Horizon zero down is an honest review. Review of the game Horizon: Zero Dawn. What is Horizon Zero Dawn

When developing Horizon Zero Dawn, the developers at Guerrilla Games were well aware that they were entering the territory of a previously unexplored genre of role-playing games. This was an extremely risky move, given the fact that Guerrilla Games had previously made exclusively first-person shooters. That is why Horizon Zero Dawn is doubly surprising - the hand of professionals is felt in everything.

No longer our Earth

Civilization, in pursuit of progress, has practically destroyed itself, returning humanity to a primitive way of life. The population of the planet broke up into small tribes, permeated with the rudiments of political systems; the population of living fauna is in a terrible crisis; the supremacy of nature passed into the iron paws of machines that simultaneously resemble animals, prehistoric mammals, and dinosaurs.

Humanity in the Horizon Zero Dawn universe has been surviving among hostile robots for centuries and is afraid of any technology. Therefore, the tribes live in shacks and small houses, without electricity and the Internet, in the full conviction that any technological progress is evil in its purest form. It is not surprising when a giant titanium Tyrannosaurus rex roams around the corner, and flocks of iron pterodactyls eclipse the sun. Such a non-standard and exciting setting was designed by Guerrilla Games for the Sony flagship of this year.

A brave fiery red-haired girl named Aloy has been an outcast in her native Nora tribe since childhood; she was despised by her peers and shunned by other adult residents. The only friend and life mentor for Aloy is the bearded good-natured hunter Rost, who, for unknown reasons, was also once expelled from the tribe. Throughout her conscious youth, Aloy learned from Rost how to survive in a dangerous post-apocalyptic world: she moved covertly across the terrain, deftly climbed the most dangerous mountains, attacked and dismantled a car that had strayed from the herd, and then created new modifications for her combat bow from their wreckage .

The girl chose such a difficult life path for a reason. Aloy's goal: to be initiated into the hunters of the Nora in order to earn respect among the inhabitants and return to the society of the tribe. However, during the initiation ritual, the future hunters are attacked by unknown barbarians. The members hide behind the boulders in fear as Aloy, with fantastic skill, cuts out all the unfriendly guests one by one. With this fearless feat, the girl manages to prove that she is worthy to stand on a par with Nora society. But Aloy's mission is not completed on this: the girl goes to the big world in search of the perpetrators of this inhuman attack. As a result, the red-haired beauty is drawn into a chain of incredible events, during which all the secrets of the world (or rather, its fall) lie in front of her at a glance.

World of the Mechanized Period

The Horizon Zero Dawn universe is unique. The player will plunge into an open and beautiful world filled with the most prominent landscapes: here you will find snow-capped mountains, tropical forests, and deserts with canyons. And only dilapidated echoes of civilization have been preserved in the form of ruins and rusty structures; the wreckage of the Forerunner era, as it is customary to express it among the new human generation. The game is based on the Decima engine (even bought from Sony by Kojima for Death Stranding), which was used in Killzone: Shadow Fall. Therefore, there is no doubt about the bright colors and brilliant lighting effects that flood the locations of the interactive post-apocalyptic nature of Horizon Zero Dawn - it is impossible to take your eyes off the game. The views are so mesmerizing that your finger is always ready to press the Share button to spam all your friends with the next image of the landscape. At the same time, the game looks equally bright on both the PS4 Pro and the standard PS4. It is impossible not to note the dynamic change of weather conditions: heat, sandstorm, downpour, snowfall. Separately, it is worth noting the excellent soundtrack, which organically fits into the surroundings of the game.

The towers in the game are long-necked machines that look like giraffes. Crawling on them is a pleasure

The wildlands are filled with mechanized fauna. Horses, hippos, ostriches, birds, cheetahs, dinosaurs and many other representatives of the exotic animal world received epic variations of metal clones. Machines lead their way of life to match the real prototypes: they graze in herds, small predators hunt in packs, and large "animals" prefer to wander alone. All classes of machines are united by a sense of hostility towards people, so even, at first glance, the most harmless Spearhorns (the mechanical prototype of an antelope) can cause big trouble.

