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The West has called out to us and we dove straight into Aloy’s new adventure, which was recently released for the PC.
More specifically, Horizon Forbidden West takes place in the aforementioned Forbidden West in the middle of a tribal war. After the title was released in 2022 to continue the Horizon franchise, PC gamers can finally get their hands on it. It only took Sony, Guerrilla Games and Nixxes two years to do this. What ends up on your hard drives is truly a masterpiece. That’s basically it, but let’s go into further detail.
What exactly happened in the story of Horizon? A few months after the first part of the series ended, a strange plague spreads across Earth. Red scrub is spreading everywhere, turning the land barren. Aloy, who had already saved Meridian, sets out to get to the bottom of this problem. On her adventures we accompany Aloy through a new free accessible world, which makes a very good first impression.
We can explore a wide variety of biomes such as forests, deserts, snow mountains and also underwater worlds on the coasts. All these areas are a real feast for the eyes. You can see the attention to detail in it and that a lot of heart and soul went into creating this game world. Whether plants, animals, machines or just rubble, everything is lovingly and, above all, carefully placed in the world.
The audio design also pulls you right into it. Whether it’s the various noises in the environment, the sounds of animals or the whirring and creaking of machines, everything fits the mood of the game very well. The music also knows how to convey exactly this feeling – from quiet pieces when you roam through the forests to epic music in the middle of the fight against various opponents.
In terms of gameplay, we get an open world game, which means a main story and many side tasks that you can play, but don’t have to. You can collect many materials that are important for the crafting system. We build upgrades for weapons and armor as well as ammunition. Some of this can be done in the wilderness, but we have workbenches available for various things.
As soon as you have finished the basic game, you can play the included DLC Burning Shores. This expansion contains another area, several upgrades and also a completely new futuristic weapon.
Can Horizon Forbidden West even be played on a PC with a mouse and keyboard? Definitely yes!
With a mouse you can aim in a very precise manner, especially with ranged weapons, and we haven’t encountered any camera problems with a mouse. We also tried an Xbox controller, but quickly switched back to mouse control. Using the WASD buttons twice causes an evasive roll, which we switched off because it can be really annoying, especially while jumping. With minor adjustments we always had a precise gaming experience.
PC gamers who like to tinker with the settings should be delighted with this release due to the massive array of options. Everything you expect in a PC game these days is present. Furthermore, the upscaling methods Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR can be used, as well as Intel XeSS. We only noticed one small drawback: Unfortunately, it is not possible to limit the refresh rate, but this can be easily solved using the graphics driver or the graphics card manufacturer’s service program.
Conclusion
Overall, you can tell that Sony have learned very well from their past and have brought Nixxes on board, a partner who knows how to port properly. The game thrilled us from start to finish and we still roam with Aloy through the lush forests and vast deserts of this earth of the future. During the entire test phase we had no stutters or game crashes. The whole experience was top notch and the story and, above all, the game world captivated us.
You can’t go wrong with this port of Horizon Forbidden West. We’re really looking forward to the third entry in the franchise, in which we can hopefully experience the crowning conclusion. The setting is still pleasantly fresh and we’ve had a lot of fun with Aloy’s adventures.
The game is available via Steam and in the Epic Games Store for €59.99, £49.99, $59.99 or your regional equivalent. Considering the content and quality offered by the Complete Edition, we think that’s pretty fair. Therefore, we can really recommend Horizon Forbidden West to those who were unable to play the second entry on PlayStation. All those who have already been joining Aloy on the consoles, can spare the expense as they will not experience any content changes, but everyone else is encouraged to get this version.
PlayStation provided us with a Steam version of Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition, which we used to take the screenshots.