Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition
Guerrilla Games / PlayStation Mobile, Inc.
Dutch game developers, Guerrilla Games (a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios known for their Killzone series), wowed the gaming public at 2017’s E3 event with a new open-world action RPG called Horizon Zero Dawn.
Horizon Zero Dawn reaped numerous rewards, garnering high praise from game critics, selling over 10 million copies by February 2019—making it one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games in existence. Sony, eyeing the crème de la crème of the gaming world—the PC gaming market—decided it was time to take their seemingly unstoppable juggernaut and make the big leap. But has it worked?
First, let’s cover what the game is about. Re-christened: Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition, for the PC market, the game is set 1,000 years into the future. The Earth has fallen into a dystopic, ruinous state and has been taken over by deadly zoomorphic sociorobots (eerily similar to the ones featured in the game, Generation Zero).
Players step into the boots of female protagonist Aloy, a child without a mother who was ostracized by her tribe because of her abnormalities at birth. As you guide Aloy through the enormous open-world environs, you’ll discover that although humanity still exists, they are organized into scattered bands that are relatively low-tech.
Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition starts off slowly as it teaches you its basic game mechanics and gets you accustomed to its world. You also get to gradually gather clues about Aloy’s past and more information about the sinister zoomorphic ‘bots ravaging the lands.
The more I traversed the game’s open-world environs, the more I realized how diverse they were. There is a wide array of biomes to explore, each with different types of weather effects, along with some seriously gorgeous vistas (especially from elevated positions). There were a few portions of the map where biomes would jarringly run right into each other, but it didn’t really break the sense of immersion that the game had built up in any sort of considerable way (at least not for me).
You’ll travel along footpaths that lead to different sorts of gates, jump up on cliff sides and shimmy along their ridges, and climb to the tops of picturesque mountains. These means of traversal kind of reminded me of the Tomb Raider series, although to its credit, Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition is a much more free-roam affair and not stuck on rails.
Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition’s basic gameplay loop revolves around traveling through the game’s massive open-world and taking on various quests and side-quests. Throughout your adventures, you’ll be able to acquire different types of gear and equipment that can help you in your battle against the dastardly machines.
Speaking of Aloy’s enemies, there is a pretty vast array of ‘bot types that you’ll encounter throughout the 30 + hour campaign. What’s interesting about each enemy type is that they all have their specific strengths and weaknesses. For instance, some enemies flew around and harassed me until I figured out how to immobilize them with my rope caster device, which effectively tethered them to the ground.
I also found myself studying each enemy from afar because they all have specific weak points that can be exploited, for those who are patient enough. It was really fun to dash and zip around enemies while taking shots at their weak spots—all the while knocking off pieces of their armor in order to get to their more vulnerable parts. When you take down some of the larger and more dangerous ‘bots, you really feel a sense of accomplishment.
It must be mentioned that the console-to-PC port of Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition has been a pretty rough one. People have reported a plethora of issues—from game-breaking bugs to game-ending crashes. However, Guerrilla’s response has been swift and they’ve been working around the clock to nip-and-tuck the port’s various issues. Hopefully, these issues will be resolved so that gamers can enjoy this exciting and inspired adventure-RPG.
SCORE: 83%
Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition has some pretty good looking graphics that make its adventure gameplay truly shine. However, you want to have a pretty beefy gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:
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