The cars look really cool. Small and big - all these iron monsters feel menacing. A heavy and sharp step, a mechanical howl, sparkling eyes and the clang of heavy metal plates. In a word: creepy. However, they are constantly drawn to watch, crawl closer and inspect. The first thirteen hours of the game (approximately during this time the course of events will reveal almost the entire catalog of cars to the player) it is simply impossible to suppress the manifestations of a young naturalist in oneself.

But it is even more difficult to curb the desire to hunt cars. Therefore, most likely, any innocent observation will end in a spectacular fight between Ala and hostile robotic animals. All cars are completely different and mindlessly shooting them will not work. There is a specific set of pain points that need to be damaged in order to deal more damage to the enemy. At first glance, it seems, nothing complicated. But even the most experienced and pumped hunter will not give up so easily. The battle must be planned in advance (especially if you are dealing with a large predator): study the route of the car, inspect the area for the presence of relatives, so as not to suddenly be ambushed, set traps, identify weaknesses in the future victim, and then rush into battle .

The better you know the anatomy of giant machines, the more chances to win. For example, Curb carries a large container of flammable liquid on his stomach. And this means that the player must switch to burning arrows and try to break through the container of the car in order to set it on fire from the inside. Some vehicles are equipped with powerful laser weapons. Having shot the cannon from the body of the robot, you can pick it up and become a real prehistoric Rambo for a minute, smashing the poor animal into cogs from the laser.

Since the nature of the game is often unpredictable, then, for example, hunting for one Rogue (a panther-shaped machine with invisible camouflage) may well turn into a brutal meat grinder against several predators at once. Aloy is a fragile girl: it only takes two hits from a medium-sized car to go to the last save point.

Most likely, from the beginning of the passage, you can often lose, bite your elbows, rage and swear at the balance of the game, but when the hunting tactics work and you plunge your spear into the mechanical heart of a giant creature, a slight smug smile will play on your face. Approximately, like me, when I first failed Gromozeus (Tyrannosaurus from the world of Horizon Zero Dawn). The extreme battle against a gigantic machine lasted about 30 minutes and looked like some kind of uncompromising dance with death.

Huntress Nora

In other words, the most unexpected and pleasant thing about Horizon Zero Dawn is the versatility of the gameplay. As mentioned above, Guerrilla Games used to deal exclusively with first-person shooters that were spectacular and fast, but, alas, completely linear. For obvious reasons, many gamers feared that the "corridor" mechanics could migrate to Horizon Zero Dawn - an open world game, which would be an unforgivable mistake. Fortunately, this did not happen. Horizon has absorbed all the best qualities of action role-playing games.

Following the classic formula, story quests lead to the finale, and secondary tasks will organize an exciting excursion for the player throughout the open world of Horizon Zero Dawn. Perhaps the very solution of the quests will seem monotonous: hunt down, find, win. But here an unpredictable ecosystem comes to the rescue. You decided, for example, to attack an enemy settlement: you estimate the chances of winning, counting on the heads of the enemies, crawling through the bushes and corners. In short, be entirely in stealth mode. But a Sawtooth (or even more than one) who happened to be nearby is unlikely to be sympathetic to your Solid Snake games and, most likely, brazenly attacks from the back. Of course, you will have to fight back immediately. The turmoil behind the wall will certainly be heard by the guards, which will put the player in an obscenely difficult position. It is not worth hoping for help from NPCs in such extreme situations, because their artificial intelligence hides the main disadvantage of Horizon Zero Dawn - teammates are really stupid, like a tree. Even if Aloy will run around the location with a health crop and a burning ass, stocky scoundrels will sit behind the stones and wait for the weather by the sea.

But the AI ​​of the machines is debugged like clockwork. Having stumbled upon one Ryskar, the whole area will already be aware that somewhere nearby a man is loitering with a spear in his hands. Nature will instantly switch to the mode of instinctive self-preservation and will stomp, tear and shoot at everything that remotely resembles Homo sapiens. If Aloy notices a pack of small herbivorous machines, then it is still possible to fight back. But catch the eye of a herd of Buffaloes, you will have to run headlong in any direction where the horizon does not end in a dead end.

As you can see in this screenshot, there are endless side quests in Horizon.

