Horizon Forbidden West: The First Preview - IGN

After four hours of Horizon Forbidden West hands-on, Aloy's new adventure is clearly going to offer a lot more depth, freedom, and fun than its already great predecessor.

[zsquaresoff]

Less than a month away now, hope they do a full 15-20 minutes State of Play for this game like they did with Ghost of Tsushima and others.

[sammarshall102]

I'd watch it but I'm already sold. It seems like this game will be very special

[EvertonFC]

Same, not even watched the recent story trailer NO need 😀

[The_Hooligan]

Got my regalla edition pre-ordered back in September. Can't wait.

[Storm23]

Yeah, same. I watched the original trailer and that was it. I am so excited to go in almost blind on this one. That's what I do with all of my most anticipated releases. Can't wait!

[peppeaccardo]

Day one adopter here too.

IGN - Too many mechanical parts 7/10 .... :P JK

[SullysCigar]

Lol don't give them ideas!

I don't need IGN to tell me if I should but this game. I think they'll back it, though, realising resistance would be futile.

Everything's seeming very promising and they're awesome developers, so I'm already in.

[esherwood]

I hear enough of what they think about stuff that has nothing to do with video games to know I don’t value their opinions

[adamcruz]

No it's not possible.

[GamingSinceForever]

They already did one last year so I doubt we will get another one.

[EvertonFC]

They are 1st Thursday of February

[FlavorLav01]

Didn’t it already get a State of Play though? They should use an event to focus on Sifu or another or GT7 which are both right around the corner as well. If you’re not sold of Horizon2 yet, blame your own eyeballs because they can no longer recognize quality.

[Flawlessmic]

Looks amazing!!!

The arena looks sickkk, can see ill be spending a while in it to fight machines!!

Only a couple more weeks to go until were playing what is sure to be a game of the year contender, and if im honest my pick to win game of the year even ahead of god of war and the unknown that is starfield.

[sammarshall102]

I can't wait to dive underwater. I think the side quests will be much improved too

[Flawlessmic]

Man the under water parts look crazy good, i remember when i saw it in the very first trailer i was like no way it looks like this in the game.

Then state of play comes and bamm it looks like that!

[Crows90]

If thats the direction sony studios take with their open worlds then they will soon dominate that space as well.

[LoveSpuds]

Yeah, I know many don't like underwater elements in games, I guess because they have been poorly implemented in the past.

But I think developers have got a much stronger grip on things like the controls in underwater sections of games these days. One of my personal faves was the brief but really cool diving scene in Uncharted 4, but I think even Ubi did a good job in the last few Assassin's Creed games.

The thing I like about underwater exploration is that it seems so much more mysterious and dangerous; these are areas mostly unseen and untouched by others, its just cool to me.

[gijsbrecht]

Wow, both the visuals and gameplay look simply stunning!

[rpvenom]

Agreed. These games are what reminds me there are still amazing studios out there with real passion.. it's so easy for companies this day and age to succumb to greed and money hungry practices.. chasing GAAS models or microtransactions for little to no content or upgrades.. but studio's like this.. truly want to produce top tier cutting edge experiences and I'm just grateful as a gamer. Take my money!

[Magog]

Improving on the best action game ever made and making the most beautiful and impressive looking game ever made. Guerilla are the only devs giving Naughty Dog a run for their money.

[RaidenBlack]

Within Sony?
Insomniac?

[Flawlessmic]

I think its fair to say guerilla is atleast on the same level with naughty dog and insomniac.

[Magog]

Anywhere in the world. Insomniac are great but I would place them slightly below ND and Guerilla with Santa Monica. Non-playstation devs need not apply. Their teams are in a league of their own.

[S2Killinit]

I think ND are unsurpassed imo

[CaptainHenry916]

@S2Killinit

So ND is Unsurpassed based on one game?

[Flawlessmic]

@captainhenry

Ur saying one game made naughty dog good?

They have literally been killing it, since crash bandicoot, then jak and daxter than uncharted and the last of us.

Unless u took what he said as guerilla had surpassed them based off one game being horizon

[CaptainHenry916]

"Unless u took what he said as guerilla had surpassed them based off one game being horizon"

Yup. Naughty Dog hasn't showed me anything yet since Uncharted and the last of us part one. I got Guerilla games and Insomiac ahead of them at the moment

[Elden2021]

I agree with you Magog but remember we haven't seen what ND are working on yet for PS5, that run might get a bit more difficult. Sony does have the best developers in the world for sure.

[adamcruz]

i also agree with you.

[ChubbyBlade]

Best action game ever made? The games great but it’s not even close to that title.

[InUrFoxHole]

This game looks great. I gotta force myself through the 1st story before I pick it up. A lot of good games this year.

