Huge number of machines to fight; New upgrade system has rewarding gameplay loop; Map is packed with a variety of biomes; Story takes a fascinating new direction;

Platforming often feels clunky; Multiple irksome technical issues;

Midway through Horizon Forbidden West, Aloy discovers a video from the old world. A holographic figure stands in front of the White House and delivers a hopeful rallying cry for a country at war. “True courage means facing [our] fears with conviction instead of cynicism,” the long-dead speaker firmly declares. It’s a line that sums up Aloy’s entire raison d’être, making her the perfect hero for her “techno-nihilist” times. Horizon Forbidden West is a sequel to 2017’s hit Horizon Zero Dawn. It once again drops players into a postapocalyptic world where humanity and nature alike have begun to reform following a man-made catastrophe that filled the world with deadly machines resembling malevolent versions of Boston Dynamics robots. Despite its gloom-and-doom premise, it’s not a cynical game. Instead, it presents a bright and beautiful open world full of tribes that have found ways to coexist with machines without sacrificing nature. Aloy sees the potential utopia growing amid the decaying...

Improved combat; Excellent new machines; High-effort side activities; Stunning world design; Better traversal tools;

Dry dialogue; Frustrating swimming; Crashes and visual bugs;

A triumphant return for Aloy that finds a heart and soul among all the technology – both the robot dinosaurs and Guerrilla's technical prowess.

A character-led story; Astonishing facial animation; It looks stunning; A fascinating and cohesive world;

Frustrating movement

Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the PlayStation 4's best-received games, which made a sequel inevitable. Five years and a console generation later, we have the $69.99 Horizon Forbidden West. It builds upon everything that made the first game great, with a new and bigger world that features more verticality thanks to superior climbing (and falling) mechanics. Horizon Forbidden West keeps the same open-world, spear-and-bow-wielding, machine-hunting formula, but its greater variety keeps the game interesting even after you sink a few dozen hours into it. The action-adventure game (available for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5) is a few steps better than Horizon Zero Dawn, and for that it easily earns our Editors’ Choice award. Horizon Forbidden West's Gameplay The game takes place a few months after Horizon Zero Dawn, and once again stars the lone huntress, Aloy. After the previous game's events, HADES is no longer a world-destroying threat, but there are still numer...

Horizon Forbidden West takes everything that made Horizon Zero Dawn an excellent action-adventure title, and adds more environmental variety and quest verticality to create an even better game.

Huge, dense world; Many entertaining missions; Improved climbing, and new tools that let you easily scale the many vertical environments; Looks fantastic, even if it isn't a revolutionary leap from the first game

Some stability issues even after day-one patch; The Cauldrons sidequests are a chore

Fantastic game that takes the fantastic original game and improves on it in every way. If you want a game to show off your PS5's fancy graphics, this is it!

10/10 game, beautiful, adventure, stealth, thrill. Everything I love in a game.

If graphics and fidelity are your jam, this game probably tops the list of best looking games out there right now. I can't get over just how good this looks on a 4k TV! I thought the Horizon Zero Dawn was ok, but not the best. This game on the other hand is STRIDES ahead of its predecessor. It improves upon every element the first game may have been lacking. I wouldn't this is a perfect game by any means, but you can bet it's damn near close! Can't wait to see more of what Guerrilla Games has to offer! 9/10

I loved Horizon Zero Dawn, one of the best games I've ever played. Horizon Forbidden West improves on almost everything: graphically stunning on PS5, great monsters to fight, great character control with moving and fighting, well-designed user interface in general.

The second best open world game of the year.

Great gameplay hook engaging story fascinating and vast world to explore