The safest option for traversing the wilderness is to hack into a car from the ungulate family and gallop from point A to point B. Over the course of the story, Aloy will learn to "hack" only the weakest cars. But in order to tame more animals, you will have to go through side quests. Hacked predators can be set against relatives, thereby arranging a real epic battle between them: nimble titans tear each other apart, raising dust throughout the district.

Aloy's faithful assistant, who repeatedly saves her life, is a device called a visor. This gadget helps the girl determine the routes of movement of cars, track down people in their tracks, and also read audio and text messages scattered around the game world. Speaking of the latter, do not be lazy to study the lore of the game, hidden in the messages - they hide a lot of dramatic and exciting stories that will help players understand what the last days of a lost civilization were like.

The leveling system is obscenely stereotyped - you simply invest the experience points gained in three skill branches. However, it does not require any exorbitant effort from the player, but simply motivates him to play Horizon Zero Dawn in the fullest sense. Story quests are always marked with the recommended level of pumping. If the player has reached level 8, and the quest, for example, is marked level 11, then it makes sense to be a bit like secondary tasks in order to keep up with the progress of the plot.

crazy hands

Crafting is a key element of the Horizon Zero Dawn role-playing system. All defeated vehicles, without exception, must be inspected and the most valuable parts removed; at least pick up fragments, which are both arrowheads and in-game currency. Without this, in the world of the game, alas, it will not work to survive.

Parts torn from robots are used by Aloy as parts to create ammunition or armor. At worst, scrap metal can be sold to local merchants, and the resulting fragments can be used to buy really necessary goods or spare parts. In principle, there is nothing new in the systems of collecting, crafting and buying and selling, and they work according to the basic law of the role-playing game genre. I wanted to expand the bag for arrows, otherwise 12 pieces were somehow not enough - I went to hunt down the Bison, ripping off the skins from the rabbits along the way.

Unless, one can note the various useful properties of the armor that the player chooses for himself. There are practically no optimal options, let's say. First, the player needs to figure out for himself which style of play is more to his liking. If the player likes to meet the enemy in close combat, then you need to look for the appropriate equipment from the merchants; and if the player is more likely to encounter arrows and laser weapons, then you will have to look for other armor options that match personal preferences.

A separate story is connected with first-aid kits and wood. Gathering does not end with taking apart broken robots. The territory of the open world is dotted with useful plants, from which you can (and should) make auxiliary potions: first-aid kits, amplifiers, protective potions from electricity, fire, cold. And in order to replenish the supply of arrows, it is not at all necessary to look for the nearest merchant: you just need to wander around and break dry twigs.

Gathering may slow down the pace, but it's an essential element of the game's survival system. In addition, in general, the world of Horizon Zero Dawn is so exciting that any "routine" mechanics in the game are simply invisible.

Horizon Zero Dawn is without a doubt one of the biggest interactive entertainment events of the year. This is a first-class action role-playing game that will very unobtrusively take away dozens of hours of free time from you, and in return will give you an uncountable abundance of positive emotions.

Walking with cyberdinosaurs. Review of Horizon: Zero Dawn

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The biggest problemhorizon:ZeroDawnis that its details have been kept secret for too long. There is nothing strange in this: the plot of the game is very sensitive to spoilers, so revealing the details would be too risky for the developers. On the other hand, it was precisely this secrecy that played withHorizon bad joke. If you were expecting something out of the ordinary from the game, be prepared for the fact that it will either impress you to the core or disappoint you a little.

In the future, humanity, as usual, experienced some kind of large-scale catastrophe. Beautiful cities with skyscrapers, highways and burger restaurants have fallen apart and are overgrown with moss. Now strange mechanical creatures, very similar to ordinary animals, graze on former agricultural lands and in picturesque forests. Here you have deer robots, bison robots, and even dinosaur robots. The remaining people live in tribes of varying degrees of development: some live in wooden shacks and pick mushrooms and berries, others built a hefty city under the Middle Ages with knights and mechanical elevators, and still others do not allow the first and second to live in peace, attacking them with light machine guns and sticks. The fact that this is a post-apocalypse is only reminiscent of the ruins of ancient American cities. Only some curious comrades go there, but none of them really thinks about what happened to the civilization developed in the past. And this is a little strange: the concentration of rusty tanks per square kilometer is off scale, and this suggests that something terribly bad has happened.

