Horizon Zero Dawn (Official Discussion Thread)

I don't double dip on games across platforms too often but I am doing here for sure. It was my favorite PS4 exclusive game and I look forward to running it with higher fidelity on a PC.
 
Arioch said:
I don't double dip on games across platforms too often but I am doing here for sure. It was my favorite PS4 exclusive game and I look forward to running it with higher fidelity on a PC.
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I have it on PS4, but didn't get very far.

I'll probably buy it again just to play at 4K 60fps w/ a mouse and keyboard... but I won't pay full price. This will be a sub-$20 purchase for me.
 
Flogger23m said:
How exactly is the gameplay for those that played it? The world and setting looks interesting. But is it more about scavenging or is the story a big part of it?
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I wrote a review on it in the appropriate topic. TLDR: I didn't like the pacing, you spend too much time scavenging and hunting between actual story missions. And the main story is only advanced by a few key missions, but then you get so much information dumped on you that it's overwhelming.
 
M76 said:
I wrote a review on it in the appropriate topic. TLDR: I didn't like the pacing, you spend too much time scavenging and hunting between actual story missions. And the main story is only advanced by a few key missions, but then you get so much information dumped on you that it's overwhelming.
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Was worried about that. Open world games can have a good narrative but pacing can certainly be an issue. Can you come back post game and do side quests? May have to skip some to keep the narrative constant enough to keep me interested. The art style does look nice though. Has my interest, but it seems like games increasingly have too much side content and you're almost better off keeping some of it for post game. Problem for me is once I finish the main story, my interest in doing side quests drops by about half.
 
Flogger23m said:
Was worried about that. Open world games can have a good narrative but pacing can certainly be an issue. Can you come back post game and do side quests? May have to skip some to keep the narrative constant enough to keep me interested. The art style does look nice though. Has my interest, but it seems like games increasingly have too much side content and you're almost better off keeping some of it for post game. Problem for me is once I finish the main story, my interest in doing side quests drops by about half.
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If I remember correctly the main story missions don't even reveal themselves until you finish the side quests. And the hunting you must do to have enough resources to craft upgrades. But you can loot most of the raw materials from the machines you fight during missions, I rarely went out of my way to hunt down specific crafting ingredients.

Actually the side quests are better than in most games, it is as if the game had multiple interconnecting main quests to it.
 
Flogger23m said:
Was worried about that. Open world games can have a good narrative but pacing can certainly be an issue. Can you come back post game and do side quests? May have to skip some to keep the narrative constant enough to keep me interested. The art style does look nice though. Has my interest, but it seems like games increasingly have too much side content and you're almost better off keeping some of it for post game. Problem for me is once I finish the main story, my interest in doing side quests drops by about half.
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I didn't have as many problems with the game as M76 did, but I definitely agree with him on the pacing issues. You can go back and do anything you missed after beating the game. Its probably worth only doing things that interest you initially during the story as otherwise you end up making the game very easy towards the end. A lot of the major side content is fun and the map isn't too densely packed with "content", but it can get overwhelming if you try to do everything before moving on with the story.
 
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does fighting those giant mech robots ever get old?...does it lose its wow factor after fighting them a few times?
 
polonyc2 said:
does fighting those giant mech robots ever get old?...does it lose its wow factor after fighting them a few times?
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It definitely gets old. Actually the smallest robots are the most fun to fight. The giant ones always felt like a chore. They have tiny weak points that you constantly trying to hit, and when you slightly miss you cause 5hp damage instead of 500.
Most of the time the only success I Had was to stand in the line of fire and take my time aiming, opting to take the damage than throw away the shot. I expect the game to be much easier with mouse+kb. But I'm not sure it is worth playing again, unless it's very cheap.
 
M76 said:
It definitely gets old. Actually the smallest robots are the most fun to fight. The giant ones always felt like a chore. They have tiny weak points that you constantly trying to hit, and when you slightly miss you cause 5hp damage instead of 500.
Most of the time the only success I Had was to stand in the line of fire and take my time aiming, opting to take the damage than throw away the shot. I expect the game to be much easier with mouse+kb. But I'm not sure it is worth playing again, unless it's very cheap.
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what about the Frozen Wilds DLC...more of the same or does it bring something new to the table?
 
polonyc2 said:
what about the Frozen Wilds DLC...more of the same or does it bring something new to the table?
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It has some new machines, (mostly more powerful versions of the ones in the base game) and a completely unique winter map. It's about a 6-7 hour completely stand alone campaign.
 
