This review contains spoilers
Spoilers only discussed at the very end
Horizon Zero Dawn came out at a time when the Ubisoft open world formula was getting slammed on all fronts. Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch_Dogs, you name it- every major franchise of theirs was subjected to the same criticisms.
And in 2017, here came this AAA monstrosity from Guerilla Games, garnering critical acclaim for having….an Ubisoft open world.
Yeah, you can imagine my disappointment. If you ever needed proof as to the double standards Ubisoft faces, look no further than HZD. Don’t get me wrong, it’s ultimately worth your time, but it also serves as a perennial example that gamers are hypocrites who let their hatred of a company override supposed "principled" stances.
But let’s get down to business. The year it came out, HZD was one of the most-covered IPs, and so, like with the TLOU games, I won’t be going too in-depth with the technical feats (there are plenty of other resources that do a much better job covering that). Instead, I’ll use this review to speak on underrated facets, analyze the story, and, most importantly, isolate any flaws that were overlooked by mainstream and indie publications.
Set in a future United States built atop the ruins of its history, Zero Dawn is an example of retrofuturism being taken literally. The present is a mix of native influences from the colonial era combined with technology of a future too distant from our own. It reminded me a lot of James Cameron’s Avatar, wherein the primitive tools of the Na’vi were contrasted with human tech from the 22nd century, albeit here both sides are presented with even more advanced equipment. The tribes wield trick bows that would make Green Arrow blush, while the mechanical behemoths they face are strange amalgamations of organic matter and sci-fi armaments.
As far as video game settings go, it’s definitely unique, but one thing you’ll find as you spend more and more time in Zero Dawn is just how surface-level a lot of the creativity is. For starters, take the four tribes: Nora, Carja, Oseram, and Banuk. At an initial glance, their varied textiles, architecture, and superstitions would suggest significant cultural diversity. However, penetrate deeper and you’ll see that they’re pretty dang reminiscent of each other: they share the same religious beliefs, viewing AIs and their transmissions as deities and divine messages respectively; their weapons, minus the occasional firearm, are recrafts of one another; their economies are built on comparable industries of hunting, gathering, and bartering. And, most importantly, they speak very similarly to each other. Whether you’re comparing spiritual leaders, warriors, or regular civilians, I never once got a sense that I was in an entirely different civilization with its own dialects, assimilations, or prayers. Compare this to Mass Effect (from which HZD draws a lot from+)- every extraterrestrial you encountered was packed with a hodgepodge of prototypical customs: Turians and Krogans had alternate approaches to war and honor, Quarians and Salarians differed when it came to the utilization of engineering, and the communication patterns of the Drells and Hanar couldn’t have been more disparate.
Now, I know some of you may retort “well Red, those are aliens; in Zero Dawn, we’re talking about humans occupying the same continent and originating from the same aftermath that offed the previous inhabitants- surely that’s going to naturally yield more parallelisms?” To the first part I would say, look at any set of countries in Europe and tell me they’re reskins of the other. Heck, if you’re American, would you consider Canadians to be ethnically akin to you? No, distance combined with anthropologic factors leads to individual pockets of humanity developing divergently. And to the second part, all I’ll say (to avoid spoilers) is enough time has passed between the two eras for there to be strong enough deviations.
But look, even if I grant you the justifications, it still proves my point that Zero Dawn wasn’t as intricately conceptualized as it could have been. While it is nice to see a post-apocalyptic scape that isn’t blatantly channeling Mad Max, it appears the writers primarily spent the pre-production phase obsessing over the events that lead to the downfall of society over distinguishing the kinsfolk who currently reside in the land.
Unfortunately, this lack of imagination also extends to the monsters who roam about. At first sight they come across as specially assembled: fuel canisters, tubing, biological substances, arc lights, and more fused together in an animalian package. It’s clear a lot of thought was put into the lodgement of the gadgetry, and how it would be functional for the creature yet simultaneously exploitable by the player (more on that below). As far as inventiveness goes, though, they’re literally just mechanical versions of standard animals. There’s no sense of awe whenever you happen upon a new species because chances are you’ve seen these fauna in Zoo Books. I really don’t get where the praise for them came from- sure it’s better than Beast Wars, but even the indie game Steel Rats offered more ingenuity than what is on display here (my review: https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/279176/).
All of that aside, the real hit on HZD’s inability to feel fresh is the overworld design. I mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating: despite being published by Sony, Zero Dawn is a poor Ubisoft clone. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s run down the list: towers you synchronize to clear the fog of war? Check. Pointless collectibles strewn on the map like confetti? Check. Forts with run-of-the-mill goons to be cleared out? Check. Challenges focused on mastery of some in-game discipline? Check.
This is what boggles my mind. In the immediate years prior to 2017 when Zero Dawn was released,people were slamming the Ubisoft formula and demanding change. But when it comes to this new IP, it’s suddenly a breath of fresh air? It’s pure nonsense. And when I say poor clone, I mean it. They took most of those aspects and modified them in a way that was for the worse. Forts, for starters, come in two versions: corrupted zones for monsters and bandit camps for humans, and both are poorly designed. There was no effort put into the construction or placement of anything. The robots are given some arbitrary magic circle filled with boulders to roam around in, while the humans simply wander amidst a generic conglomeration of lookout nests, stakewalls, and rose patches. As repetitive as the outposts got in Ubisoft games, at least there was a discernible method to the madness- you could see pathways that lead to opportunities or objects assembled in a way as to be capitalized on. Barely any here, less so with the zones, which aren’t even fun playpens to practice archery in due to the idiotic placement of rocks and debris that annoyingly impede your dodges (but conveniently not the range of enemy shockwaves >.>).
Collectibles, too, are oversimplified to the point where they’re just out in the open. Post-ACII Ubisoft titles, at the very least, incorporated some sort of parkour course to find them. While rewards are given for certain sets from merchants, others (most notably datapoints related to filling out your log) yield nothing.