The main character of the game, a young girl named Aloy, just refers to such curious individuals. As a child, she gets into an ancient dungeon and finds a small device called a "visor", which, apparently, works via Bluetooth. Aloy, of course, does not know about this, but keeps the device to herself, using it to its fullest. The cheat visor gives her witcher senses and the ability to see hidden traces, it helps her communicate from a distance and, most importantly, allows her to interact with ancient technology. This interaction, however, is limited to opening doors and reading all sorts of diaries.

The concentration of rusty tanks per square kilometer is off scale, and this suggests that something terribly bad has happened.

The diaries are the backbone of Horizon's story. Through them, the whole story of the game is revealed. In fact, most of the main storyline is a long journey from end to end of the map, from one underground room with a set of diaries to another. They came, listened, killed some hefty robot, ran on - and so on until the very end. Apparently, Guerilla was sure that the story contained in these diaries alone would impress the player so much that he would turn a blind eye to all the shortcomings of the game's storyline.

It can be interesting to hear about what happened to the ancient civilization and where the beast-like machines came from on the planet. Curious, but no more. According to Guerilla, what happened on the planet seems very far-fetched, and sometimes even absurd. That is, the idea, of course, is cool, but sagging in all respects. There are obvious holes and inconsistencies in the plot that are very striking. Although for many players the scale of the very idea of ​​​​the developers certainly compensates for its underdevelopment. And this is good: you will not have to regret the money spent.

It can be interesting to hear about what happened to the ancient civilization and where the beast-like machines came from on the planet. Curious, but no more.

It was very strange to realize that history is the weakest side of Horizon. The dialogues in the game are childishly naive, the heroine now and then rushes to extremes, the characters behave absolutely illogically. The whole game is based on the confrontation of conditional "good" and conditional "evil", and the characters are trying their best to show their belonging to the first or second side. Well, Aloy herself is just the queen of some incomprehensible sarcastic altruism. Today she is at odds with everyone, and tomorrow she forgets about all her affairs and rushes to help others right and left, turning into some kind of people's detective. She searches for missing brothers, missing sisters, and missing objects without asking for anything in return. Okay, Geralt from The Witcher did all those things. After all, this is his profession, which he made a living from. But why yesterday's exile voluntarily becomes an errand girl for the whole world is absolutely incomprehensible. Maybe she just wants to be loved by everyone? In general, there are big problems with the characters in this game.

As you can see by now, the side quests in Horizon are not to be praised for. Obviously, they were created only for the sake of having them. The same can be said about the dialogue wheel: it is in the game, but its influence on the plot and on the passage is simply zero. The ability to select replicas in the dialogues serves only to ensure that the next NPC tells you some sentimental story or tells you about what is happening in his area.

Why yesterday's exile voluntarily becomes an errand girl for the whole world is absolutely incomprehensible. Maybe she just wants to be loved by everyone?

Horizon: Zero Dawn is Guerilla Games' first attempt at a massive open world game. The studio, apparently, decided not to be smart, and as a result, Horizon is a huge constructor, assembled from elements of many other games that you might have seen before. The situation, in principle, is normal, but in the Guerilla game all these elements do not fully add up to the whole picture. The heroine travels to huge locations on the local Roach, collects colorful grass for making potions, skins wild boars for crafting and hacks huge cyber-dinosaurs that personify towers.

The feeling that all this has already been somewhere does not leave for a minute. On the other hand, the game will be quite understandable to everyone: you already know that you need to look for animal skins to craft bags, and plants with red flowers will be useful to create healing infusions. Well, extra items can be drained to local merchants in order to then buy better weapons from them. Weapons, by the way, in the game is quite small. The main striking force is made up of bows of two types: rapid-fire and sniper. It is with their help that you will most often literally tear apart the robo-fauna of Horizon: Zero Dawn. And I must say, she is very angry here.

The feeling that all this has already been somewhere does not leave for a minute. On the other hand, the game will be quite clear to everyone.

