Horizon Forbidden West

Now we know that Elden Ring is a better game, too. Horizon 2 is still good, but Elden Ring is a GOAT contender.
 
Meh

I guess i'm the only one who hates From software games?

Plenty of people despise the Souls games and they aren't for everyone. IMO, Horizon really isn't either, though. Neither of them.
 
Meh

I guess i'm the only one who hates From software games?
Elden Ring didn’t really land with me. I put about 15 hours or so in it. I don’t know maybe someday it will click, but for now I’m not playing it.
 
I played for about 30 hours of ER and it isn't really clicking with me either. I had no issues with DS1,2,3 but for some reason I just can't really get into ER. I think my problem is why I feel HFW is a better game, I have no motivation to keep going forward. In Horizon I was constantly coming back in order to continue the story. Even if I hold off continuing to gather upgrade materials, or do side quests to get stronger, in the end if I get bored of grinding, I go do a "main" mission and the story motivates me to continue (not to mention some side quests have stories of their own that can motivate me to go on). That is sorely missing in pretty much all From Software games. They usually have an opening kind of story, then barely anything at all till you reach the end. I was really expecting too much when I heard GRRM was helping with the game, but all he did was make world lore, what a waste of what I was hoping would be a defining shift in a From Software game. I hope I can get into ER someday, but I don't find the game anywhere near GOAT, good game sure. Better than HFW? Nah they are about the same for me, but I'd probably give a slight lead to HFW only due to the story and NPC character interactions motivating me to continue to come back and play the game.
 
I tried to dual wield HFW and Elden Ring but I couldn't. I decided to drop HFW and stick with Elden Ring for now. My reasoning is that HFW felt too much like a generic ubisoft open world game, albeit with a much better story. Elden Ring was a breath of fresh air much like BotW was when the first Horizon released. Gone was the map littered with a million icons, no more side "chores" (let's face it, they're chores, not quests), and the whole multiplayer/community aspect of Elden Ring made it a more interesting choice. I love the feeling of a shared world with all of the other tarnished out there leaving messages, ghosts, and blood stains. It's like we're all suffering together and that makes the suffering more bearable.

I do hope to return to HFW at some point, hopefully without the open world burn out. I think I have to learn to ignore all the side quests and just bee-line the main story.
 
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I tried to dual wield HFW and Elden Ring but I couldn't. I decided to drop HFW and stick with Elden Ring for now. My reasoning is that HFW felt too much like a generic ubisoft open world game, albeit with a much better story. Elden Ring was a breath of fresh air much like BotW was when the first Horizon released. Gone was the map littered with a million icons, no more side "chores" (let's face it, they're chores, not quests), and the whole multiplayer/community aspect of Elden Ring made it a more interesting choice. I love the feeling of a shared world with all of the other tarnished out there leaving messages, ghosts, and blood stains. It's like we're all suffering together and that makes the suffering more bearable.

I do hope to return to HFW at some point, hopefully without the open world burn out. I think I have to learn to ignore all the side quests and just bee-line the main story.
Yeah...I've been putting off HFW because of this. I really need the basking glow of ER to wear off before I give another open world game a shot. I've been done with Elden Ring for weeks now, having put 115 hours in within 14 days of release and beating it. Honestly I almost feel ready for a NG+ run which would push HFW back even further. I just love the "choose your own adventure" aspect of an open world game that doesn't force you to take a certain route or progress a main quest far enough to advance the game. When I came out of the first ER dungeon I went straight to Caelid and got my ass handed to me, and that was the most fun I've had in some time. Replicating that anytime soon won't be possible. Kind of making me steer clear of the open world genre in general so I'm playing a different type of game where I can't make comparisons.
 
I haven't been able to play this as much as I'd like since it launched, but I play every chance I get after work and gym (maybe once a week for an hour after) and a few hours on the weekends.

But somehow I'm 91 hours into this game and not beat it yet because I keep doing side quests and jobs to acquire new/upgraded weapons, lol.