And then there are the towers, which have been converted from stationary pillars to mobile cyber brontosauruses called Tallnecks. They’re actually pretty cool to look at, but scaling can be a pain in the ass courtesy of them stomping about fields festering with rogue bots, which highlights the biggest flaw with Horizon Zero Dawn’s setting- it’s not fun to walk around in.
The hallmark of any open world game is the free roam factor, and while of course you’re going to have places locked off, these restrictions slowly peel away, giving you an immersive simulation to spend hours strolling in. The problem with HZD is, besides human settlements, every other mile contains a breeding site for a specific machine genus, and their tenants are ALWAYS hostile to you. Generally, most RPGs circumvent this issue by either limiting enemy bellicosity to specific classes or rendering it outright neutral once you hit a certain level above them. As you can guess, neither of those are present here, meaning can’t rove around for more than 5-10 minutes before coming across some hatchery, forcing you to either stealth past it or, if you have a mount, dash through. Such a scheme takes away from the enjoyment of the open world; imagine playing Skyrim and having to dog past dragon nests every 10 minutes, or booting up Red Dead Redemption and getting mauled by cougars on each plain you crossed. You’d get aggravated very fast.
Sadly, that isn’t the only aspect that degrades exploration. Zero Dawn came out the same year as Breath of the Wild and Assassin’s Creed Origins, the two of which pioneered unrestricted nature environ climbing. That is, any cliff or bluff you saw, you could begin an ascent to the top, no predesignated starting point required.
Yeah, not only does Zero Dawn not have that, it utilizes a system so antiquated it belongs in the early-2010s. When mesas and elevation grips were starting to get sculpted into game hubs, do you guys remember how that usually worked out for the gameplay? If you didn’t see an obvious ledge to attach your character to, you were spending the majority of your time hopping around the polygon sloping like a caffeinated rabbit. Those of you nostalgic for conducting such actions in Skyrim, Dragon Age, Far Cry 3, etc…rest assured, you’ll be doing it again! HZD has no other technique for circumventing jagged faces, leaving you with three options: find a trail around the range, leap about to cheese the geometry, or hope the developers implemented a vertical route via premade clamps. These babies, which take the form of either whitish grey grooves or yellow-orange handlebars/ropes, are sporadically accoutered in the mountains…and not magnetized as strongly as they could have been. I’m not saying you’ll fall constantly, but expect to miss a few jumps because the game doesn’t differentiate between Aloy jumping towards them versus Aloy jumping away from them (also, the Zack Snyder-esque slo-mos whenever you do a long horizontal bound are just silly). Overall, though, I truly came to despise any mountain range I saw.
I know I’ve been ragging a lot (and there’s more to be had when it comes to the story), but by no means is it all negative. Graphically, Guerilla kicked things into overdrive from their preceding release Killzone Shadow Fall as Horizon is a gorgeous game that still looks good seven years later. Minus one instance of lag, it ran smoothly for me, and the solid draw distance allows you to take in this beautiful world the developers coded. Those of you who grew up reading Ralph Emerson or used to do outdoor recreation will enjoy the variety of environments at your fingertips as almost every biome was incorporated in some area of the map. The dynamic lighting enveloping these places fluctuates through a prism of color, morphing based on clouds, foliage, atmospheric particles, and the placement of the sun. It’s fantastic, though occasionally I’d sometimes get a haphazard shift in color when going from inside to outside, or turning a corner that technically marked a barrier between biomes. There’s also a weather system in place, but this one I’m 90% sure is tied to specific territories as it was even more prone to radical transformations than the luminescence.
I was also very impressed with the hair and cloth physics on Aloy. Hair is very hard to animate, which is why you rarely ever see anything beyond a strand move in cartoons and video games. Yet here, Aloy is given a full head of locks that dances whenever air brushes past them, either by movement or the breeze of the wind. And of course, not much has to be said about the apparel other than that it responds perfectly to kinetic frenzy. One addition that I’m not sure others may have noticed was that, if you equip a suit with metal on it, it’ll actually produce a clinking noise should you budge at all!
On that note (no pun intended), SFX is a great mix of beats edited to produce an array of sounds based on material and velocity. The only downside was that I felt the machines could have had more growls and snarls. Individually, they’re distinct against other packs, but within their own typeset it could get sigh-inducing listening to the same exact warble for the umpteenth time.
Voice acting is, lamentably, mixed. Adult Aloy is played by Ashley Birch who, while a superb actress, all too often drops her register here to a withdrawn tone, which never made sense to me given Aloy’s upbringing as an outsider with grit and determination. The best way I can describe it is, for those of you who played Life is Strange, do you remember how, in the fourth episode, Max spoke very cautiously to Chloe in the alternate timeline (I know, ironic to bring up LiS given that Birch voiced Chloe)? Imagine that kind of diffident cadence and you’ll see the problem I have. For the record, I don’t attribute this to Birch as it was definitely a stage direction command, and I do get the sense that the creators more than likely did it for the sake of wanting her to sound diplomatic; however, it has the effect of making Aloy come off as weaker than she is.
Lance Reddick portrays the other major character, the ominous Sylens, and he’s more consistently good, mainly because Sylens is a stoic individual with not much personality deviation.
Everyone else, from major to minor NPCs, was SO hit-or-miss. You’d think the bigger, story-based troupe members would be inherently better, but no, their performances can range from awful to satisfactory. Some of the most unintentional surprises I experienced came from entering a questline and hearing Thespian-level quality from the most random dude. And it certainly wasn’t a budgetary issue because looking up the cast on IMDB discloses some very big names. I can only say that this was either purely subjective or a case of mediocre ADR (this reasoning supplemented by my aforestated problem with Aloy’s inflections).
With regards to music, listen, it’s always hard to analyze OSTs in massive video games as you never know what you missed. What I will say is, overall, I wasn’t a big fan of what was composed, namely because the emotional, action, exploratory, and stealth beats were fraught with synthesized wind and stringed instruments that were trying too hard to evoke tribal melodies, like a subpar version of David Wise’s score from Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. That being said, revelatory and cinematic moments fared better and could get invigorating courtesy of the music.
