yikes, i saw a video on Digital Foundry's Youtube Channel on how bad this game performed. I didnt believed it until I pirated the game and played it. Now I was thinking of buying it later even though I already bought the Complete Edition for ps4 around $15 a good while back, still have the copy. Here's my takeaway on it on PC with a PS4 controller.
This game sucks and it always has.
When Zelda BotW came out in 2017 and was an instant hit, playstation owners needed something to play which released around the same time, that game being Horizon Zero Dawn. Now HZD won "game of show", three e3's in a row if I remember so there was a bit of buzz around it, however I dont think that it would have sold as well if not for having the same release window as Zelda. Many reviewers giving the game 10/10.
As for me, I never placed these two in competition because of their genres. If anything I would have put HZD in competition with Assassins Creed and BotW with Metal Gear/Death Stranding. When I played Horizon Zero Dawn I personally never thought it to be any good or fun, just a new IP with excellent graphics (for the time) and one of the very few exclusive ps4 games there are in ps4's library. I forget what happened in the game's story but I remember that the game was very predictable from the e3 previews that I knew the ending before it even got released, they were robots and the ending would present you with shutting everything down or not. I mean c'mon the main character was named Alloy and everyone had robot faces, badly generated faces like a newer version of an Elders Scrolls Game. Even when I first played it I remember thinking that if I had to score the game it would have been a 73/100, and that was mostly due to the graphics and the cool primal-robo settings.
Even if this game were optimized superbly, HZD PC would still not be that good. The player movements are slippery and the traversal feels lifeless. The graphics are outdated. The textures, the terrain, the repetitive greenery, cutscenes, basically everything needs an overhaul. And this is sad because 2017 was not that long ago and there are games in-genre from 2017-before that might actually be better than HZD now in retrospect, Assassin creed Syndicate for one, hell even Watchdogs 2 might be another thats a better game (and i still havent gotten my free copy from Ubisoft for their FAKE GIVEAWAY from watching a boring presentation). HZD's combat is broken as melee is useless. The Bow feels more like a gun than a bow. The AI is bad. Players choices meant nothing. Its More repetitive than most other repetitive games etc.etc. This game was done on an old engine and it hasnt aged well.
It Was Never As Good As You Remembered. Claustrophobia Simulator LOL. Im talking of course about the PS4/PRO version, and that of PC too however PC users can now turn up the Field Of View, FOV, to see more and also set the game to UltraWide which is cool, however with the bad optimizations it would still run worse than an original PS4 on anything but a newer $450 grahics card. The cutscenes also get boxed in and it even furthers how great of a claustrophobia simulator on-ice this game was. Aloy is also a terrible protaganist, she's basically a grown up Female Chucky Doll with all the murderous intent and grumpiness and chucky-like movements and all the sneakiness and there's nothing to like other than if you like playing as a female protagonist, however in this day and age, Who knows whar Alloy identififies herself as now LOL #BlackLivesMatter
Luckily I found out this game was pirate-able and i snagged it, only to remember that this game is what I thought it to be, Overrated. I gave it a score of 73/100 above, but after seeing how bad this game runs and how outdated it actually is in comparison to those games that came around the same time or before or newer that were also released for PC and perform better, Now I'd have to bump down HZD to something like a 54/100. If it werent for the Zelda "rivalry" at the time Im hard pressed to think HZD would have sold better than it did. It actually makes me wonder about HZD 2, that game looks amazing and the new landscapes in that game with the floaty islands and the beach settings make me excited, however revisiting the first game scares me on if they've actually tightened all the physics and movement and all the other non-graphical stuff that needs to get polished. Guerrilla Games did work a bit on Death Stranding and that game's player movement and feel was pretty darn good so hopefully they take something away from that.
All in All. Horizon Zero Dawn is a Claustrophobia Simulator specifically made for Playstation 4 that hasn't aged well and is not a must have for ps5 backward compatibility either. DONT BUY IT FOR PC. Get something else like Death Stranding or Monster Hunter or something better.
This game sucks and it always has.
When Zelda BotW came out in 2017 and was an instant hit, playstation owners needed something to play which released around the same time, that game being Horizon Zero Dawn. Now HZD won "game of show", three e3's in a row if I remember so there was a bit of buzz around it, however I dont think that it would have sold as well if not for having the same release window as Zelda. Many reviewers giving the game 10/10.
As for me, I never placed these two in competition because of their genres. If anything I would have put HZD in competition with Assassins Creed and BotW with Metal Gear/Death Stranding. When I played Horizon Zero Dawn I personally never thought it to be any good or fun, just a new IP with excellent graphics (for the time) and one of the very few exclusive ps4 games there are in ps4's library. I forget what happened in the game's story but I remember that the game was very predictable from the e3 previews that I knew the ending before it even got released, they were robots and the ending would present you with shutting everything down or not. I mean c'mon the main character was named Alloy and everyone had robot faces, badly generated faces like a newer version of an Elders Scrolls Game. Even when I first played it I remember thinking that if I had to score the game it would have been a 73/100, and that was mostly due to the graphics and the cool primal-robo settings.
Even if this game were optimized superbly, HZD PC would still not be that good. The player movements are slippery and the traversal feels lifeless. The graphics are outdated. The textures, the terrain, the repetitive greenery, cutscenes, basically everything needs an overhaul. And this is sad because 2017 was not that long ago and there are games in-genre from 2017-before that might actually be better than HZD now in retrospect, Assassin creed Syndicate for one, hell even Watchdogs 2 might be another thats a better game (and i still havent gotten my free copy from Ubisoft for their FAKE GIVEAWAY from watching a boring presentation). HZD's combat is broken as melee is useless. The Bow feels more like a gun than a bow. The AI is bad. Players choices meant nothing. Its More repetitive than most other repetitive games etc.etc. This game was done on an old engine and it hasnt aged well.
It Was Never As Good As You Remembered. Claustrophobia Simulator LOL. Im talking of course about the PS4/PRO version, and that of PC too however PC users can now turn up the Field Of View, FOV, to see more and also set the game to UltraWide which is cool, however with the bad optimizations it would still run worse than an original PS4 on anything but a newer $450 grahics card. The cutscenes also get boxed in and it even furthers how great of a claustrophobia simulator on-ice this game was. Aloy is also a terrible protaganist, she's basically a grown up Female Chucky Doll with all the murderous intent and grumpiness and chucky-like movements and all the sneakiness and there's nothing to like other than if you like playing as a female protagonist, however in this day and age, Who knows whar Alloy identififies herself as now LOL #BlackLivesMatter
Luckily I found out this game was pirate-able and i snagged it, only to remember that this game is what I thought it to be, Overrated. I gave it a score of 73/100 above, but after seeing how bad this game runs and how outdated it actually is in comparison to those games that came around the same time or before or newer that were also released for PC and perform better, Now I'd have to bump down HZD to something like a 54/100. If it werent for the Zelda "rivalry" at the time Im hard pressed to think HZD would have sold better than it did. It actually makes me wonder about HZD 2, that game looks amazing and the new landscapes in that game with the floaty islands and the beach settings make me excited, however revisiting the first game scares me on if they've actually tightened all the physics and movement and all the other non-graphical stuff that needs to get polished. Guerrilla Games did work a bit on Death Stranding and that game's player movement and feel was pretty darn good so hopefully they take something away from that.
All in All. Horizon Zero Dawn is a Claustrophobia Simulator specifically made for Playstation 4 that hasn't aged well and is not a must have for ps5 backward compatibility either. DONT BUY IT FOR PC. Get something else like Death Stranding or Monster Hunter or something better.