[neutralgamer1992]

I tried to play HZD few times and the game just didn't click with me. Multiple times I started and put the game down and played something else. Than one day I really gave it a fair shot and plays 4-5 hours after which I was hooked. It starts slow but it sets up nicely. It's one of my favorite games

[SullysCigar]

My experience to a tee. This also happened with Red Dead Redemption for me - wanted to like it, didn't for a good few hours, persevered and ended up loving it.

[x_xavier_x]

I started to play HZD twice but gave up after a few hours. I kept thinking "I know that this game is universally praised, so what am I missing here?". Maybe I'll give it another shot. I'm honestly not looking forward to picking it up again. The visuals are fantastic, but the story and gameplay didn't engage me. To each there own, I guess.

[Crows90]

The opposite of my experience. As is the case with me and open worlds save for Elder Scrolls Morrowind and the Witcher 3(barely), Im hooked in the beginning and lose interest overtime due to repetition and boring side content.

[InUrFoxHole]

I'm gonna do that this weekend. My gripe, and this is going to sound silly 🤪 was the character model when you start the game as a kid seemed unlike like to me. The kid looked weird to me lol. I'm like that. I was gonna give cyberpunk a shot but at the beginning you're in the garage with the mechanic. The shadow would pop in and out underneath the car depending how far you stand. That was a turn off for me. I hear HZD is good so I'm gonna give it a shot. Plus I own it so I might as well get my $ worth lol

[ProjectVulcan]

Horizon and Gran Turismo 7 in the space of two weeks. Hyped.

[dumahim]

And Wonderlands not too far behind. In the span of a little over a month, it's going to be better than all of 2021 for me.

[purple101]

Keanu Reeves would say ”This game is breathtaking"

[Father__Merrin]

Slew of ps5 titles this year

[GhostofHorizon]

I'm loving everything I hear here.

I thought Zero Dawn looked somewhat interesting and didn't really see what was special about it but then I played it and it quickly became one of my favourite games.

There are just some things you can't see and feel until you actually get in the driving seat and the first game felt great.

Really excited for this one, few more weeks.

[GaboonViper]

Oh my goodness, this looks wonderful, and those animations are top notch, i cant wait to explore this world.

[CaptainHenry916]

This game is about to get a great review score

[Bathyj]

Oh Johnathan, great preview, but if you had said the jump from 1 to 2 reminds you of Uncharted, not Assassin's Creed I would have said get out of my head.

Anyway, very real GOTY contender already.

[UltimateRacer]

I’m playing through the first one on PS5, I bought it when it came out but never finished it, never got the time.

[IanTH]

The fact you get to enjoy the meat of it in 60fps...I'm jealous lol.

As much as I loved it on PS4, I badly wanted to see it in 60fps. Was going to buy on PC when it launched, but held off. Recently got my hands on a PS5 & went back & played a bunch of PS4 games with their 60fps patches. Got the Plat in H:ZD I always intended to go back and get. Felt so damn good to finally play in 60fps! Stable 30fps can be fine, but I honestly never want to see another game come out targeting 30fps lol.

[GaboonViper]

BEAUTIFUL.

https://twitter.com/i/statu...

[mike32UK]

Literally the only thing I can pick fault with (and I'm purely nitpicking here) is the fact foliage still doesn't react to character movement.

[yippiechicken]

The first Horizon was one of my favorite games of all time, so I'm super excited about this!

[P_Bomb]

Solid preview!

[S2Killinit]

Gotta get ready for this.

[mrblackgx]

Now I need to go back and finish the 1st. This game looks very promising.

[VoiceMale]

Really lovely how they managed to make a great game even greater!!!!!
A must play for gamers

[Blaze929]

Honestly I hope they go back to Killzone after this.

[Magog]

Maybe a second team. But only if it goes third person and gets a beautiful redhead protagonist.

[Ninver]

Polished exclusive. The way it should be done. Looking forward to this

[SimpleSlave]

The exploration still seem clunky and hampered by mid design. Breath of the Wild, Immortal Fenyx Rysing and AssCreed Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla have fixed the exploration aspect far beyond this game even attempts. Be it free climbing, Wings for fast traveling or climb everything that you see, these games seem better position for the future. While Horizon seem to just be playing catch up still.

Maybe in the next game or 3 will we see some actual innovation. Especially given the fact that this games world employs some pretty advance technology. The irony.

[Christopher]

This reads like a post trying to be sound smart but just being negative without any context.

Having not played the games we can't comment on their use of travel as the worlds' designs are completely different. Most of the games you mention have very large, open worlds. And the "fix" for most of them is fast travel, which the first Horizon game had. Being able to "climb everything" when the world was designed to force you to climb everything to get to a goal seems the same as only having some areas where you have to climb to get to a goal to me rather than designing everything as needing to be climbed.

[SimpleSlave]

We both saw the same video and clearly came to the same conclusion. You just much rather make excuse as to why it doesn't look that appealing or advanced compared to the mentioned games. That's fine, you do you.

