Some structural experimentation is mostly successful in alleviating the monotony of playing through another one of these RPG-lite open world behemoths. I still don't see the point of the narrative contrasting the laboriously recreated wilderness and lavish scenery with artificial approximations of nature when the actual human characters always feel so unnatural. Admittedly most of the main scenes adopt mocap for more detailed animations, but what remains is their thousand-yard stare through dry, stilted exposition. The unconvincing characters are a left-over from Zero Dawn, along with a plot that struggles to invent a hook for itself. At some point, I realized the story was more engaging in the areas where it forsook the main plotline the most, which sort of makes sense. All sense of intimacy in the stakes are abandoned by the finale, when I'd imagine the players would really want something that rewards their connection to the densely packed environments, not whatever lame, otherworldly sci-fi concept it decides to throw at you next.

Mechanically, it's Zero Dawn with the same core strengths and weaknesses. Encounters are still awkward despite improved mobility. Your immediate surroundings are as much of a hindrance as a help, with any tactical advantage foresight brings you usually canceled out by running into a random rock you didn't see while escaping an attack. The glider does allow for mild improvements in the mechanics of traversal, and the amount of climbable surfaces is pretty impressive. Taking down a huge machine generally feels rewarding despite the clunkiness, so that's still the main draw here. The rest is boiler plate design you've seen elsewhere, just with more toys to play with than last time.