I beat the first game in about 50 hours and completed every side quest I could before doing the final mission. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that this time without completely forgetting the main story 😅. I do a main quest after a few sides/jobs though and think I'm nearing the end..? I'm about to meet up with the Avengers team to attack the Far Zenith people and hopefully get Beta back from them.
 
I haven't been able to play this as much as I'd like since it launched, but I play every chance I get after work and gym (maybe once a week for an hour after) and a few hours on the weekends.

But somehow I'm 91 hours into this game and not beat it yet because I keep doing side quests and jobs to acquire new/upgraded weapons, lol.

I beat the first game in about 50 hours and completed every side quest I could before doing the final mission. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that this time without completely forgetting the main story 😅. I do a main quest after a few sides/jobs though and think I'm nearing the end..? I'm about to meet up with the Avengers team to attack the Far Zenith people and hopefully get Beta back from them.

You're actually at the final quest of the main story. When you go to the starting point it will give you the "this the point of no return" warning.

Just a fair warning: Make sure you have a weapon or two with Plasma damage and stock up on the resources you need to craft additional ammo for those weapons. Plasma basically melts the end game bosses and turns the fights from long slogs (due to some pretty insane health bar creep) into something actually enjoyable.
 
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You're actually at the final quest of the main story. When you go to the starting point it will give you the "this the point of no return" warning.

Just a fair warning: Make sure you have a weapon or two with Plasma damage and stock up on the resources you need to craft additional ammo for those weapons. Plasma basically melts the end game bosses and turns the fights from long slogs (due to some pretty insane health bar creep) into something actually enjoyable.
Thanks for that. I've been putting that last quest off for a bit now while I finish up the more interesting side quests with your team mates (wasn't sure if that factored into the end or not, I assume not) and trying to upgrade the legendary hunter bow I got from the arena. Getting the Fire Claw Sac Webbing was annoying for that upgrade too because it's very hard to kill the Fire Claw without exploding his chest piece where that webbing is located.

I've been playing again for half of today and think I'll finish the main quest up tonight and do some more exploring and unlocking/upgrading afterwards.

I wish they'd go ahead and announce the DLC for this and add NG+ as well. Think it took them 3-4 months to add NG+ for ZD and I enjoyed replaying that game on Ultra Hard with all my upgraded equipment. So I plan to do the same here.
 
Finally been motivated to put some time into this game (after the delivery company lost my CE), still early days but liking it so far, haven't played much shooters on console lately so need to get my controller skills back up.
 
is underwater exploration and combat a big part of Forbidden West?...I just finished Zero Dawn on PC and loved it
 
is underwater exploration and combat a big part of Forbidden West?...I just finished Zero Dawn on PC and loved it
It's a small required part. There's no underwater combat that I know of, you have to hide to avoid confrontation, but I don't think you can defend yourself under water. I didn't find it frustrating.
 
is underwater exploration and combat a big part of Forbidden West?...I just finished Zero Dawn on PC and loved it

There is no underwater combat and only a couple parts of the game where you are forced to spend much time underwater avoiding enemies. The underwater stealth/hiding is a bit shallow, but it's done well enough that it feels good. There is a really good dungeon that makes great use of swimming and avoiding enemies.
 
Well I just pulled an all-nighter and played this for almost 12 hours straight and finally finished the main story after milking as much as I could out of all the side quests and farming weapon upgrades. The stats put me at 111 hours for my first play through, lol.

I have a few trophies to get still, one of which is for winning two machine strike games that I never played past the tutorial. And I still need to finish some of the arena battles and get a few legendary weapons as well.

Really enjoyed the ending though and thought they wrapped it up very well. I thought it was a bit short past the point of no return, but I'm sure some people appreciated it not being dragged out as well.