When it comes to the gameplay, it’s important to recognize that Horizon is an ARPG. While armor and upgrades are not restricted by level, you will NOT be able to beat any belligerent mechanism five or more levels above you unless you’re interested in engaging in a drawn-out cheesefest that saps you of all your ammunition. It’s admittedly a staple of this genre, and it’s not a particular grindfest here to get stronger. But for those of you hoping to either play through the narrative with limited distractions or partake in any slugfest you witness, you’d best double-check the level advisement first. Otherwise, combat can get VERY frustrating.
Things are further made tough courtesy of Zero Dawn lacking the autolock feature that literally every single competent video game has. I understand this was probably a deliberate decision from Guerilla to prevent potential impairments on the free aim of the bow; however, there are numerous games out there that either have a soft Z-targeting for easy shifting of sights or a hard one with a button for instantaneous switching. You will eventually adapt, but keep in mind that there are growing pains that come with the process, especially when you’re facing off against entire herds. Or at least it did for me- this was, by far, the hardest fighting system I’ve ever had to get the hang of. And investing hour after hour into it made me realize why: Horizon Zero Dawn is essentially a toxophilite's version of a third-person shooter.
No really, unless you’re going up against bots significantly weaker than you, you’re highly encouraged (read- forced) to stay at a distance and rain fire with your recurve. As I stated earlier, each wild monstrosity has exposed parts that your Focus (more on that below) can analyze for vulnerabilities, and while it’s not necessary to use the most effective ammo, doing so significantly speeds up the brawls. As the vast majority of these critters boast long-range ordnance or PDQ lunge attacks, you’ll have to alternate between dodging and sniping. Additional materiel at your disposal like tripwires, landmines, grapnel hooks, and elemental grenade launchers throw in some tactical heterogeneity, though the lion’s share is still conducted by your bowery skill.
As you can imagine, fights only get fun when you’ve advanced a sufficient amount in-game to either acquire larger quivers for more arrows (so that you aren’t constantly stopping to craft new ones) and/or to purchase higher-end weapons that grant you access to different munitions like freeze and corruption. Combined with the level gating and I don’t think I’m out of step in saying that it’s a bizarre foundation that leaves a frustrating first impression. But it does get better, and taking down beasts in intense duels can be exciting as you memorize attack patterns and exchange blows.
On the flip side is stealth combat, which you can employ in bandit camps and, to an extent, hunting arenas. Besides these, though, clandestine operations are pretty much discouraged- you may use them to get a quick jab on a machine, but at equal or greater levels such hits barely pinch them. Also, a number of basic stealth abilities are locked off, which limits the amount you can do initially, but more on that below.
Those topics aside, Horizon has some quality-of-life issues that should have NEVER been present in the first place. One, you’re unable to modify weapons and outfits from their personal menu: you have to instead go into a separate tab and mod from there. Why not make it one and the same? Two, on that topic, you’re limited in the amount of weapons and outfits you can carry….why? I understand putting a cap on resources and upgrades to prevent players from hoarding them, but outfits don’t mean anything, and you can only acquire better war instruments, each model of which has its own side mission. It was a dumb restraint to have.
Three, you’re only provided four hotkeys for weapons. Why do that? I would understand wanting to emphasize preparation if this were a linear title akin to Cosmic Star Heroine (https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/279068/), but it isn’t, it’s open world: you’ll bump into a medley of monsters susceptible to particular tactics, and requiring players to pull an Iron Boots-swap every time they meet a different one doesn't make sense.
Fourth is the skill tree, which is so bad, I’m honestly being gracious in calling it a QOL ailment. You can tell this is Guerilla’s first RPG by way of what they locked off as abilities: calling mounts (worth acquiring ASAP, otherwise you’re spending time skulking around to override machines), attacking from a mount, striking from above/below, shooting arrows from a rope ledge, foraging while on a mount, disabling your own traps, being able to freakin whistle!!!
Not all of them are bad, but when obvious ones that should have been standard gameplay utilities are sealed away, it degrades the overall set-up as you have to waste skill points recouping them before you can get to the good stuff.
Before moving on, let’s talk about the Focus and all its wasted potential. The Focus is a computerized guitar pick that grants Aloy access to an AR interface capable of evaluating living beings and harmonizing with Old World technology. It sounds like a cool gizmo, but you’ll soon find it to basically be a worse version of Eagle Vision from Assassin’s Creed or Detective Mode from the Arkham series. You can only use it while walking, highlighted parts barely stay lit before dipping back to normal, you have to stabilize it on enemies for any analysis to fully complete, and its chief puzzle usage comes down to cosmetically marking tracks to follow ala the vapor tracing from Arkham Asylum. It could have entered video game pop culture as a unique item like the Ocarina or Animus, but is ultimately just another generic sense mode.
Finally, we can talk about the narrative. Horizon takes several existing tropes and throws them into one melting pot- you got the Chosen One, Fish out of Water, and Mysterious Past. Aloy was shunned by the adjacent Nora for not having a Mother, and has dedicated her life to not only garnering their favor but also figuring out what led to her being orphaned. Stuff happens that coincidentally turns her quest of self-discovery into one involving the fate of the world, and it’s up to you to figure out what that is.
From the get-go, there were a couple of problems I had with Aloy that didn’t turn better as things progressed. First, despite being unfamiliar with everything outside the fields she’s grown up in, she doesn’t display any kind of culture shock. You rarely see in her that sense of wonder that generally pervades the demeanor of newcomers entering a fresh reality, which is what should be happening with Aloy each time she arrives at her next destination. Now, as an RPG, you are technically given dialogue options with certain NPCs to inquire further into their customs, but that’s player-driven, not character-driven.
The second is kind of the opposite side of the coin, which is how easily opportunities from these communities present themselves to Aloy for her to amass favor. How do I put it…you guys remember that part in Assassin’s Creed II where Ezio needs a ticket for the boat to Venice, and, lo and behold, sees Caterina Sforza trapped nearby, who provides him with passage as thanks for the rescue? That’s basically what happens here- whenever any kind of resistance springs up in Aloy’s way, some handy dandy dilemma arises that she can resolve to secure favor. Forget the fact that each tribe looks upon the other suspiciously; why is she being so blatantly trusted? It’s not that the writing doesn’t provide justifications, but more-so that it all ends up feeling overly-opportune. When you see a Nora citizen conversing freely with a Carja King, you just can’t help but wonder if this is logical, even in the scope of a sci-fi setting.
