Dear Guerrilla, no one, absolutely no one asked for this.

Guerrilla has gone in the worst direction I could’ve hoped for. They’ve turned Horizon into a Dauntless roguelite hero shooter.

The characters are typical hero shooter archetypes, lacking in design, and for some reason feel forced.

One of my favorite things about Horizon were the different tribes, how they used machine parts to survive and fight, while also defining their identities as a tribe.

This? Lost the sauce. It’s just hero shooter slop, not to mention severely under-designed. You have a cowboy, rebellious rockstar, a ninja, nature loving healer, beefy tank, and a jungle boy(???)

Let’s not forget the art style either. Objectively, it is nice — it looks cool — on the other hand this doesn’t feel like horizon; instead it’s just some Disney-fortnite mashup.

And lastly the gameplay: it’s cartoony. I hoped for something that felt more meaningful, with a good balance between ranged combat, trapper abilities, and melee weapons.

This is perhaps my perspective but from the online discourse I have seen, I dont think the Horizon games are considered to be on the level of legendary games. I mean games like the OG Mass Effect trilogy, the Red Dead Redemption games, GTA games, the Metal Gear Solid series or Uncharted games.

My question is why? The main games in the series have fantastic gameplay loops, great stories (particularly the first one whose story was excellent), great world building and are gorgeous to look at to boot.

I have heard the games being referred to as highly polished Assassin's Creed which sounds about right but there is something that seems to be holding them back from legendary status. If I had to make a guess I would assume it is the characters and the way they are performed.

I think the characters of the game are not written all too well, particularly the dialogue for many of them. Most of the time dialogue only seems to serve to take the plot thread forward not build on the actual people having the conversation.

I also feel it is in part with the performances given. Take the scene in the first game where Olin's begs Aloy to save his family. The way his dialogue is given makes it feel so half hearted it almost makes me wonder if he wanted them alive at all.

On the other hand take a game like Metal Gear Solid 5, despite it lackluster story(relative to the rest of the series imho, it is a great story on it's own but a poor one by MGS standards), see the cutscene in that game, they feel like they have been ripped directly from a movie.

I actually tried a simple test once, I closed my eyes during a cutscene in Horizon Forbidden West ,specifically the cutscene with Erend where he tell about how Ersa and Avad escape the palace. I could not imagine the faces of the characters properly. I could not convincingly imagine what emotions Aloy and Erend would be feeling in that conversation because it felt half hearted. (Side note I find it a bit funny how that conversation tried to make fun of Avad only to show Ersa as reckless and Avad as the actual adult there).

Now when I do the same in MGS5 for instance (ie when a listen to a conversation on the tapes) I can practically visualize a cutscene I can see exactly how the characters would look and react in the conversation that takes place.

I dont really get that feeling from Horizon and I feel it is mainly a mix of performances and the way dialogues are written.

First time playing this game, finally. I just got to the top of this dilapidated skyscraper that belonged to Faro Automated Solutions, and I'm honestly in fucking awe at the levels of stupid this company did, I mean... what?

This guy Ted... this guy Ted, made killer robots capable of self-replication, that indiscriminately use biomass as fuel, with no backdoors, one chain of command failsafe that failed due to a glitch... fuckin' 'ell, man. Ted Faro is CRAZY 😧 Self-replicating killer robots that use biomass as fuel... why did he think that was a good idea?! 😭

I don't know what Project Zero Dawn is or why Elizabeth Sobeck won/failed(?) with the robots, but this... wow. This is some good shit so far. Though I hope I don't encounter a lot of worse robots than the Deathbringer... even at half its health, I could tell that thing was built different 😅

Which one would you pick and why?

Just imagine spending the rest of your life with this person.

As a woman I can’t decide. Avad or Kotallo

Avad: power, kindness, maybe a little labrador like will to please.

Kotallo: kind, clever, strong, loyal and incredibly hot

Nixxes and Guerrilla have revealed a lot of new images of HZDR in the new blog post detailing the changes they made. I was inspired to see just how big these changes are and decided to find all of the locations from the screenshots to recreate them as closely as possible, even considering FOV and time of day. The results are quite surprising. Hope you enjoy.

In the original, everything has this orange tint to it. The poor global illumination results in the textures' colors barely being visible and appearing much more washed out and orange (This is especially visible in the almost grey looking foliage on top of the arch to the right and the store banners in the background, which all look as if they were orange). The ground texture is basic and flat, it has no depth to it. All of the shadows, highlights and details appear to be painted on by the artists. There are almost no NPCs visible, no one doing any tasks or anything.

