Horizon Forbidden West Reviews

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Horizon Forbidden West is a fantastic sequel, and despite some issues, is absolutely worth the play.

Horizon Forbidden West is utterly gorgeous and builds on the original's intense combat, but a lack of ambition and a flat narrative hold it back as a sequel. It provides more of the first game but bigger, with a few new inclusions struggling against the tidal wave of familiarity.

With its previous visual and gameplay quality vastly improved, Horizon Forbidden West's PC port not only is the ultimate Horizon experience but is also an accomplishment in porting and video game development.

With show-stopping visuals, epic machine battles, and vastly improved world-building, Horizon Forbidden West is a masterclass in making a video game sequel the right way.

Horizon Forbidden West is an exceptionally crafted sequel, delivering a thrilling open-world experience that fans of the original game will love.

The original Horizon managed to deliver an experience that sounded insane on paper. Taking down massive machines with a bow and arrow seems like a concept reserved for a game much less grounded than the serious world of Horizon. Yet, Zero Dawn absolutely nailed its combat in a way that most games could only dream about.

Tremortusks, Tiderippers, and Dreadwings, oh my! Aloy is back and she's traveling to the Forbidden West. Does her journey involve saving the world and punching new mechasaurs? Absolutely.

Horizon: Forbidden West is a worthy sequel to Zero Dawn, reaching new impressive heights in terms of story, gameplay, mechanics and the open world design.

Horizon Forbidden West goes bigger and better in almost every regard but some rough story elements and clumsy climbing mechanics keep it from being as outstanding as it is visually.

It's an intriguing mystery with heartfelt moments. It also wants to be Mass Effect 2 so bad.

Horizon Forbidden West is a more confident sequel building on what made its predecessor great. What holds it back are some pacing issues and a few antiquated gameplay elements.

Horizon Forbidden West could be much more, but what's here is beautiful, cleverly designed, and just plain fun to play.

Horizon Forbidden West builds upon Zero Dawn by adding new enemies, traversal options, combat, and a massive new map to explore. With the absolutely stunning cinematics, gorgeous ecosystems, and compelling story, there’s so much to love about Horizon Forbidden West.

The good news is that the review ratings are finally soaring. Initially, when not a lot of players have played the game, the review ratings are easily influenced by a few negative reviews, but as more and more players are finishing the game, the ratings are finally rising, and at the time of writing this article, it is at 8/10 with Generally Favorable Reviews. At the time of launch, it was barely around 4/10. With the critic score already at 88, it shouldn't be long before we witness the user reviews reaching closer to the 90 mark as well.

Aloy returns in a sequel to the brilliant Horizon series and this time, she's travelling through the expansive and varied Forbidden West.

“Horizon Forbidden West improves on just about every aspect of its predecessor with better combat, machines, and traversal.”

I was worried about Horizon Forbidden West, but a few hours in a lot of my fears were eliminated. Guerrilla Games has a great handle on the open-world genre at this point, and knows how to cater to people who do like certain broader comfort-food elements without going overboard. It’s a shame that we have to wait so long between projects, but if it ensures this level of quality, I can deal.

Guerrilla successfully shed its designation as the Killzone studio with Horizon Zero Dawn. With that title, they jumped into a brave new narrative-focused world and found momentous success. Following it up was going to be no easy task, but the studio has managed to mostly succeed with Horizon Forbidden West. The story is better told by splitting intrigue and suspense across both the modern day and Old Ones story. There are more interesting and better-developed characters, both friend and foe. The world of the Forbidden West is vast and filled with more entertaining activities than Zero Dawn's world, and it's bolstered by the same excellent gameplay fans have come to know and love. It's disappointing that platforming is a major step back from the original title, creating frustration when trying to figure out what's automated and what's climbable. With a campaign that lasts twenty hours and plenty of side quests, it's great that the presentation is as gorgeous as it is, though it could have used additional polish to iron out the technical bugs and glitches. Horizon Forbidden West is a great sequel that builds upon and expands what made the original so beloved, and though it takes some steps back in terms of certain mechanics and polish, it's still a thrilling ride from start to finish.