Contributing to this propitiousness is Sylens, a cryptic treasure hunter with deep knowledge about the Old World. He’s instrumental in helping Aloy unearth the answers she seeks, and ultimately can’t help but come off as a Mary Sue: having all this past experience and erudition to provide Aloy the solution to bypass ANY obstruction. It doesn’t help that the whole “Radio Mentor” archetype has been done to death, and Horizon doesn’t do anything unique with Sylens.
It really is tough to criticize Horizon’s narrative because it is a prime example of great execution yet inconsistent concepts. Nothing illustrates this better than the grand plot twist, which I guarantee no one will see coming.++ There’s also another aspect about HZD that bothers me.+++
Don’t get me wrong, the story is enjoyable and sets-up a sequel pretty well. Aloy makes for a good protagonist, her interactions with other characters are more in-depth than your typical cartoony RPG discourse, and the pacing never takes a hit. There’s a nice flow that manages to send you all over the map in a smooth, uncontrived manner. But the convenience factor hangs over the plot like a plague, and by the end, I couldn’t help but see Aloy as indifferent from Rose from The Last Jedi.++++
Side missions fare better than their main campaign counterparts due to them predominantly being issued by working-class people who really don’t have the income to be choosy about who they ask for aid. And I really would urge prospective gamers not to sleep on these as they are actually quite well-written. What begins as one prospect turns into another, with the writing digging a deeper well for the storyline to swell out of. I guarantee you you’ll have fun with the majority of them.
Unfortunately, I have to provide one last knockdown, and it is on the entire cinematic scope of the game. Horizon Zero Dawn might very well have the worst loquacious direction I have ever witnessed in an RPG. You will have to talk a lot, and the bulk of these colloquies occur as follows: an NPC will say something, then a noticeable pause, then snap zoom in/out of their face, and then finally they finishing out their thought.
Not even Mass Effect 1, which came out eight years prior, had this level of incompetence in the many chats Shepard partook. If it is not the dumbest auto-dialogue program I will witness, I groan at what is to come. And to top it all off, the lip syncing is too often poor. However, if I may end on a positive note, it is the refutation of the facial capture- I’ve heard a lot of complaints there, and disagree. I thought it aged well and never veered into uncanny territory.
In a nutshell, that’s Horizon Zero Dawn. It has a lot of great aspects, and I’m happy a new IP managed to sprout amidst the AAA field of sequels. However, an uneven story combined with too many faults in the world design and gameplay prevent it from being the masterstroke you may see it claimed as.
As I purchased the Complete Edition, I also had access to The Frozen Wilds DLC. To prevent this page from getting clogged up, you can read my review of it here (https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/493358/), but, in short, I really enjoyed it, and its slick incorporation into the main game is what ultimately bumps up HZD from a 2.5 to a 3/5.
Side note- an underappreciated facet of the game is the little bits of monologue Aloy mutters to herself based on circumstances (i.e., trying to go up a slope with a mount, sliding down a mountain, successfully avoiding an enemy’s gaze). Of course, Horizon is a long game, and as such, these will eventually turn repetitive. But for the first few hours they are definitely cool to hear.
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Spoilers
+The intros share similarities: Aloy and Shepard are attacked by an outside force while teaming up with temporary allies, and both are subsequently promoted by their respective councils to a special rank (Seeker and Spectre) that grants them permission to scour the world undeterred.
Now that I think about it, there are also similitudes with Avatar: the Last Airbender. The four kinfolk are analogous with the four civs in Avatar (Nora = Water Tribe, Carja = Fire Nation, Oseram = Earth Kingdom, Banuk = Air Nomads), and the Fire Nation/Carja caused a great war with the others that left lasting damage.
++It turns out the machines were built by a defense contractor called Faros that evolved to consume biomass ad nauseam, constantly duplicating themselves in the process. Realizing it was futile to destroy them, scientist Elisabet Sobeck devised an AGI named GAIA capable of repopulating the Earth after humanity’s extinction. You won’t see this curveball coming, and during the course of the epiphany, it’s hard not to get enthralled by the alternate history.
And yet, when you think about it at face value, would it really be easier to invent this sprawling digital mind capable of restoring, raising, and monitoring life than to simply hack the Faros code and shut it down? I know the game explicitly states that such a white hat endeavor would take longer than mankind had time for, so it’s not a plot hole by any means. But again, from an Occam's Razor perspective, it comes off a bit contrived.
+++Despite all religious deities actually being AI programs, HZD frustratingly never ventures into that thematic territory of criticizing the foundation of doctrine and how it’s an opiate that can be easily manipulated by humans. I get that they probably didn’t want to wind up in the same boat as Far Cry 5 with zealots slamming the game for alleged blasphemy, but given the very premise is predicated on the contemporary religious schools of thought being misreadings of Old World technology, the writers play things WAY too safely. Sylens making some offhand remark and HADES quoting scripture to delude the Shadow Carja are about the farthest they go. Granted, it’s partly shown that Aloy still holds onto some spirituality, such as her remark about the Nora ashes being scattered by the wind. However, considering the Nora used their piety to ostracize her as a young’un, it’s not a particularly logical progression on her part.
Also, kind of going alongside this, was anyone else let down by the lack of Futurama-esque comedy? Without a transient link from the past to present, it stands to reason that the current denizens would significantly misinterpret artifacts/items/traditions from yore. Disappointingly, a few nonchalant comments from certain merchants are the most you’ll get.
++++What I mean is, you know how, in the third act, you had all these major/minor characters who knew Rose by name and were relying on her to get them out of the heap, even though she hadn’t done anything to warrant that attention? That’s kind of what I mean. Aloy is a foreigner in a world where foreigners are viewed suspiciously, yet by the endgame she’s leading this giant army of allies. I just don’t feel the administration of events leading up to that moment was convincing for me to buy her successful statesmanship.