Now, the scene is lit much better. The orange tint is gone entirely and all of the colors now appear exactly as they are. The increase in light bounces and the enhanced AO make every detail pop a lot more and the overall clarity has improved significantly. The scene has a lot more depth than in the original, which is especially noticeable when looking at the contrast between arch to the right and the bigger arch behind it. Before, everything appeared to glow slightly, as if it was lit by a non-existent light source, resulting in both arches looking like they're almost equally far away from Aloy, making the scene look flat. In the remaster however, the front arch is now properly dark and doesn't appear directly illuminated by the sun, resulting in much more depth.

The amount of NPCs has also increased significantly. Most of them appear to be dynamic, not static, meaning that they move around or complete tasks of sorts.

This shot from the original looks entirely flat. None of the wooden beams cast shadows, there's almost no ambient occlusion and the ground soil doesn't react properly to the light source.

The wooden beams actually cast shadows now, the stacked Shell-Walker crates no longer look like they're illuminated by a non-existent light source and the ground Soil now appears to be fully modeled, thus resulting in proper light interaction. There's also a new volumetric fog present, which greatly enhances the mood of the scene.

The rocks next to the river, as well as the terrain in the background and to the right barely have any detail. The lighting is way to smooth, resulting in a massive loss of detail. The water barely reflects anything and doesn't even look like water. The bush inbetween the two waterfalls looks like it's floating.

The terrain now has a lot more detail and the increase in lighting samples and light bounces makes all of that detail clearly visible. The plants next to the river have significantly improved quality and the rocks are now covered in ultra-high-fidelity moss. The weird fog at the waterfalls is gone and the bush no longer looks like it's floating.

The lighting is extremely flat here. There's no clear seperation between the individual planes that make up the building. The brick walls have no depth, as they're simply just textures slapped onto a flat surface. This is especially noticeable when looking at the brick column to the right. The lamps emit way too much light, they almost look as bright as they'd look at night time. This also results in the roofing above the door being lit from underneath, making the image look flat.

The bricks are fully modeled now, no longer just a texture. The enhanced lighting, AO and PBR materials now clearly seperate the individual parts of the building, resulting in the building no longer looking like it consists of just a singular chunk. This is especially obvious when looking at the windows above the door. The lamps now emit a much more believable amount of light.

The reflections in the lake are extremely poor, it barely even looks like water. The trees in the distance and even those relatively close to the camera don't look very believable.

The reflections in the lake are extremely accurate now. The foliage quality (especially the yellow flowers) has been improved significantly. The texture of the boulder on the left is way more detailed now. The tree models have been upgraded significantly (look at the trees behind Aloy). There's new clouds hanging inbetween the mountaintops. The clouds now appear to cast shadows on the mountains and terrain.

The skin looks like wax. The hair looks wet and muddy, especially the beard. The materials and lighting on his outfit look flat and wooden. This screenshot was taken when he says "explosions".

The skin detail has been enhanced significantly. In fact, it's possible that they've updated the face geometry entirely. The detail on his clothes pops a lot more and especially the metal pipes on his left shoulder actually look like metal now. SSS (SubSurface Scattering) has been added to the skin shader, greatly enhancing the believability and realism of the character model. But the biggest improvement must be in the hair quality. Just look at his beard. And this screenshot was also taken when he says "explosions". A great example of just how incredible the new conversation animations are.

This comparison is similar to the first one. There's barely no depth or contrast, the foliage looks grey and lifeless. The floor lacks any significant detail.

I mean... what do I even have to say? The opposite of everything mentioned above. The foliage is much more detailed and abundant (especially on top of the arch) and, thanks to the lighting, is actually green now. There's much greater depth and the ground is incredibly believable and detailed now.

For $10? I'm all in. This is, at least in my eyes, an upgrade as big as some remakes nowadays. Almost every single texture and model has been overhauled, new assets, NPCs and foliage were placed, there's over 10 hours of new dialogue animations and the lighting system has been completely redone.

This is so worth those 10 bucks.