Horizon Forbidden West is an ambitious game that builds off the strengths of its predecessor in almost every way. The world is a more interesting place to spend time, the combat has evolved, and the visuals have taken leaps that exceeded my expectations even with the generation jump in hardware. It’s a shame that outside of the core cast there is a depth lacking for most of the characters, and leaving color blind options out of a game that uses color in its mechanics is a miss on otherwise great accessibility options. What I can’t let go of, though, is just how good Horizon Forbidden West is everywhere else. I need to find all the weapons. I must unlock all the skills. I’ve got to know what’s in those Relic Ruins or solve the puzzle and defeat the boss in the Cauldron. Horizon Forbidden West is absurdly good in so many ways that it borders on must-play for open world aficionados.

Horizon Forbidden West improves upon Zero Dawn in almost every aspect. The story is particularly well written and ebbs and flows from air punching highs to dark, horrific lows. Like later Jurassic Park movies it suffers from the fact that we've already seen massive robotic dinosaurs on our TVs, the wow factor is reduced, and that the puzzles, crafting, and RPG elements could have been lifted from any number of games. Even so, it's still a spectacular robo-beast smack down and thoroughly enjoyable to play.

Horizon Forbidden West is a step above its fellow open world games because it goes out of its way to ensure that everything is worth doing, not just the main story. It's more of the same from Zero Dawn in a lot of ways, but with significant improvements across the board to create a generally superior experience. And while Guerrilla said that Horizon Forbidden West isn't being held back by being a cross-gen game, it will be exciting to see what the studio can do when building a Horizon adventure from the ground-up for PS5. In the meantime, Horizon Forbidden West is another must-play PlayStation exclusive.

Forbidden West is a must-play for any PS5 owner and provides a riveting story, expanded combat options, and quests that further give life to Aloy’s world.

Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the best games of the last console generation. I'm not sure I see any reason why Horizon Forbidden West won't go down as one of the best of this generation.

The follow-up to 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the most eagerly anticipated titles of 2022, and for good reason. Its unique sci-fi take on humanity’s future set captivated players and made us want to see Aloy’s story through to the end. Horizon Forbidden West picks up right where the first game lets off and takes us into uncharted territory as Aloy tries to fulfill her destiny and complete the mission of Project Zero Dawn.

Horizon Forbidden West is a spectacular sequel to one of the PS4's best exclusives. Its narrative is one of its strengths, with unforgettable characters and twists and turns that maintain a solid pace throughout, and it's combat has been expanded on, adding in new weapon and ammo types to make eliminating machines and humans an immensely satisfying experience. All of this is wrapped up in a world that feels more alive and meticulously crafted than its predecessor with visuals and animations that bring that special blockbuster feel Sony's exclusives are now renowned for to the PS5. Bugs and glitches can occasionally take the shine off it, but with many addressed by the day one update, these are likely to have less of an impact on your experience. Horizon Forbidden West is a must-play if you own a PS5, and an easy GOTY contender in 2022.

Horizon Forbidden West is a bigger, better game than the original in nearly every way. With tons of engaging side content, a wide array of beautiful biomes to explore, and multiple threatening new machines to take on, there's a lot to see and do in the Forbidden West.

For a long time, Dutch developer Guerrilla Games was known to PlayStation gamers as the maker of Killzone, a gritty first-person shooter franchise that had its heyday with the second installment released for PlayStation 3. I was quite the fan of that IP, and I do hope it returns someday (we do know that the studio is juggling a second project, after all), but I am an even bigger fan of open world action roleplaying games. Horizon Zero Dawn rightfully propelled Guerrilla much higher than Killzone ever did with regards to both critical reception and commercial success; the question, though, was whether they could replicate this with Horizon Forbidden West.