M76 said:
It definitely gets old. Actually the smallest robots are the most fun to fight. The giant ones always felt like a chore. They have tiny weak points that you constantly trying to hit, and when you slightly miss you cause 5hp damage instead of 500.
Most of the time the only success I Had was to stand in the line of fire and take my time aiming, opting to take the damage than throw away the shot. I expect the game to be much easier with mouse+kb. But I'm not sure it is worth playing again, unless it's very cheap.
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This, it does get old fighting the machines.
I actually stopped fighting the machines, after I got the ability, I began to use the ropecaster to tie the bigger machines down, then hacked them so they became friendly, then let them fight each other.

It is a gorgeous game though, I actually found myself taking screenshots more than playing. I have a lot here:
https://twitter.com/scojer13
 
polonyc2 said:
does fighting those giant mech robots ever get old?...does it lose its wow factor after fighting them a few times?
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It definitely can. The power scale for the game changes pretty rapidly when you start doing a lot of side-content. The more abilities and weapons you get, the easier fights are and less fun they tend to get. It doesn't help that a lot of the bigger enemies tend to only have smaller groups so it gives you a lot of room to mostly relax and not worry about dying.

polonyc2 said:
what about the Frozen Wilds DLC...more of the same or does it bring something new to the table?
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It's a really great looking area that is fun to explore but it's more of the same with some new enemies, abilities, etc. The writing of the quests in the DLC is what tends to keep it going. Though, I'd definitely recommend waiting to tackle Frozen Wilds until after beating the main story, just so you don't get even more obscenely overpowered before the end game.
 
Is the DLC on a different map so we can just skip it entirely for a later play through? Going to look into this vs Death Stranding, probably leaning towards this though. Will do both eventually.
 
Flogger23m said:
Is the DLC on a different map so we can just skip it entirely for a later play through? Going to look into this vs Death Stranding, probably leaning towards this though. Will do both eventually.
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Yeah, it's a separate high-level area.
 
Flogger23m said:
How exactly is the gameplay for those that played it? The world and setting looks interesting. But is it more about scavenging or is the story a big part of it?
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Just to contrast with what others have posted here, I didn't think it really had any pacing issues at all compared to any other open world game I've played; you can easily stick to the main story quests for the most part, but you'll also just as easily get roped into other side quests that are usually pretty interesting from what I remember. The main story is very unique and interesting as well and kept me hooked the entire time. But it has two main story arcs going on at the same time, as well as many other side stories for other characters and their corresponding side quests. The main stories are about you (Aloy) figuring out your origin because you grow up an outcasted orphan with another outcast who raises you, and also you figuring out what happened to the world before your tribes existed and why these mechanical beasts roam the land.

But there's defintitely a lot of scavenging for parts/pelts to either upgrade your equipment or buy upgraded equipment and also to fabricate your ammunition for different elemental types of arrows or projectiles.

I loved the game so much that this was the first Platinum trophy (where you earn all trophies in the game) I got on PS4. I also beat it on normal the first time just to get the story, then beat it again on Ultra Hard mode (hardest difficulty - it was on New Game+ though so you keep your equipment from the first play through) and aside from the final boss in the Frozen Wilds DLC, I had an easier time playing it on Ultra Hard than I did on normal because I had learned the strategies so well and had mostly maxed out equipment as well, which also made it that much more fun for me on the 2nd play through too. I had already beaten it on Ultra Hard when the DLC dropped too, so I just loaded up my end-game save from the NG+ game and played through Frozen Wilds on ultra hard as well. The final boss there took me a solid 90 mins of dying before I got it done, but it was fun still to me and I enjoyed the challenge. The Fire Claw enemies in that area are probably the 2nd hardest or top hardest enemies in the game too (toss up between that and Storm Birds from the main game for me) as well. So the DLC definitely steps up the difficulty a bit at least on Ultra Hard.

polonyc2 said:
does fighting those giant mech robots ever get old?...does it lose its wow factor after fighting them a few times?
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It absolutely never got old for me; taking down the different robots in different ways was always fun for me, esp. when you get the ability to corrupt and hack them and make them fight each other. There was one guy I found on Youtube that did nothing but post fights between different enemies in the game because they were that fun to watch and with some enemies could go one way or another. But either way it went, one of them is left pretty weakened and makes it that much easier to swoop in for the kill. But even disregarding that, once you learn what elemental ammo is most effective against the different types of enemies, and also how to pick off some of their armor first to expose weak points or even knock their own weapons off of them to use against them, it's constantly fun to take advantage of them to abosolutely murder even the huge ones without way too much effort.