If something went wrong with the plot of Guerilla, then in terms of battles with the robots inhabiting the world, the game is all right. These guys are plentiful in every location, and most of them rush at the player at the first opportunity. Trying to mindlessly shoot them is a bad idea. Each robot has its weak points, which are carefully illuminated by the visor of the main character. However, opponents do not stand still - they run around you, waiting for the right moment to attack. You have to constantly be on the move, dodging throws and trying to seize an opportunity to send a couple of arrows into the enemy's weak spot. Robots have their own resistance and their own vulnerability to certain types of damage. Therefore, you can easily deal with some especially healthy creature in a matter of seconds, freezing it from head to toe or blowing up its fuel tanks.

Fighting robots in Horizon: Zero Dawn is a real pleasure. If you wish, you can avoid large-scale open fights by developing stealth skills, hiding in tall grass and luring them out one at a time. But passing the game with a twinkle is, of course, much more fun. The difficulty of the battles here is high, and at such moments, Horizon will be a serious challenge for you.

Fight the robotshorizon:ZeroDawn is a pleasure.

But what's most impressive is how the game looks. Today, Horizon boasts perhaps the most beautiful open world on the current generation of platforms. Even on a regular PlayStation 4, the game produces a chic picture by modern standards. It seems that every corner of the game map was made by hand. There are huge forests, and high mountain ranges, and even a real desert, getting into which, one wonders how the developers managed to fit all this beauty in one game. The map looks huge though. There are no through paths in it, so you will have to travel a lot, but there is simply no desire to use the ability to quickly travel. Everything is too beautiful - it would be imprudent to ignore such magnificence. Horizon is a paradise for lovers of beautiful screenshots, to help them, a photo mode with a bunch of useful settings is built into the game from the start.

Guerilla Games has yet to learn how to make open world games. They know how to create stunningly beautiful locations and cool action that challenges the player. Horizon: Zero Dawn is dragged down by a weak storyline and a complete lack of any unique mechanics. The creators of the game seem to have spied them everywhere they could. And I really wanted them to present us something of themselves.

Vasily KURGALOV: I'm kind of glad I didn't have to write a review for Horizon: Zero Dawn. All because of ambiguous impressions and feelings of disappointment in the game. Especially against the background of the fact that there are not very many exclusives on the PlayStation 4 today. The expectations of the game exceeded the game itself. To some extent, this is the fault of the developer, and to some extent, the hungry public. Horizon: Zero Dawn came out as a rather controversial project. The first pancake for Guerrilla Games turned out to be lumpy. The team that gave us Killzone made a number of, one might say, childish mistakes.

Guerrilla Games is definitely good at graphics and design. The world in which we are immersed looks incredibly elaborate on the outside. This is not just another post-apocalypse where there is nothing and, most likely, there will be nothing. We got a very interesting concept of the meeting of the primitive present and the high-tech past. Sometimes you just stand and "stick" to the local views, the play of light and shadow, admiring the same robots. Horizon: Zero Dawn was definitely made with love.

The game is based on a very unusual idea - this has not been shown to us anywhere else. Mankind has returned to primitive times: someone wages tribal wars, others live in a feudal system. Instead of animals, there are robots here, and watching people fight with them with arrows is very funny at first, and then interesting. The concept of Horizon: Zero Dawn is really very unusual - the developer can and should be praised for this. But that, unfortunately, is where the praise ends. Guerrilla Games has shown that it can come up with an interesting idea and competently implement it in technical terms. But only technically.

Everything rests on the secondary plot. An interesting idea breaks down into a rather banal and predictable story with obvious moves. The main character Aloy solves absolutely standard problems that would fit into the world of any game, and the entourage of Horizon: Zero Dawn acts only as a “backdrop”. Aloy's story would look exactly the same in any other game as it does here. And this is a problem, because before the release, everything said that we were waiting for a very original character and a unique story. In fact, it all came down to the hackneyed "save everyone" and "thank you for saving me." The same one also had a rather unusual concept. But take Joel and Ellie out of the world of the game and the whole story loses its charm. You can’t transfer their journey to another world - it simply won’t work. And the story of Aloy will quietly exist in any other post-apocalypse.

Guerrilla Games could not find a competent balance between dynamics and statics. Often the action is interrupted by a cutscene or dialogue, the presence of which is completely unjustified. Often you are cut off at a moment when you just want to move on in the story. Instead, you have to listen to the dull speech of the NPC. This greatly squanders the narrative, and at some point it seems that in this way the developers were simply trying to increase the duration of the passage. Of course, you can skip dialogues, but you will lose a lot in understanding both the plot and the game world as a whole.