Having played so many games at this point I don't need to play this to know what is being offered or shown in this video. You know this, I know this, and anybody that played the first one knows how this game will play. There is nothing shown here that's a game changer mechanic nor advance to begin with. We even know how the glider will feel to control just by looking at it. Lets just say this ain't Just Cause.

So go ahead and downplay the other games if it makes you feel better. You can even pretend that the first Horizon didn't lean heavily on the use of fast travel unlike the other games. Hell, you can even make excuses as to why freedom of climbing everything somehow is not the greatest shit since the jump button and leads to more fun exploration, discovery and world design. But know that at the end of the day this won't change the fact that the traversal mechanics in this game look mid as hell and nowhere near as fun or advance as other games.

So pray to the gaming gods that they pull out a GTA: San Andrea's Jet Pack later in the game so you can brag about it and make me eat crow. Can't wait. Cuz either way I was still right. 👍

[Christopher]

***So go ahead and downplay the other games if it makes you feel better. ***

Didn't downplay anything. I just didn't make assumptions that one design concept is better than others or think that climbing is the end all be all when it's implemented to force climbing. Nor did I say this game is going to sell better than any of the games you mentioned (it won't).

As far as "fun" I find fun in almost all the games you mention. I've played and greatly enjoyed them (and completed most of them) other than BotW (just not my cup of tea). What I find fun in HZD is completely different than what I enjoy in the others.

Perhaps for you it's just traversal? I'm not sure.

[SimpleSlave]

Seriously, how did we ended up here? Of course my post was ONLY about traversal/method of exploration. It's the only point I brought up. I never got into the overall game design, graphics, story, music, rest of the gameplay elements, controls, fast travelling, etc. I mean, the first Horizon was boring and pretty mediocre but that is neither here nor there since that wasn't my point. My entire comment was just talking about the methods of exploration they presented in this video and how I find it lacking and not as advanced as some of the other games that have taken the right steps to fix the traversal problems in giant maps.

Think about it, it was only you who brought up the rest. If this game is good or not is neither here nor there. That is something that, yes, we'll have to wait and see. But as far as I'm concern my point about the exploration methods looking stale still stand until they pull out a San Andrea.

[Flawlessmic]

Sounds like someone doesnt like sony here.

Traversal looks more than good, and to call the first game boring and mediocre is joke lol.

Clearly jealous of something lol

And i love how u keep saying ur right lol right about what?

First game got rave reviews so comment on it being mediocre and boring are wrong.

Travesal was a slight issue in the first which has been rectified here and will get rave reviews again.

Go back down the hole u crawled out from

[SimpleSlave]

The current Sony? Not so much no. They used to have a much better variety of genres in their exclusives as opposed to the constant barrage of mediocre Third Person Cinematic games. Still, the PS4 is were I played my games so, yeah, there's that.

Traversal looks better than the first one, yes. Still doesn't mean is more than good. More like serviceable. The first game WAS boring and mediocre. Just another copypasta open world game. Granted, not as terrible as Ubisoft, but nothing to brag on about.

Yea, I'm jealous of a video game...fantastic logic you used there.

I'm right about my assessment of what it's shown on the video. Like I said, if you play a large variety of games for years and years you'll get to understand gameplay mechanics and how they might feel without needing to play the game.
I also don't care about reviews. IGN, Gamespot, YouTube, and all of these companies are just trying to make money by selling ad space for the industry they are meant to criticize... And they love to hire hipsters that have zero clue about gaming in general. So who cares. Regardless, if you buy your games and base you enjoyment on the opinion of those mids then that's on you.

Traversal was garbage in the first one. No need to downplay it. Compare it to the games that did it right and you wouldn't even bother softening this point. Again, don't care about reviews. So you do you.

"Go back down the hole u crawled out from" And here you have it folks. You could've engaged me with valid points but instead decided to puke all over the keyboard. This, right here, is why you care so much about "reviewers" and game scores. I bet you play with yourself while checking out Metacritic scores. Not a good look pal.

The sad reality is that you can't think for yourself and when you decide to try you just end up face-planting on some rando gaming board.

What a mid.

[MegaLogic]

I've got a few sick days to burn into a weekend

[the worst]

IGN is an xbox channel probably give a 6.5/ 7.0

[AlsoC0ming2PC]

Thanks Jim

[Mithan]

I have pretty much blacked this game out. I dont want to know anything, just a fresh experience.

[ArmorOfGod]

Her Eyes On Four Dozen Twix

[F0XH0UND922]

Stroke?

[adamcruz]

I've got a few sick days to burn into a weekend

[Crows90]

Gotta say it actually really looks incredible.
I wasnt a huge fan of the first...it was an open world with Dinos and the dinos were cool but that was it.
Im seeing enormous improvement to traversal and combat.

You can just feel the innovation taking place in the preview. Too bad only sony seems to pull this off every time.

[Elda]

Another reason why I don't mind spending retail price for Sony's games. You can see the passion,art & creativity that went into developing HFW. I can't wait to pick up my paid copy.