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Horizon Zero Dawn came out at a time when the Ubisoft open world formula was getting slammed on all fronts. Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch_Dogs, you name it- every major franchise of theirs was subjected to the same criticisms.
And in 2017, here came this AAA monstrosity from Guerilla Games, garnering critical acclaim for having….an Ubisoft open world.
Yeah, you can imagine my disappointment. If you ever needed proof as to the double standards Ubisoft faces, look no further than HZD. Don’t get me wrong, it’s ultimately worth your time, but it also serves as a perennial example that gamers are hypocrites who let their hatred of a company override supposed "principled" stances.
But let’s get down to business. The year it came out, HZD was one of the most-covered IPs, and so, like with the TLOU games, I won’t be going too in-depth with the technical feats (there are plenty of other resources that do a much better job covering that). Instead, I’ll use this review to speak on underrated facets, analyze the story, and, most importantly, isolate any flaws that were overlooked by mainstream and indie publications.
Set in a future United States built atop the ruins of its history, Zero Dawn is an example of retrofuturism being taken literally. The present is a mix of native influences from the colonial era combined with technology of a future too distant from our own. It reminded me a lot of James Cameron’s Avatar, wherein the primitive tools of the Na’vi were contrasted with human tech from the 22nd century, albeit here both sides are presented with even more advanced equipment. The tribes wield trick bows that would make Green Arrow blush, while the mechanical behemoths they face are strange amalgamations of organic matter and sci-fi armaments.
As far as video game settings go, it’s definitely unique, but one thing you’ll find as you spend more and more time in Zero Dawn is just how surface-level a lot of the creativity is. For starters, take the four tribes: Nora, Carja, Oseram, and Banuk. At an initial glance, their varied textiles, architecture, and superstitions would suggest significant cultural diversity. However, penetrate deeper and you’ll see that they’re pretty dang reminiscent of each other: they share the same religious beliefs, viewing AIs and their transmissions as deities and divine messages respectively; their weapons, minus the occasional firearm, are recrafts of one another; their economies are built on comparable industries of hunting, gathering, and bartering. And, most importantly, they speak very similarly to each other. Whether you’re comparing spiritual leaders, warriors, or regular civilians, I never once got a sense that I was in an entirely different civilization with its own dialects, assimilations, or prayers. Compare this to Mass Effect (from which HZD draws a lot from+)- every extraterrestrial you encountered was packed with a hodgepodge of prototypical customs: Turians and Krogans had alternate approaches to war and honor, Quarians and Salarians differed when it came to the utilization of engineering, and the communication patterns of the Drells and Hanar couldn’t have been more disparate.
Now, I know some of you may retort “well Red, those are aliens; in Zero Dawn, we’re talking about humans occupying the same continent and originating from the same aftermath that offed the previous inhabitants- surely that’s going to naturally yield more parallelisms?” To the first part I would say, look at any set of countries in Europe and tell me they’re reskins of the other. Heck, if you’re American, would you consider Canadians to be ethnically akin to you? No, distance combined with anthropologic factors leads to individual pockets of humanity developing divergently. And to the second part, all I’ll say (to avoid spoilers) is enough time has passed between the two eras for there to be strong enough deviations.
But look, even if I grant you the justifications, it still proves my point that Zero Dawn wasn’t as intricately conceptualized as it could have been. While it is nice to see a post-apocalyptic scape that isn’t blatantly channeling Mad Max, it appears the writers primarily spent the pre-production phase obsessing over the events that lead to the downfall of society over distinguishing the kinsfolk who currently reside in the land.
Unfortunately, this lack of imagination also extends to the monsters who roam about. At first sight they come across as specially assembled: fuel canisters, tubing, biological substances, arc lights, and more fused together in an animalian package. It’s clear a lot of thought was put into the lodgement of the gadgetry, and how it would be functional for the creature yet simultaneously exploitable by the player (more on that below). As far as inventiveness goes, though, they’re literally just mechanical versions of standard animals. There’s no sense of awe whenever you happen upon a new species because chances are you’ve seen these fauna in Zoo Books. I really don’t get where the praise for them came from- sure it’s better than Beast Wars, but even the indie game Steel Rats offered more ingenuity than what is on display here (my review: https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/279176/).
All of that aside, the real hit on HZD’s inability to feel fresh is the overworld design. I mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating: despite being published by Sony, Zero Dawn is a poor Ubisoft clone. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s run down the list: towers you synchronize to clear the fog of war? Check. Pointless collectibles strewn on the map like confetti? Check. Forts with run-of-the-mill goons to be cleared out? Check. Challenges focused on mastery of some in-game discipline? Check.
This is what boggles my mind. In the immediate years prior to 2017 when Zero Dawn was released,people were slamming the Ubisoft formula and demanding change. But when it comes to this new IP, it’s suddenly a breath of fresh air? It’s pure nonsense. And when I say poor clone, I mean it. They took most of those aspects and modified them in a way that was for the worse. Forts, for starters, come in two versions: corrupted zones for monsters and bandit camps for humans, and both are poorly designed. There was no effort put into the construction or placement of anything. The robots are given some arbitrary magic circle filled with boulders to roam around in, while the humans simply wander amidst a generic conglomeration of lookout nests, stakewalls, and rose patches. As repetitive as the outposts got in Ubisoft games, at least there was a discernible method to the madness- you could see pathways that lead to opportunities or objects assembled in a way as to be capitalized on. Barely any here, less so with the zones, which aren’t even fun playpens to practice archery in due to the idiotic placement of rocks and debris that annoyingly impede your dodges (but conveniently not the range of enemy shockwaves >.>).
Collectibles, too, are oversimplified to the point where they’re just out in the open. Post-ACII Ubisoft titles, at the very least, incorporated some sort of parkour course to find them. While rewards are given for certain sets from merchants, others (most notably datapoints related to filling out your log) yield nothing.
And then there are the towers, which have been converted from stationary pillars to mobile cyber brontosauruses called Tallnecks. They’re actually pretty cool to look at, but scaling can be a pain in the ass courtesy of them stomping about fields festering with rogue bots, which highlights the biggest flaw with Horizon Zero Dawn’s setting- it’s not fun to walk around in.
