Sony Horizon Forbidden West - Information Thread, update: Digital Foundry hands-on with PC version

[Amazatron]

Horizon Forbidden West already has an easy fix for its shimmering visuals glitch | GamesRadar+

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A speedy turnaround for its first post-launch fix

 

[skillzdadirecta]

2 hours ago, SaysWho? said:

 

So inspiring that he still games at his age.  Gives me hope.

[Bloodporne]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

So inspiring that he still games at his age.  Gives me hope.

I saw something a while back where he mentioned Dead Space. Imagine making that game, clearly inspired by The Thing as probably a childhood favorite, and Carpenter ends up playing it and raving about it. I'd fucking faint.

[Dodger]

I love the classic video game-ism where we start the game on an epic quest to save the world, and when you get to starter town some guy needs a new frying pan and you can stop to play board games.

[EternallDarkness]

been a couple of months since I got around to replaying and actually finishing the original game so am I just not remembering or are the controls somewhat different in Forbidden West? 

 

Pretty solid opening, played through the opening (not sure how I beat the first boss-esque creature not because it was hard I just felt like I never actually hit it, lol, and have made my way to the first town on the journey west. 

[Phaseknox]

It took me roughly four hours to finish the beginning linear prologue/tutorial section before making it to the open world. The opening credit sequence is nicely done with a good song playing during it. The game oozes quality, and production values.

 

The graphics are probably the best that I’ve seen for a PS4 game, they’re colorful, detailed and have impressive lighting and visual effects. The voice acting is topnotch, and the music is great too. Gameplay and traversal are smooth and responsive, and combat is satisfying.

 

Everything just seems improved over the first game, and I’m really impressed with what I’ve experienced so far. I look forward to playing it some more.

[SaysWho?]

I can see the board game getting pretty fun and varied once I get more pieces. 

[best3444]

I've taken a massive break from games. When I get back I'm going to have a difficult decision between this and Elden Ring. Hmm...

[skillzdadirecta]

22 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

I can see the board game getting pretty fun and varied once I get more pieces. 

As fun as Gwent?

[SaysWho?]

8 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

As fun as Gwent?

 

That's hard to say. I think FFVIII and Witcher 3 show that card games have a simple enough premise to become addictive when done right. This is more like a variation of chess, so it remains to be seen.

[Biggie]

27 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

As fun as Gwent?

Gwent was about as fun as hitting my nut sack with a hammer 

[best3444]

17 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Gwent was about as fun as hitting my nut sack with a hammer 

 

I so agree but didn't want to be that "guy". 

[Keyser_Soze]

26 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Gwent was about as fun as hitting my nut sack with a hammer 

 

Hitting your nutsack with a hammer sounds pretty fun to me.

[eventide11]

2 hours ago, Biggie said:

Gwent was about as fun as hitting my nut sack with a hammer 

Same. Even after I got the hang of it it was pretty mehtacular. Give me triple triad any day

[Biggie]

4 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Hitting your nutsack with a hammer sounds pretty fun to me.

Shouldn’t you be counting frames pre second?

[skillzdadirecta]

To each his own... I played the shit out of Gwent and Thronebreaker.

[Kal-El814]

A few hours in, have only done maybe one or two "main" missions; have mainly just been derping around the first bigger open area. A few impressions so far.

 

The character models in general are really awesome. The level of fidelity and how they interact with the environments is almost all incredibly good. It does make a couple oddities stand out as exceptions, there have been a couple dudes whose beards look like they're clean shaven people acting as someone with facial hair in a SNL skit or something.  Aloy in particular looks great of course, and most of the other main character so far really do also.

 

There's still something about the dialogue that seems out of place for the setting depending on who's talking, but it happens somewhat frequently. I don't know how to describe it other than that some of the characters come off like someone at a Renaissance Fair who hasn't bothered to change their voice or vocabulary for the occasion. The first game was like this too, so I assume it's deliberate at this point, but it still comes off odd to me.

 

The climbing is still a little weird. There are a few towers very early on and there's unless you rely on the Focus, there's nothing in the environment that would indicate where you can climb. There are lots of jumps Aloy could make based on how how high she usually jumps that the game won't let you make, there are obstacles that she easily hurdles most of the time that you can't just because there's a goodie behind them, etc. It's a strange hedge between the "climb anything" approach in Breath of the Wild and the "climb very little" approach of the Horizon.

 

Ashly Burch does a really great job voicing Aloy again. You always know where Aloy's head is at but it never feels over the top.

 

Anyway, so far so good. My main concern after the first Horizon was that I wouldn't care enough about the world to come back since Aloy's story was the most compelling part of the first one for me, but I'm back in it after the first little bit. Playing on Hard and so far it seems like a decent mix of challenge and fun. I have some thoughts about where things could go based on how the first one ended, curious to see if they end up being anywhere near correct.

[BloodyHell]

Game is so good. Im only level 19, and just keep seeing more and more amazing stuff.

Melee still doesn't feel great, climbing can be a headache sometimes, but otherwise the game is incredible. Last year, this might have been in contention for my goty. This year, that may be a bit harder, but damn im having way more fun than I did with the first game.