There are also simply banal errors that other developers got rid of a long time ago. So, you can finish the task in one place, and at the same second a cut-scene will begin, where you will be a kilometer away from the location where you were a second ago. This is a trifle, but it is very striking.

Because of the frequent dialogues, we have to look at the faces of the characters for a long time. And here, for completely incomprehensible reasons, another major minus comes out: the facial animation is very bad. Maybe I'm not understanding something, but still, even Alyx Vance, released in 2004, could express more emotions and was more alive than all the characters in Horizon: Zero Dawn. And this fact causes a huge cognitive dissonance. The localization of the project also falls into the same piggy bank. The vast majority of actors either don't finish their acting, portraying exactly zero emotions, or overact. No surprise, questions or anything else - just a statement of fact. Dry, dull, boring. Apparently, the voice actors were not provided with a document describing the scenes for which they are recording lines.

You can and should play Horizon: Zero Dawn. Just be prepared for the fact that this is not the level of exclusives that have always been a source of pride for any console gamer. We can say that this is a kind of test of the pen, a bold experiment of those people who are used to making corridor shooters. Horizon: Zero Dawn, with a scrupulous passage with the completion of all side tasks and knocking out achievements, can easily take you 70-90 hours. Core gameplay is a matter of taste. Fans of the genre, most likely, will not find big problems in it. Those who expected something else will be disappointed. Guerrilla Games needs to do a lot of work on the bugs before releasing the next part.

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Reviewed version of the game: PlayStation 4

Pros:

• Dynamic, exciting battles;
• Huge detailed open world;
• Outstanding graphics;
• Animal robots;

Minuses:

• Weak plot;
• A small number of weapons;
• Lack of original ideas;

Grade: 7.5

Verdict: an incredibly beautiful, but in many ways secondary game, whose sensational story may well not impress you.

Horizon Zero Dawn combines popular online gaming trends for a single player experience. Everything we are used to is here: gathering, crafting, open world, non-linear passage and more. It would seem that such a kit should have been boring for a long time, but maybe in some other video game. Horizon quickly addictive and does not bother at all, literally at every step the player is waiting for hints and hints, more and more piqued interest.

What is Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn is the story of a young huntress named Aloy, who is trying to find her place in the world around her.

The player sees an unusual universe in which people are thrown back into primitive society, and robots rule the planet. People live in small settlements, hunt and gather. Mechanical beasts are found in forests and meadows. Today, it is safe to say that this is where the most beautiful video game landscapes are. The world captivates with endless expanses, scorched deserts, snow-capped mountains, grassy ruins of civilization, gloomy caves. Everything looks like the real thing. It is worth noting that the developers have provided for the presence of a photo mode, with which you can save all the moments of the "journey".

Main character Aloy

The heroine grew up in exile with her mentor Rust. Throughout her life, young Aloy proved to others that she was a worthy person. But, without even blinking an eye, the fiery-haired archer becomes the hope of the tribe. The heroine is endowed with the following abilities:

Finding a visor in the ancient ruins, she sees what is hidden from others. For example, she can determine the hidden places of cars, calculate the route of the robot, read information from old devices;

Having matured, she becomes the owner of another artifact that allows you to open electronic locks, as well as intercept control of various mechanisms;

With this list of abilities, a huge arsenal and good stamina, Aloy has an increased chance of defeating opponents, which are armored vehicles equipped with a laser, bombs, and flamethrowers.

An interesting point is the emphasis on combining ammunition, "tuning" modifications. Available in the game and pumping Aloy, which is carried out in the direction: warrior, gatherer, hunter.

Horizon Zero Dawn is an RPG where tactics, focus, and personal skill play an important role.

On February 28, 2017, the massive open-world action/RPG Horizon: Zero Dawn will be released. Plus another high-profile event in the industry over the past month. The project is expected and promising. It has an interesting story concept and decent implementation in terms of overall quality. This generally applies to graphics, features, quests, music. Now that there are plenty of open-world RPGs out there, the Horizon: Zero Dawn universe is still getting interesting. There is a desire to study it deeper, to find out what is the essence of the confrontation between human tribes and robotic animals. Just the other day, Guerrilla Games lifted a strict embargo on journalistic reviews. Game Resources received the full game for review. Let's take a comprehensive look at their new offspring.