The hallmark of any open world game is the free roam factor, and while of course you’re going to have places locked off, these restrictions slowly peel away, giving you an immersive simulation to spend hours strolling in. The problem with HZD is, besides human settlements, every other mile contains a breeding site for a specific machine genus, and their tenants are ALWAYS hostile to you. Generally, most RPGs circumvent this issue by either limiting enemy bellicosity to specific classes or rendering it outright neutral once you hit a certain level above them. As you can guess, neither of those are present here, meaning can’t rove around for more than 5-10 minutes before coming across some hatchery, forcing you to either stealth past it or, if you have a mount, dash through. Such a scheme takes away from the enjoyment of the open world; imagine playing Skyrim and having to dog past dragon nests every 10 minutes, or booting up Red Dead Redemption and getting mauled by cougars on each plain you crossed. You’d get aggravated very fast.
Sadly, that isn’t the only aspect that degrades exploration. Zero Dawn came out the same year as Breath of the Wild and Assassin’s Creed Origins, the two of which pioneered unrestricted nature environ climbing. That is, any cliff or bluff you saw, you could begin an ascent to the top, no predesignated starting point required.
Yeah, not only does Zero Dawn not have that, it utilizes a system so antiquated it belongs in the early-2010s. When mesas and elevation grips were starting to get sculpted into game hubs, do you guys remember how that usually worked out for the gameplay? If you didn’t see an obvious ledge to attach your character to, you were spending the majority of your time hopping around the polygon sloping like a caffeinated rabbit. Those of you nostalgic for conducting such actions in Skyrim, Dragon Age, Far Cry 3, etc…rest assured, you’ll be doing it again! HZD has no other technique for circumventing jagged faces, leaving you with three options: find a trail around the range, leap about to cheese the geometry, or hope the developers implemented a vertical route via premade clamps. These babies, which take the form of either whitish grey grooves or yellow-orange handlebars/ropes, are sporadically accoutered in the mountains…and not magnetized as strongly as they could have been. I’m not saying you’ll fall constantly, but expect to miss a few jumps because the game doesn’t differentiate between Aloy jumping towards them versus Aloy jumping away from them (also, the Zack Snyder-esque slo-mos whenever you do a long horizontal bound are just silly). Overall, though, I truly came to despise any mountain range I saw.
I know I’ve been ragging a lot (and there’s more to be had when it comes to the story), but by no means is it all negative. Graphically, Guerilla kicked things into overdrive from their preceding release Killzone Shadow Fall as Horizon is a gorgeous game that still looks good seven years later. Minus one instance of lag, it ran smoothly for me, and the solid draw distance allows you to take in this beautiful world the developers coded. Those of you who grew up reading Ralph Emerson or used to do outdoor recreation will enjoy the variety of environments at your fingertips as almost every biome was incorporated in some area of the map. The dynamic lighting enveloping these places fluctuates through a prism of color, morphing based on clouds, foliage, atmospheric particles, and the placement of the sun. It’s fantastic, though occasionally I’d sometimes get a haphazard shift in color when going from inside to outside, or turning a corner that technically marked a barrier between biomes. There’s also a weather system in place, but this one I’m 90% sure is tied to specific territories as it was even more prone to radical transformations than the luminescence.
I was also very impressed with the hair and cloth physics on Aloy. Hair is very hard to animate, which is why you rarely ever see anything beyond a strand move in cartoons and video games. Yet here, Aloy is given a full head of locks that dances whenever air brushes past them, either by movement or the breeze of the wind. And of course, not much has to be said about the apparel other than that it responds perfectly to kinetic frenzy. One addition that I’m not sure others may have noticed was that, if you equip a suit with metal on it, it’ll actually produce a clinking noise should you budge at all!
On that note (no pun intended), SFX is a great mix of beats edited to produce an array of sounds based on material and velocity. The only downside was that I felt the machines could have had more growls and snarls. Individually, they’re distinct against other packs, but within their own typeset it could get sigh-inducing listening to the same exact warble for the umpteenth time.
Voice acting is, lamentably, mixed. Adult Aloy is played by Ashley Birch who, while a superb actress, all too often drops her register here to a withdrawn tone, which never made sense to me given Aloy’s upbringing as an outsider with grit and determination. The best way I can describe it is, for those of you who played Life is Strange, do you remember how, in the fourth episode, Max spoke very cautiously to Chloe in the alternate timeline (I know, ironic to bring up LiS given that Birch voiced Chloe)? Imagine that kind of diffident cadence and you’ll see the problem I have. For the record, I don’t attribute this to Birch as it was definitely a stage direction command, and I do get the sense that the creators more than likely did it for the sake of wanting her to sound diplomatic; however, it has the effect of making Aloy come off as weaker than she is.
Lance Reddick portrays the other major character, the ominous Sylens, and he’s more consistently good, mainly because Sylens is a stoic individual with not much personality deviation.
Everyone else, from major to minor NPCs, was SO hit-or-miss. You’d think the bigger, story-based troupe members would be inherently better, but no, their performances can range from awful to satisfactory. Some of the most unintentional surprises I experienced came from entering a questline and hearing Thespian-level quality from the most random dude. And it certainly wasn’t a budgetary issue because looking up the cast on IMDB discloses some very big names. I can only say that this was either purely subjective or a case of mediocre ADR (this reasoning supplemented by my aforestated problem with Aloy’s inflections).
With regards to music, listen, it’s always hard to analyze OSTs in massive video games as you never know what you missed. What I will say is, overall, I wasn’t a big fan of what was composed, namely because the emotional, action, exploratory, and stealth beats were fraught with synthesized wind and stringed instruments that were trying too hard to evoke tribal melodies, like a subpar version of David Wise’s score from Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. That being said, revelatory and cinematic moments fared better and could get invigorating courtesy of the music.