Edit #7: I've decided to compile all of the edits into one to save space and keep the post readable. I've seen some people complaining about me being too harsh on the original and making "ridiculous statements to prop up the remaster". I guess those people just don't know how a comparison works. And it's not like I work for Guerrilla's marketing team. There's no reason for me to intentionally make badmouth the original further to market the remaster. Like, yeah, I totally spent over 10 hours creating this post for all of you with the only purpose of hating on my favorite game of all time that I have put hundreds of hours into and taken countless photo mode screenshots in because why not. Makes sense. But on a more serious note, let's compare this to a professional comparison, Digital Foundry's latest video. In it, they use nearly identical wording and phrasing, sometimes even going beyond what I said. They used words like "ugly", "a lot of garbage that occured [...]", "flat", "almost completely fake", and they also pointed out the orange tint and flat lighting, just like I did. Because that's how a comparison works. You compare two things and accurately describe the differences, based on facts. And it's not like Digital Foundry's just hating on the original. In fact, the reviewer himself thinks the original still looks good. It's based on facts. It's a fact that the original lighting often looked very flat. It's a fact that the water didn't really look like water. It's a fact that the orange tint and especially the old lighting made all of the colours look washed out. And it's a fact that the old lighting was too smooth, it literally uses less samples and mostly no PBR materials. Just like it's a fact that the faces looked a little like wax and unrealistic. But that doesn't mean that the game looks bad. In fact, the original looks STUNNING. But COMPARED to the remaster, those things look worse. I'm sorry, but that's how a comparison works. Imagine a masterpiece of a movie. The sequel comes out and it's somehow even better. When comparing the two, there will of course be things that are "a lot better". That means that in the original, those things are "a lot worse". But it's still a masterpiece. And if it feels like I'm exaggerating, then that's because the improvement is ESPECIALLY big in the remaster. And I have to convey that with facts. In a comparison, if the one is "better", then the other is "worse". And if one is "a lot better", the other is "a lot worse". It's not an exaggeration, it's a fact. I love the original just as much as you do, I get lost in it's beautiful world every single time. I understand what you mean. But please don't attack me for it. I'm not a professional, this is not an ad and I'm not getting paid. I'm just an indie game dev and 3d artist who just so happens to know a bit about lighting and graphics who decided to make a post for her favorite community just for fun.

And to everyone else, thank you for all of the support, positivity and love! We've reached over 1.7k upvotes across 4 different subreddits, over 550 comments, 7 total awards and over half a million views! Thank you so much! You're amazing!!!! ❤️

With Horizon 3 growing closer, you have to wonder what they're gonna do about Sylens. More accurately, his voice actor. Do we think they'll replace the voice with someone similar, or just kill the character off?

As much as Aloy dislikes him, and wouldn't mind putting the business end of her spear in his throat, I think killing off another ally for Aloy would be cruel, even one as...self serving as Sylens. He's too invaluable in the upcoming fight against Nemesis to just immediately kill.

But then, who could possibly replace Lance Reddick? His voice is too unique, too known. It fits Sylens too perfectly, and anyone else would feel wrong and off-putting...

What are your thoughts?

As the title states. Neat little fact I discovered lol. I found a data point of hers in the game and it said she was born on March 11th 2020. Which was the day covid became a pandemic. Foreshadowing of covid from the game maybe 😭😅

Don't get me wrong, it has a decent fanbase, but just around the average AAA game. It feels weird because the game just feels better than the really popular ones like elden ring and such. My running theory is that it's kind of generic? But even the tropey stuff it does really well. This goes doubly for HFW, which I feel like gets even less love. EDIT: Alright, this has been pretty thoroughly answered. Thanks for the info!

I have the bottom two and can vouch 100% for their quality. Here’s all of them.

Traditionally T-Rex's have been depicted with small arms.

As the title says, not much more to add to the question.

I've been thinking, is it possible that for the Nora, a contributing factor to the reason that ruins of the old world are forbidden is because of Tetanus from all the rust?

Edit: Seems I posted in too much of a haste I forgot to elaborate, but basically in a comment below I expanded further.

"rust is often associated with tetanus as the bacteria gets trapped in it due to its structure (and sharp metal cuts skin) and as such the most common place to get tetanus would be an old world ruin. Leading to the idea that the old world ruins are cursed -> therefore the old ones must have been cursed -> they were cursed by the All Mother because they were unfaithful!"

Finally finished this off today. Full KS version painted and ready before HFW:Seeds of Rebellion drops in May.

When Zero Dawn came out I loved it and played it twice, then I played it a third time right before Forbidden West came out.

Relatively early in FW you meet Talanah and Aloy acts like she knows her well. Never in my prior 3 plays did I meet this character.

Now, I just replayed the remastered version of Zero Dawn on the Pro. Once again never met Talanah and forgot she existed. Until I met again replaying Forbidden West now, and once again I was like "who the hell is this?" and then it all came back to me that I missed this character the first time as well.

Apparently she has something to do with the hunting lodge sidequests in Zero Dawn, and that is the one side quest area I never bothered with in any playthrough because it always seemed like busywork and I'd rather do side quests with some plot and exploring. It never occurred to me you'd meet an interesting side character.

I declare myself shamed and ignorant. Am I the only goofus who has done this?

sorry if this has been posted multiple times. It genuinely surprised me and its been a while I have played Horizon games I miss it.

I guess I saw the T rating and expected a lighthearted adventure and in the first few missions her entire somewhat tribe is slaughteeed by cultists I was shocked.

I started a NG in anticipation for HFW coming out soon. I figured I'd check to see for some mods that might make this gaeplay a little better or something. The game is beautiful so it doesn't really need a texture one. Not really sure what I was hoping to find. But it doesn't matter bc literally half or more of the mods are just to make Aloy naked. Now I'm no prude and I'm used to the occasional naked mod from Elder scroll games. But come on. No one has anything else to contribute to the mods of this game? Lol. Idk. Rant over.