Not so long ago, an article was already written with the announcement of the project, the first information about the plot, the quality rating according to the official and beta versions. And now the decisive hour has come. Ready game and a portion of fresh impressions. As always, in order.

Plot of Horizon: Zero Dawn

The player meets a harsh post-apocalypse. And this is not some typical world with ruins after a nuclear disaster. Although the main screenwriter is John Gonzales, who came up with Fallout 3 New Vegas. No, it's much deeper than that. Thousands of years have passed since the death of the forerunner civilization (as our contemporaries are called here). Apparently, they were killed by technology. The earth is now inhabited by animal robots of various types, up to huge monsters. People also remained on it, but the level of development of their civilization is low and they are very scattered. Some tribes live according to the primitive system of the Stone Age, others have developed the state system a little more. The most advanced nations have some technology and developed politics, but still, this is the maximum level of the Middle Ages. There are few memories of the forerunner era, only ancient fossilized remains, which people simply cannot explore. It already feels like a serious scenario, doesn't it?

The main character of the game is the huntress Elloy. She was born into a tribe of pagans who worshiped the Great Mother (meaning nature), From the very birth she was made an outcast. These are special members of society with whom others are forbidden to communicate and are expelled from the village. It happened because of some misconduct of the parents, which Ella has yet to learn about. She lives alone far from the village and since childhood has been learning all the skills necessary for survival from another outcast named Rust. He is much older, experienced in many things. Rust became the girl's father and mentor. By the age of majority, she is already an excellent hunter, not afraid of robotic beasts and able to survive in extreme situations. She decides, by all means, to go through initiation into her native tribe and save him from the impending great danger. This is the plot of the story for more than 30+ hours of the main plot alone. With side quests, this number can be safely doubled.

Outcome. And from the plot, and in the course of the entire development of the storyline, it is clear that this is the work of professional screenwriters. The plot here is by no means just an excuse for action and quests. It is interesting to watch him, you empathize with the characters. Cut scenes and scripted videos on the game engine are staged perfectly. Some veterans of games and films with similar plots may find the plot twists too predictable. But still, top notch.

Horizon: Zero Dawn Graphics

Guerrilla Games has never skimped on graphics when creating their PS exclusives. That Killzone 2 on Playstation 3 squeezed out very beautiful graphics, that the third Killzone on PS4. But those were corridor first-person shooters, but how are things with role-playing in a huge? The answer is unequivocal - no worse. Gorgeous detail, high-resolution textures (1080p for PS4, 4K for PS4 Pro), amazing scenery and light reflections. The developers have said they want to make the most beautiful PS4 exclusive to date. And partly it succeeded. Even the facial animations in scripted story cutscenes don't look as clumsy as they do in other RPGs, to say nothing of everything else. The environment of forests, mountains and fields, as if referring to Far Cry Primal. There's a lot in common. The animation of movements, battles and acrobatics is beautifully done.

Outcome. Console exclusives often try to show off the full power of their platform. And this is just the case. On PS4 Pro, the picture is simply gorgeous.

Gameplay Horizon: Zero Dawn

The gameplay of Horizon: Zero Dawn contains all the elements of a great open world RPG. The player will have to complete story quests, collect resources, upgrade numerous skills, and explore a huge map. In its type, the gameplay is reminiscent of the third Witcher. But here it is much more interesting to walk around the map just like that. This world is truly alive and beautiful. You believe in him.

You have to fight not only with powerful animal robots, but also with people. Humanity is incorrigible. No matter how few people and peoples inhabit the Earth, there will always be reasons for wars. Naturally, the approach to the destruction of machines and people is completely different. The combat mechanics of the game are varied. You can use stealth or try to go ahead. You also have to climb a lot of rocks and ledges. By the way, if in games like Assassin's Creed new places for a hook are highlighted or indicated as something else, then everything needs to be determined by eye. And this is good. Does not spoil the atmosphere.