When it comes to the gameplay, it’s important to recognize that Horizon is an ARPG. While armor and upgrades are not restricted by level, you will NOT be able to beat any belligerent mechanism five or more levels above you unless you’re interested in engaging in a drawn-out cheesefest that saps you of all your ammunition. It’s admittedly a staple of this genre, and it’s not a particular grindfest here to get stronger. But for those of you hoping to either play through the narrative with limited distractions or partake in any slugfest you witness, you’d best double-check the level advisement first. Otherwise, combat can get VERY frustrating.
Things are further made tough courtesy of Zero Dawn lacking the autolock feature that literally every single competent video game has. I understand this was probably a deliberate decision from Guerilla to prevent potential impairments on the free aim of the bow; however, there are numerous games out there that either have a soft Z-targeting for easy shifting of sights or a hard one with a button for instantaneous switching. You will eventually adapt, but keep in mind that there are growing pains that come with the process, especially when you’re facing off against entire herds. Or at least it did for me- this was, by far, the hardest fighting system I’ve ever had to get the hang of. And investing hour after hour into it made me realize why: Horizon Zero Dawn is essentially a toxophilite's version of a third-person shooter.
No really, unless you’re going up against bots significantly weaker than you, you’re highly encouraged (read- forced) to stay at a distance and rain fire with your recurve. As I stated earlier, each wild monstrosity has exposed parts that your Focus (more on that below) can analyze for vulnerabilities, and while it’s not necessary to use the most effective ammo, doing so significantly speeds up the brawls. As the vast majority of these critters boast long-range ordnance or PDQ lunge attacks, you’ll have to alternate between dodging and sniping. Additional materiel at your disposal like tripwires, landmines, grapnel hooks, and elemental grenade launchers throw in some tactical heterogeneity, though the lion’s share is still conducted by your bowery skill.
As you can imagine, fights only get fun when you’ve advanced a sufficient amount in-game to either acquire larger quivers for more arrows (so that you aren’t constantly stopping to craft new ones) and/or to purchase higher-end weapons that grant you access to different munitions like freeze and corruption. Combined with the level gating and I don’t think I’m out of step in saying that it’s a bizarre foundation that leaves a frustrating first impression. But it does get better, and taking down beasts in intense duels can be exciting as you memorize attack patterns and exchange blows.
On the flip side is stealth combat, which you can employ in bandit camps and, to an extent, hunting arenas. Besides these, though, clandestine operations are pretty much discouraged- you may use them to get a quick jab on a machine, but at equal or greater levels such hits barely pinch them. Also, a number of basic stealth abilities are locked off, which limits the amount you can do initially, but more on that below.
Those topics aside, Horizon has some quality-of-life issues that should have NEVER been present in the first place. One, you’re unable to modify weapons and outfits from their personal menu: you have to instead go into a separate tab and mod from there. Why not make it one and the same? Two, on that topic, you’re limited in the amount of weapons and outfits you can carry….why? I understand putting a cap on resources and upgrades to prevent players from hoarding them, but outfits don’t mean anything, and you can only acquire better war instruments, each model of which has its own side mission. It was a dumb restraint to have.
Three, you’re only provided four hotkeys for weapons. Why do that? I would understand wanting to emphasize preparation if this were a linear title akin to Cosmic Star Heroine (https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/279068/), but it isn’t, it’s open world: you’ll bump into a medley of monsters susceptible to particular tactics, and requiring players to pull an Iron Boots-swap every time they meet a different one doesn't make sense.
Fourth is the skill tree, which is so bad, I’m honestly being gracious in calling it a QOL ailment. You can tell this is Guerilla’s first RPG by way of what they locked off as abilities: calling mounts (worth acquiring ASAP, otherwise you’re spending time skulking around to override machines), attacking from a mount, striking from above/below, shooting arrows from a rope ledge, foraging while on a mount, disabling your own traps, being able to freakin whistle!!!
Not all of them are bad, but when obvious ones that should have been standard gameplay utilities are sealed away, it degrades the overall set-up as you have to waste skill points recouping them before you can get to the good stuff.
Before moving on, let’s talk about the Focus and all its wasted potential. The Focus is a computerized guitar pick that grants Aloy access to an AR interface capable of evaluating living beings and harmonizing with Old World technology. It sounds like a cool gizmo, but you’ll soon find it to basically be a worse version of Eagle Vision from Assassin’s Creed or Detective Mode from the Arkham series. You can only use it while walking, highlighted parts barely stay lit before dipping back to normal, you have to stabilize it on enemies for any analysis to fully complete, and its chief puzzle usage comes down to cosmetically marking tracks to follow ala the vapor tracing from Arkham Asylum. It could have entered video game pop culture as a unique item like the Ocarina or Animus, but is ultimately just another generic sense mode.
Finally, we can talk about the narrative. Horizon takes several existing tropes and throws them into one melting pot- you got the Chosen One, Fish out of Water, and Mysterious Past. Aloy was shunned by the adjacent Nora for not having a Mother, and has dedicated her life to not only garnering their favor but also figuring out what led to her being orphaned. Stuff happens that coincidentally turns her quest of self-discovery into one involving the fate of the world, and it’s up to you to figure out what that is.
From the get-go, there were a couple of problems I had with Aloy that didn’t turn better as things progressed. First, despite being unfamiliar with everything outside the fields she’s grown up in, she doesn’t display any kind of culture shock. You rarely see in her that sense of wonder that generally pervades the demeanor of newcomers entering a fresh reality, which is what should be happening with Aloy each time she arrives at her next destination. Now, as an RPG, you are technically given dialogue options with certain NPCs to inquire further into their customs, but that’s player-driven, not character-driven.
The second is kind of the opposite side of the coin, which is how easily opportunities from these communities present themselves to Aloy for her to amass favor. How do I put it…you guys remember that part in Assassin’s Creed II where Ezio needs a ticket for the boat to Venice, and, lo and behold, sees Caterina Sforza trapped nearby, who provides him with passage as thanks for the rescue? That’s basically what happens here- whenever any kind of resistance springs up in Aloy’s way, some handy dandy dilemma arises that she can resolve to secure favor. Forget the fact that each tribe looks upon the other suspiciously; why is she being so blatantly trusted? It’s not that the writing doesn’t provide justifications, but more-so that it all ends up feeling overly-opportune. When you see a Nora citizen conversing freely with a Carja King, you just can’t help but wonder if this is logical, even in the scope of a sci-fi setting.