[BloodyHell]

Also, i get a weird bug where the screen flashes black once in a while. Not very often, but its definitely the first time I've seen this particular bug in a game. And apparently its a common bug. 

 

Otherwise, absolutely incredible!

[stepee]

Having environmental markers and interactive objects always on definitely makes this more enjoyable for me.

 

I hope the wrong lesson isn’t taken from this game in regards to density and geometry. It does make it harder to see what you are doing in this game sometimes, at least early on, but the issue is that the movement is restrained still. It’s because to climb something you have to find the specific thing that you are allowed to climb. Dying Light 2 can be packed with geometry and foilage and post processing and effects and you never have the same issue as here because the rules of what you can climb are consistent.

[SaysWho?]

Big improvements in mobility and melee combat.

[BloodyHell]

51 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

Big improvements in mobility and melee combat.

Especially once you level up the melee upgrade path.

[best3444]

20 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

Especially once you level up the melee upgrade path.

 

Do you plan on having this beat before next Friday?

[Rev]

How big of a leap is this Horizon from the first one on PC? I want to get this but I'm a bit broke right now so I'm trying to convince myself to hold off until I can afford it.

[BloodyHell]

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

 

Do you plan on having this beat before next Friday?

No clue, but ill put off ER a day or two if im not. Game is absolutely incredible. Possibly the nicest world ive ever seen in a game. Its a stark contrast to the emptiness of a game world like botw (which I love). This is just packed with detail.

[best3444]

17 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

No clue, but ill put off ER a day or two if im not. Game is absolutely incredible. Possibly the nicest world ive ever seen in a game. Its a stark contrast to the emptiness of a game world like botw (which I love). This is just packed with detail.

 

Damn. I'm so tempted to start it but I want to put all my focus on Elden Ring. I'm really looking forward to this though. Glad to hear it turned out awesome. 

[stepee]

1 hour ago, Rev said:

How big of a leap is this Horizon from the first one on PC? I want to get this but I'm a bit broke right now so I'm trying to convince myself to hold off until I can afford it.

 

Youll be taking a pretty decent step down in IQ (assuming you’d choose the 60fps mode) but everything else on screen is a pretty significant step up. I’d put this more on the level of pc games like Cyberpunk and Dying Light 2 than Horizon ZD pc. Just how the environment reacts to the character alone is a huge improvement. The modeling and motion capture for characters is some next level shit and without equal in an actual released game.

[johnny]

are you guys doing explorer or guided? 

 

im doing explorer and having a good time with it not showing me too much. 

[BloodyHell]

Explorer. 

 

Man, I just fought my first Mammoth Machine thing, what a fun fight!

[Xbob42]

1 hour ago, stepee said:

 

Youll be taking a pretty decent step down in IQ (assuming you’d choose the 60fps mode) but everything else on screen is a pretty significant step up. I’d put this more on the level of pc games like Cyberpunk and Dying Light 2 than Horizon ZD pc. Just how the environment reacts to the character alone is a huge improvement. The modeling and motion capture for characters is some next level shit and without equal in an actual released game.

That's very good to hear, I remember in HZD like half the shit in the world didn't react at all or had almost a comically small reaction. Like plants and water felt like Aloy was just overlaid over a static background that refused to have decent splashes or foliage movement or anything. This stuff in particular felt especially bad compared to BotW, because it's the little things like that that really sell a character being in a world, which people mistook for nitpicking, despite Nintendo getting it right on basically a shitty cell phone.

I think it's incredibly important to step back from your hyper-realistic facial animations and clogged pores and make sure that if I shoot the water with my bow the fucking thing splashes and ripples and whatnot.

[SaysWho?]

Doing some side missions and hoping to run into my first cauldron soon. Assembling a robot army makes me happy.

[stepee]

19 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

That's very good to hear, I remember in HZD like half the shit in the world didn't react at all or had almost a comically small reaction. Like plants and water felt like Aloy was just overlaid over a static background that refused to have decent splashes or foliage movement or anything. This stuff in particular felt especially bad compared to BotW, because it's the little things like that that really sell a character being in a world, which people mistook for nitpicking, despite Nintendo getting it right on basically a shitty cell phone.

I think it's incredibly important to step back from your hyper-realistic facial animations and clogged pores and make sure that if I shoot the water with my bow the fucking thing splashes and ripples and whatnot.

 

 

Well don’t get too carried away now, the water won’t ripple if you shoot an arrow in it. It does react to you, and the fish, and some other things I think have physics enabled but not projectiles. But yeah Horizon felt like she was overlaid on a pre rendered background almost, that is gone here. And the water physics that are here are very nice.

[Greatoneshere]

Been enjoying the game a lot so far. As someone who platinum'ed the first game, it's great being back in this world. The graphics are stupid in this game they're so good. A much deeper gameplay system than in the first game, and I've barely scratched the surface.

[stepee]

Stop saying how you are the only one to save the earth omg

[stepee]

I thought True Colors was a step up with its motion capture but this is something else with this level of modeling. Almost makes me uncomfortable at times talking with people because it’s like too natural lol.