecting things). Collecting the Metal Flowers in Horizon New Dawn made me thing of collecting the feathers in Assassins Creed II.
Additionally the stealthy gameplay also gave me flashbacks to Assassins Creed. But of course it has nothing to do with that game, a completely different storyline and nothing is the same. Right now i have over 30 hours of in game time and the only thing that i got bored of is is looking for the collectables.
I have +90% completion so the game is really worth the money. Even if u completed all the quest u can still walk around and kill things and have fun doing it.
Screenshots
We added some screenshots we took during the review. Please excuse us if some are in Dutch, we will make sure to play games in English for your convenience in the future 🙂
Our Opinion
Graphics - 91%
Sound - 77%
Gameplay - 95%
88%
Well, we actually loved the game! Graphics are stunning, gameplay is fantastic, story is compelling and we even got emotionally attached to Alloy ... what more do you expect! Oh ... and did we mention the game was made in The Netherlands! Congrats to our neighbours for a job well done!