Contributing to this propitiousness is Sylens, a cryptic treasure hunter with deep knowledge about the Old World. He’s instrumental in helping Aloy unearth the answers she seeks, and ultimately can’t help but come off as a Mary Sue: having all this past experience and erudition to provide Aloy the solution to bypass ANY obstruction. It doesn’t help that the whole “Radio Mentor” archetype has been done to death, and Horizon doesn’t do anything unique with Sylens.
It really is tough to criticize Horizon’s narrative because it is a prime example of great execution yet inconsistent concepts. Nothing illustrates this better than the grand plot twist, which I guarantee no one will see coming.++ There’s also another aspect about HZD that bothers me.+++
Don’t get me wrong, the story is enjoyable and sets-up a sequel pretty well. Aloy makes for a good protagonist, her interactions with other characters are more in-depth than your typical cartoony RPG discourse, and the pacing never takes a hit. There’s a nice flow that manages to send you all over the map in a smooth, uncontrived manner. But the convenience factor hangs over the plot like a plague, and by the end, I couldn’t help but see Aloy as indifferent from Rose from The Last Jedi.++++
Side missions fare better than their main campaign counterparts due to them predominantly being issued by working-class people who really don’t have the income to be choosy about who they ask for aid. And I really would urge prospective gamers not to sleep on these as they are actually quite well-written. What begins as one prospect turns into another, with the writing digging a deeper well for the storyline to swell out of. I guarantee you you’ll have fun with the majority of them.
Unfortunately, I have to provide one last knockdown, and it is on the entire cinematic scope of the game. Horizon Zero Dawn might very well have the worst loquacious direction I have ever witnessed in an RPG. You will have to talk a lot, and the bulk of these colloquies occur as follows: an NPC will say something, then a noticeable pause, then snap zoom in/out of their face, and then finally they finishing out their thought.
Not even Mass Effect 1, which came out eight years prior, had this level of incompetence in the many chats Shepard partook. If it is not the dumbest auto-dialogue program I will witness, I groan at what is to come. And to top it all off, the lip syncing is too often poor. However, if I may end on a positive note, it is the refutation of the facial capture- I’ve heard a lot of complaints there, and disagree. I thought it aged well and never veered into uncanny territory.
In a nutshell, that’s Horizon Zero Dawn. It has a lot of great aspects, and I’m happy a new IP managed to sprout amidst the AAA field of sequels. However, an uneven story combined with too many faults in the world design and gameplay prevent it from being the masterstroke you may see it claimed as.
As I purchased the Complete Edition, I also had access to The Frozen Wilds DLC. To prevent this page from getting clogged up, you can read my review of it here (https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/493358/), but, in short, I really enjoyed it, and its slick incorporation into the main game is what ultimately bumps up HZD from a 2.5 to a 3/5.
Side note- an underappreciated facet of the game is the little bits of monologue Aloy mutters to herself based on circumstances (i.e., trying to go up a slope with a mount, sliding down a mountain, successfully avoiding an enemy’s gaze). Of course, Horizon is a long game, and as such, these will eventually turn repetitive. But for the first few hours they are definitely cool to hear.
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Spoilers
+The intros share similarities: Aloy and Shepard are attacked by an outside force while teaming up with temporary allies, and both are subsequently promoted by their respective councils to a special rank (Seeker and Spectre) that grants them permission to scour the world undeterred.
Now that I think about it, there are also similitudes with Avatar: the Last Airbender. The four kinfolk are analogous with the four civs in Avatar (Nora = Water Tribe, Carja = Fire Nation, Oseram = Earth Kingdom, Banuk = Air Nomads), and the Fire Nation/Carja caused a great war with the others that left lasting damage.
++It turns out the machines were built by a defense contractor called Faros that evolved to consume biomass ad nauseam, constantly duplicating themselves in the process. Realizing it was futile to destroy them, scientist Elisabet Sobeck devised an AGI named GAIA capable of repopulating the Earth after humanity’s extinction. You won’t see this curveball coming, and during the course of the epiphany, it’s hard not to get enthralled by the alternate history.
And yet, when you think about it at face value, would it really be easier to invent this sprawling digital mind capable of restoring, raising, and monitoring life than to simply hack the Faros code and shut it down? I know the game explicitly states that such a white hat endeavor would take longer than mankind had time for, so it’s not a plot hole by any means. But again, from an Occam's Razor perspective, it comes off a bit contrived.
+++Despite all religious deities actually being AI programs, HZD frustratingly never ventures into that thematic territory of criticizing the foundation of doctrine and how it’s an opiate that can be easily manipulated by humans. I get that they probably didn’t want to wind up in the same boat as Far Cry 5 with zealots slamming the game for alleged blasphemy, but given the very premise is predicated on the contemporary religious schools of thought being misreadings of Old World technology, the writers play things WAY too safely. Sylens making some offhand remark and HADES quoting scripture to delude the Shadow Carja are about the farthest they go. Granted, it’s partly shown that Aloy still holds onto some spirituality, such as her remark about the Nora ashes being scattered by the wind. However, considering the Nora used their piety to ostracize her as a young’un, it’s not a particularly logical progression on her part.
Also, kind of going alongside this, was anyone else let down by the lack of Futurama-esque comedy? Without a transient link from the past to present, it stands to reason that the current denizens would significantly misinterpret artifacts/items/traditions from yore. Disappointingly, a few nonchalant comments from certain merchants are the most you’ll get.
++++What I mean is, you know how, in the third act, you had all these major/minor characters who knew Rose by name and were relying on her to get them out of the heap, even though she hadn’t done anything to warrant that attention? That’s kind of what I mean. Aloy is a foreigner in a world where foreigners are viewed suspiciously, yet by the endgame she’s leading this giant army of allies. I just don’t feel the administration of events leading up to that moment was convincing for me to buy her successful statesmanship.
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