Can't wait for the DLC to drop now and hopefully NG+ soon as well. On ZD I think I had just finished playing my NG+ round on Ultra Hard just in time for the Frozen Wilds DLC to drop, so hope they kind of give us enough time to do another NG+ before dropping the DLC this time too.

I really should move on to CP2077 or Spiderman that I never played or something, but I'm really loving the game play and combat on this still. So I'm glad for all the extra content and explorable areas this time around. 😎
 
I really should move on to CP2077 or Spiderman that I never played or something, but I'm really loving the game play and combat on this still. So I'm glad for all the extra content and explorable areas this time around. 😎

I just finished Horizon Zero Dawn on PC for the first time and I'm also tempted to play again in NG+ even though I have a bunch of other games in my backlog I want to get to (Cyberpunk 2077, God of War PC, Elden Ring etc)...the game is so addicting...excellent combat, amazing setting, really nice graphics etc
 
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I just finished Horizon Zero Dawn on PC for the first time and I'm also tempted to play again in NG+ even though I have a bunch of other games in my backlog I want to get to (Cyberpunk 2077, God of War PC, Elden Ring etc)...the game is so addicting...excellent combat, amazing setting, really nice graphics etc
How many hours did you have on your game (there's a stats menu somewhere with your inventory and map)? Think I had done absolutely everything in ZD before finishing the main quest and was almost to the 50 hour mark when I beat it. Meanwhile I'm at 111 hours on FW and still have a couple side quests and many other errands/jobs/ruins/etc to knock out. It's probably too much for most people, but for me anything to keep me coming back is appreciated. Played on Normal difficulty the first time on both games.

If you don't have a PS5 yet, you should go for that Forbidden West bundle they just released. Though I'm sure they'll still be just as hard to get as any other model until now.
 
How many hours did you have on your game (there's a stats menu somewhere with your inventory and map)? Think I had done absolutely everything in ZD before finishing the main quest and was almost to the 50 hour mark when I beat it.

in all my games I spend more hours then the average as I take my time exploring and enjoying everything the game has to offer...with Horizon Zero Dawn (plus the Frozen Wilds DLC) I spent close to 140 hours...I was going to jump into NG+ right away but I'm burnt out now and need a break...will definitely be replaying this in the future though

hopefully the wait for Forbidden West to come to PC won't be as long as the first game...I bought a PS4 for Bloodborne (sold it a year later) but don't see myself buying a PS5 as it seems Sony is now releasing a lot of their big exclusives on PC
 
Platinum'd FW tonight. Definitely one of the easier Platinums, and I appreciate that none of the trophies required you to collect hundreds of things or sent you on any crazy treasure hunts. Which they could have easily done here with all the old notes you can find. The only one I didn't care much for was the Machine Strike board game trophy because I never cared to play a board game while playing a AAA action/adventure game (pro tip: play very defensively on this game and it gets much easier).

My last trophy was to defeat Asara at the last rebel camp with Erend. She died in a funny pose limped over a cliff, so I celebrated with a pose over her.

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Horizon Forbidden West– Major Update– Patch 1.14

Patch 1.14 for Horizon Forbidden West is now available...

https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/comments/v3kac9/horizon_forbidden_west_major_update_patch_114/

New Features:

We’re so thankful for our incredibly talented community and are happy to announce that this major update includes much-requested features, including:

-New Game+
-Ultra Hard difficulty mode when selecting the difficulty for New Game or New Game Plus
-Reset Skills functionality within the menu
-New functionality to apply a different look to Aloy’s armor
-New Rewards available in New Game+ (Weapons, Dyes and Face Paints)
-A New Trophy Set

Fixes and Improvements:

We’ve revamped Temporal Anti-Aliasing to improve the visual fidelity of our Performance mode on PS5 and rendering on PS4 Pro...We’re already working on an upcoming patch which will include VRR support and a 40FPS Mode

-Performance and Stability
-Improved visual fidelity
-Multiple crash fixes
 
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Horizon Forbidden West– Major Update– Patch 1.14

