I really liked Horizon Zero Dawn but the story hook of the game is way too far in IMO, and the story is probably the only reason I finished it. Like, I was trying to find reasons to like the game and failing and about to give up before you encounter the big metal door, and then I was like “Huh, maybe this is actually an interesting game after all.” It just starts off really slow unless you’re really into quasi father-daughter dynamics, which I can’t say I particularly am. It is fundamentally a Ubisoft towers skinner box game with a Gamer Vision scanning thing and “Hm, guess I should go into that cave!” murmurs, and some of the enemies being metal versions of real-life creatures is really interesting for… a few hours, and then it just kinda isn’t, and some of them are too tanky for no particular reason.

Horizon Forbidden West kinda just felt like the same game as the first but in a different setting and with different metal creatures. It similarly takes a little while to get to the actual story hook - finding HADES - and once again I really liked the story, but once again it’s a Ubisoft towers skinner box with Gamer Vision. It’s actually really embarrassing for the game that the main gameplay hook (at least, as I saw it), being able to ride flying monsters and fly around the map, was introduced virtually at the end of the game and has very few uses in the game. I mean, I guess you have a… glider… that is really just a parachute. And underwater sections, sometimes.

The end of Forbidden West actually pissed me off. Like, I was planning on finishing up the rest of the game’s map and doing the rest of the quests and collectibles and stuff, just to get my money’s worth I suppose, but I finished the main quest and decided that I couldn’t really be assed. I really hate when game endings aren’t self-contained. It was just “Oh, we’re DEFINITELY getting a sequel to this, so we’re leaving you on a cliffhanger and not actually giving you any closure at all.” This kinda happened in the first game but like, the series could have ended there and you would have felt 95% satisfied. For this game, it was like 10% satisfied.

I’ll… probably play the third game simply because I’m invested in the game’s story at this point, but the gameplay loop simply isn’t going to get better and I’m not looking forward to once again climbing up those towers and once again entering Gamer Vision and once again firing dozens of arrows into machines while in Slow Motion Aiming Gamer Mode.