Thematically rich and bursting with content, Horizon Forbidden West is a beautiful and bloated behemoth of a game.

Robot dinosaurs. For many, that’s all I need to say. It’s a concept that makes so much sense that it’s almost ludicrous that it didn’t exist in games before Guerrilla Games gave us the first entry in the series, Horizon Zero Dawn. The Dinobots Industrial Complex must be daunting indeed.

In the end, this is Aloy’s story: She continues to be a headstrong protagonist, and I say that admiringly. In Forbidden West, she takes no shit — but she also learns valuable lessons about accepting help, and about acknowledging the grief that comes from growing up as an outcast. She goes to bat for the people she cares about. Forbidden West homes in on the contrast between her convictions and those of Dr. Elisabet Sobeck, the creator of the Zero Dawn project that set the whole series in motion, and the character from whom Aloy was cloned. Where Sobeck took the destruction of humanity as an assumption, and worked to repopulate the Earth, Aloy fights for the survival of those who are alive today. Even as the story throws in twists and additional characters that alter the scope of the threat she’s up against, her steadfast resolve remains. Getting to play as her — in such a beautiful and densely packed world — is a journey I won’t walk away from anytime soon.

Horizon Forbidden West is the continuation of Aloy’s adventure, after taking our collective breath away with the stellar Horizon Zero Dawn back in 2017. Back then, we awarded it our Game of the Year, highlighting a world that was full of gorgeous detail, just begging to be explored. Five years later, the long-awaited sequel is not only a positive step forward for the series, but it’s also a sign that Guerilla Games truly listened to the feedback from the first game, enhancing and refining...

Horizon Zero Dawn was just the introduction to Guerrilla Games’ fascinating world and the unlikely hero who would do everything in her power to save it. The sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, takes everything to an exciting new level with its novel mechanics and riveting lore. Guerrilla Games improves on the last game’s shortcomings and isn’t afraid to borrow popular features from other big-name series, like Uncharted, Mass Effect, and Assassin’s Creed. The result is a game that’s not only fun to play, but full of surprises and wonder. Zero Dawn was a great proof of concept, but Forbidden West shows Guerrilla Games still has plenty of thought-provoking and compelling places to take Aloy’s adventures.

Horizon Forbidden West is a wonderful follow-up to one of the PS4’s surprise hits, but technical issues and inconsistent controls dampen the otherwise excellent experience. Aloy has quickly grown into one of my favorite Sony protagonists, and the wide cast of characters each bring their own unique flavor to the game. Higher quality side quests, combined with a main campaign that feels grander in scope and is much better paced than the original, make for a strong story, and the beautiful environments, combined with highly detailed character models and improved gameplay, make this an early candidate for Game of the Year.

An expansive, beautiful and engrossing new adventure that deepens the series' lore while doubling down on what made the original such a classic. A masterclass in meaningful open-world design, where exploration and curiosity is encouraged and rewarded.

When a title gets a grand number, it’s a video-game worth spending your whole life in.

INVERSE VIDEO GAME REVIEW ETHOS: Every Inverse video game review answers two questions: Is this game worth your time? And, are you getting what you pay for? We have no tolerance for endless fetch quests, clunky mechanics, or bugs that dilute the experience. We care deeply about a game’s design, world-building, character arcs, and storytelling come together. Inverse will never punch down, but we aren’t afraid to punch up. We love magic and science-fiction in equal measure. And as much as we love experiencing rich stories and worlds through games, we won’t ignore the real-world context in which those games are made.

Aloy is set to go west – where the skies are blue – but will life be peaceful there, or will mysterious threats ruin her freshly-minted hero status?

With Horizon Forbidden West, Guerilla is armed with the grunt of the PlayStation 5, and we get not just a catalogue of alluring tones but a richer palette of ideas.

Red-haired Aloy returns in a slightly new, slightly old adventure and immediately steals our hearts. Horizon Forbidden West does not revolutionize sandboxes, but it is still one of the best games in this genre in years.