Patch 1.14 for Horizon Forbidden West is now available...

https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/comments/v3kac9/horizon_forbidden_west_major_update_patch_114/

New Features:

We’re so thankful for our incredibly talented community and are happy to announce that this major update includes much-requested features, including:

-New Game+
-Ultra Hard difficulty mode when selecting the difficulty for New Game or New Game Plus
-Reset Skills functionality within the menu
-New functionality to apply a different look to Aloy’s armor
-New Rewards available in New Game+ (Weapons, Dyes and Face Paints)
-A New Trophy Set

Fixes and Improvements:

We’ve revamped Temporal Anti-Aliasing to improve the visual fidelity of our Performance mode on PS5 and rendering on PS4 Pro...We’re already working on an upcoming patch which will include VRR support and a 40FPS Mode

-Performance and Stability
-Improved visual fidelity
-Multiple crash fixes
Perfect timing for me. I'm about to finish up farming for parts to max out my legendary weapons and outfits. Then I'll start NG+ on Ultra Hard just like I did on ZD.

Looks like I'm going to have over 300 hours in this game at least after 2 play throughs and future DLC. 😎
 
VRR seems to be working nicely. I only played a little bit in each mode and even the 30FPS resolution mode will use VRR appearing to run smoother than pre-VRR, however, I've been playing Breath of the Wild on Switch, so anything that can hold a solid 30FPS is currently impressive to me.
 
Just in time to start my NG+ run on Ultra Hard. I've spent almost 150 hours in my first game now just exploring absolutely everything on the map and also farming parts to upgrade all the legendary weapons and armors. But you also get different legendary weapons in NG+ as well, which is cool.

For anyone just getting into or still into this game, I found this channel Arctix to be really helpful and informative with various strategies and guides.
 
Just got a chance to try out the 40fps "balanced" mode and it's awesome. I can barely tell the difference between it and performance mode in terms of smoothness. But I also wasn't pixel peeping much to see if I could tell much difference in resolution. I think the better trade off would have been too improve LoD distance or something rather than resolution. But the game is gorgeous either way, so I can't really complain. 😅
 
Glad they fixed all the visual issues. I played a bit the week before elden ring came out and it was kind of a shit show. Then again zero dawn was the same way at launch and it ended up perfect. I didn't really think FW looked any better even on PS5 at first. Excited to jump in as I am a little burned out on ER after 230 hours !
 
I've been playing for a long while with my oldest daughter. I'm probably 3/4ths of the way through with side missions but I've not found the joy I did with HZD, especially with upgrades. It was bad enough that I had to hunt down every known living animal to increase my bag & quiver sizes but HFW is even crazier to me.

Looks like I'll play it through until I beat it & wait for the expansion to arrive.
 
I did almost everything you could do in HZD and kept going back to it. Something about Forbidden West just didn't connect with me. That's even beyond the incredibly tedious (and nearly pointless) upgrade system. The world and the process of fighting enemies using different elements just weren't compelling. I completed literally everything for the first 15-20% of the game and it's like they flipped a switch that made me stop caring.
 
Game is Free with the PS5 bundle I have with the PS5 I spent like 3 hours in the 1st game.
 
Forbidden West Update 1.18

Alongside the introduction of a new Pride Flag face paint, the update packs numerous fixes for quests, activities, weapons, machines, and more...in addition, the 1.18 patch aims to improve Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) on PlayStation 5 in resolution mode and PlayStation 4...

Performance and Stability

-Made improvements to TAA for PS5 Resolution Mode and PS4
-Fixed several instances of Aloy’s armor model jittering when playing in Balanced Mode
-Fixed an issue where geometry appears low resolution when skipping the opening title sequence

https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/comments/x2c4lp/horizon_forbidden_west_patch_118/?sf169887220=1
 
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If there's one fix I'd rather have than woke face paint, it'd be that all chests actually have weapons & upgrade parts instead of trash that I sell for shards.
 
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