At some point in the game, Elloy will find a special device called a visor. From now on, the gameplay will change significantly and acquire unique features. Now she can learn the properties of all objects, read traces, look through walls, see the weak points of robotic beasts, and much more. The subject of high technologies of the future (in this context, probably the past) on the head of a primitive huntress is an unusual approach. Immediately opens up a lot of space for stealth strategies and other quest-facilitating solutions.

Outcome. At its core, classic Open World RPG gameplay with a number of interesting features. Implemented perfectly.

Soundtrack

This part was also ignored. Unlike no less, the music was not left here as a simple motive in the background. She sometimes gets goosebumps, emphasizing dramatic moments, tension, anxiety, fear. In addition, the game has excellent Russian localization and voice acting (which is rare lately),

Outcome. They didn’t even forget about this part and made it at the highest level.

Conclusion

The gaming press, as before, mainly evaluates the game as “good” and “very good”. And here it is impossible not to agree with the opinion of the majority. It objectively does not have any weaknesses or significant shortcomings. Beautiful, big, interesting. Whether she will become the “face of PS4” is still too early to judge, but there are all the prerequisites for that. If you are the owner of Playstation 4, and even better PS4 Pro, then it is definitely recommended to play.

The death of mankind, as a consequence of environmental pollution, wars and dangerous experiments, literally does not leave the pages of Hollywood blockbusters, each time generating new incredible scenarios. Fresh game from the Dutch studio Guerrilla does not lag behind the big cinema, offering a look at the Earth after 2065, where, after a terrible catastrophe, humanity rolled back in development a couple of millennia ago.

The beginning is reminiscent of the premiere demo of the restart God of War. Rast teaches little Aloy how to hunt and gather, protecting her from danger and helping her become a real warrior. Emotional moments show all the growing bonds between the characters, gradually immersing the player in the atmosphere of a sci-fi world. The exciting and well-thought-out training is replaced by the first big task. Aloy must be initiated to not only become a full-fledged member of the tribe, but also to get answers to important questions: who was her mother, why did she become an outcast, and what is behind the ban on visiting technological ruins?

The developers combine exploration and plot, which is revealed and overgrown with new details while exploring the rich world of the game. Some locations open gradually, but you are not limited in the exploration of the available environment. This is what becomes one of your motivators and makes you move on - to new discoveries. And although the heroine has a clear goal, in order to achieve it you have to consistently complete story missions, going to various points on the map and gaining additional information about the world and history through side quests, listening to records and studying objects. If you're not careful enough, you can miss out on a lot of the game's lore.

The nature of the new world does not allow us to accurately determine the location of the project. You visit dense forests, climb sheer cliffs, as in tomb raider, using highlighted environment elements. Stormy rivers offer you to hide from your pursuers or catch salmon with a well-aimed shot, which will come in handy to improve your inventory. Sometimes you'll come across random nomad camps where you can get a quest or learn about the place through conversations with other characters. The world is very similar to Witcher”, only the number of available tasks here is a bit more modest.

The main story flows into side quests. Following the new standards of role-playing games, Guerrilla Games here takes creativity as a bar CD Project Red, distracting the player from the main task with a set of side quests, research, or random challenges. So, in one of the early missions, you can help a randomly encountered tribal warrior save his daughter from a pack of mechanical predators in order to continue the task by searching for traces of a giant beast in which the legendary spear is stuck - all that the poor girl has left in memory of her dead mother. As in " The Witcher”, you search for people or robots using a special mode. True, instead of a special flair, you are invited to activate the visor, which shows the route of movement of not only the missing targets, but also the enemy passing nearby.

In the second case, you can set traps or plan an ambush. The visor also determines the type of enemy, their dangerous attacks and vulnerabilities, which allows you to deal with a dangerous creature even on a high difficulty level.

Despite numerous action demos, he prefers the player to eschew head-on attacks in favor of tactical decisions. Hiding in the tall grass and quietly taking out the target in the head is a priority than going into a frontal attack, absorbing healing potions. Even in boss fights, it is preferable to set traps, dodge and shoot special arrows at weak points from afar than to engage in close confrontation. Unfortunately, stealth abilities do not involve hiding corpses, so you need to plan to eliminate opponents in the correct order without raising an alarm, keeping an eye on the routes of movement of the guards. This does not apply to the final part of the game, where the action component is mandatory, but by that time you should have already pumped enough.