The Therapist Gamer

Horizon: Zero Dawn is one of those special games that comes along every so often.  It's on a level with a select few other games, like Metal Gear Solid 3 and The Last Of Us.  Absolutely everything about it is done well - gameplay, story, graphics - everything.  It's honestly difficult to know what to write because there's so much that could be said.

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In case you have literally no idea what the game is: it's an open world game with a traditional RPG-style experience and upgrade system.  Your main weapon is a bow and arrow, but there are a lot of other weapons that you can use.  You gather resources to build new weapons, and you're propelled onward by the story and a desire to defeat stronger enemies.  

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There a number of reasons that this game is better than average, and the combat is one of them.  Though there are some human enemies, the vast majority of the combat is against machines.  These machines are modeled after and behave like various animals - for example, there are some that look and act like deer, others that are like crocodiles, and still others that are just like a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  They don't die with a headshot, but rather they each have various life support systems, weapons, and armor that you can attack.  This dynamic alone makes combat significantly more engaging that the average shooter where you always try to shoot the head.  The T-Rex, for example, has the ability to shoot up drones that track you and shoot lasers; it can also shoot explosives at you, smack you with it's tail, or execute one of several other attacks.  If you shoot it in the head then, well, you'll just hit it's armor.  You can try to strip the armor off by continually shooting it with special weapons, but even then it's not going to take devastating damage.  What you can do, however, is shoot the explosive launcher so it can no longer use that weapon against you; you can even pick it up and use it against the T-Rex!  Over time you'll figure out the enemies' various weak spots.  For example, you'll learn that if you shoot off the armor in a specific place on the T-Rex that it's mechanical heart is hidden inside.  If you destroy that then the T-Rex is in trouble.  What it boils down to, really, is that common enemy encounters in Horizon are as complex and engaging as the average boss fight in other games.  It matters where you shoot.  It matters if you dodge.  It matters if you use the right weapon.  It takes skill and training to get better at the game.  

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Upon defeat you can scavenge parts from the enemies.  You'll need parts to make more arrows, explosive, trip-wires, and the rest of your arsenal.  You can also trade items for "metal shards," which is a form of currency.  With the currency you can buy and build new outfits and weapons.  You'll also need to scavenge for supplies to heal - that's right - no automatic healing.  It's a bold decision in the current games market, but I think limited health absolutely increases the tension in a game and consequently the sense of victory.  It's not cumbersome to collect supplies for health, however, but it more serves as a reminder that your supplies are limited and there is no one to hold your hand during the game.

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You can see for yourself, but the game is absolutely gorgeous.  Not only are the visuals technically very impressive and among the top ever produced, but the art direction is amazing as well.  What I mean is, if I had access to their game engine and could use it to make a mountain, it would look like garbage compared to the ones in this game.  Guerrilla Games (the developer) simply has talented staff and they've created one of the most beautiful environments I've ever seen - in real life or in a game.  I can't imagine the complexities that go into designing a game world that's photogenic, but if you put the game in photo-mode and swirl around, it's hard to find a scene that's NOT photogenic.  I want to take some screenshots and hang them on my wall!

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Though the gameplay and visuals are very impressive, the story is what really drew me in.  I thought it did a great job of telling an epic tale while at the same time being very personal.  When I wasn't playing the game I was often thinking about it and some of the messages it conveyed. 

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I'll give a brief run-down of the two main story threads - stuff you'd learn if the first hour or so of the game.  You play as Aloy, a young girl who's being raised by a man who isn't her father.  What she's told is that she comes from a matriarchal society, but since she has no mother she's an outcast and is forbidden to associate with anyone from the tribe.  The man raising her is also an outcast but surprisingly harbors no ill will toward the tribe, and in fact teaches Aloy to respect their traditions.  All Aloy knows is that she was found inside of the mountain - the most sacred location to the tribe.  As a young child she is bullied and physically hurt by tribal kids, and she's not a fan of the tribe, the matriarchy, or their customs.  The leaders of the tribe vary in their opinions of Aloy, with most hating her and calling her a demon spoken of in prophecy, but with some secretly being nice to her and helping her.  Who is her mother?  Why does the tribe hate her?  I found this story line to be engaging because it's told in such a way that I really felt sad for Aloy and wanted her to find the important answers in her life.  It's sad to see a child bullied and ignored and she's a great underdog character.

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The other main storyline is, well, what happened to the world?  Why are their robots roaming around instead of regular animals?  How can there be such advanced technology while the tribe uses bows and arrows?  Toward the very start of the game you play as Aloy when she's a little child, and she gets lost in an underground cave.  In the cave she finds something called a "focus," and it acts as a sort of Augmented Reality device.  She can use it to scan technologies from the era in which it was created.  She learns that about 1,000 years ago something happened that destroyed all societies on earth, and that the robot animals are a relic of that age.  Throughout the game she uses the focus to visit ancient (modern day) sites and scan various objects to learn what happened.  Things start to get complicated for her when, toward the start of the game, she finds another person with a focus . . .

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What I liked about the story was that not only was it engaging, but it moves at a decent pace.  A lot of stories these days really drip-feed you engaging storylines.  TV shows spend an entire year to present maybe two hours of interesting content and about 20 hours of filler - they know what we want and they space it out so we'll keep watching.  Video games often do the same thing - I remember being very engaged by the meta story going on in Assassin's Creed 2, but in the sequel it's discussed for maybe 20 minutes and the rest of the game is a story I didn't really care about.  With Horizon, the story is everywhere.  It was clearly very well thought out from the beginning, and they have enough story content to last throughout the lengthy game.  More than once I needed to pause the game just to soak in new story developments.

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Lots of games convey part (or all) of a story through collectible objects in the game, but honestly they're often really clumsy.  Like, I remember in Far Cry 2 you find audio recordings made by the villain as he explains the story.  But, in real life, who would do that?  Who would record a diary of their misdeeds and leave the tapes scattered across Africa?  No one would, and it's weird.  But in Horizon I thought this was accomplished much more organically.  For example, you find a data-file containing an email in the waiting room of a large building.  It's from the secretary to an administrator and she says that they probably need to do something to make the lobby more sound-proof because the people waiting in the lobby can hear screaming and crying from the other rooms, and it's often distressing and concerning to them.  As a story device, I think that collectible is brilliant.  You don't need to read it if you aren't so inclined, but it's adds so much richness to the world.  What went on in that building?  Clearly the secretary cares about the people coming in, but they're going to end up screaming and crying?  Why are they there?  It just invites you to continue to explore the building and find answers.  And, importantly, in the context of the game world it makes sense to find that email - it's something that might actually exist, unlike random recordings of the villain scattered across the landscape.

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I thoroughly enjoyed Horizon: Zero Dawn from start to finish and even played it a second time even though it's a humongous game.  If you have a PS4 then playing this game is a no-brainer.  Honestly, you might even want to buy a PS4 just to play this game.  It's everything that's right with the gaming industry and is the perfect example of why I love video games.