Horizon Zero Dawn review – Lost in beautiful distractions

I like Horizon Zero Dawn much more than anything else Guerrilla Games has done. This game, for me, is miles better than the Killzone franchise.

Sony’s trying hard to push Aloy, the hero of Horizon, to the forefront as their next big character. They should. This game has its misgivings, but the massive product it becomes towers over these issues. Horizon Zero Dawn is a fun, challenging, scary, open world adventure that coalesces modern game design well.

That’s it, though. A lot of Horizon Zero Dawn feels borrowed. It’s easy to compare this game to Skyrim, Far Cry and Dragon Age. The gathering, hunting, material-crafting and base-clearing feels like it’s ripped from Far Cry. The side quests and errands pile up high enough to completely distract players from the sometimes forgettable main storyline like Skyrim. The character interactions feel like a page out of Bioware’s design notebook for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Guerrilla gets away with borrowing and iteration because of what they add to the experience. The setting, machines, characters, difficult open spaces and “dungeons” are more than enough to let Horizon Zero Dawn stand out.

Doesn’t hurt that it’s a beauty, either. You will see a mix of Sony-prepared screenshots and stuff from our game in this review. The shots we took from Sony also came from a launch PS4. We played on a launch PS4, too, not the PS4 pro. Keep that in mind.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/reviews/horizon-zero-dawn-review-lost-in-beautiful-distractions/