Flogger23m said:
Is the DLC on a different map so we can just skip it entirely for a later play through? Going to look into this vs Death Stranding, probably leaning towards this though. Will do both eventually.
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They expand on the main game map for the DLC, so you could inadvertantly wonder into it if you don't know where it's at. But yeah, it's totally skippable until after the main game is completed and I wouldn't recommend trying to play through it until you're at least level 35 or so in the game (caps at 60, then you continue on to "ghost" levels), which you could easily be by the time you even get to that area if you've done enough side quests and stuff along the way.

Once you all get the game, if you want some really good tips and strategies for the game, look up JorRaptor on Youtube. He pretty much launched his channel doing content from this game alone and he did a very good job at collecting different methods and strategies people used to take down various enemies in this game and also for gather resources and stuff.
 
Armenius said:
Sure, the "wow" factor wears off, but I never got bored hunting and fighting mechs. The two vocaloids in this thread have very particular tastes in games, so I wouldn't take their word as gospel.
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I plan on getting the game on PC regardless...it's just good to get a general sense of the gameplay
 
Guerrilla states the FOV will not be adjustable in gameplay. Uses tired excuse of "muh artistic vision" for not including the option. Makes me suspect that the screenshot posted earlier in the thread is from photo mode. If ultrawide is supported I at least hope that the vertical FOV is fixed, not the horizontal. WSGF really should not have killed off their main site for Reddit.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1151640/discussions/0/3974929535249562454/#c3974929700277437486
 
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Hm... I don't mind locked FoV that much (usually) as long as they actually support widescreen monitors.
 
The FOV can be changed in Photo Mode on the PS4, apparently. I wonder if we will be able to use a memhack (or similar) to extend that to regular gameplay.
 
T4rd said:
Once you all get the game, if you want some really good tips and strategies for the game, look up JorRaptor on Youtube. He pretty much launched his channel doing content from this game alone and he did a very good job at collecting different methods and strategies people used to take down various enemies in this game and also for gather resources and stuff.
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Different guy, but this video really helped me out with strategies on taking down the different machines (spoilers for all different machine types, obviously):

 
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Armenius said:
Guerrilla states the FOV will not be adjustable in gameplay. Uses tired excuse of "muh artistic vision" for not including the option. Makes me suspect that the screenshot posted earlier in the thread is from photo mode. If ultrawide is supported I at least hope that the vertical FOV is fixed, not the horizontal. WSGF really should not have killed off their main site for Reddit.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1151640/discussions/0/3974929535249562454/#c3974929700277437486
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That's good to know, FOV is often a dealbreaker for games.
 
Blade-Runner said:
At least it supports ultrawide which lessens the pain of a narrow FOV.
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Yeah, that would def be a deal-breaker for me, but it would be odd for them not to support it at this point with how common it is and widely supported in other games.

This game would def be the perfect quarantine for sure though, hah.
 
Had a lot of fun with this on the PS4 but didn't finish it. A stand out moment for me was when I was completing a foundry and the end encounter had you trapped in the room with one of the Trex mechs. I skipped the hunter side quests because the aiming was just too hard for me with the controller; I'm looking forward to breezing through them with KBM.
 
Bankie said:
Had a lot of fun with this on the PS4 but didn't finish it. A stand out moment for me was when I was completing a foundry and the end encounter had you trapped in the room with one of the Trex mechs. I skipped the hunter side quests because the aiming was just too hard for me with the controller; I'm looking forward to breezing through them with KBM.
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I think I did only one or two of the hunter side quests because I didn't understand the last one I tried and couldn't finish it within the time limit. I know which fight you're talking about. I had trouble there and decided to set the game on easy difficulty at that point and was able to eventually beat that t-rex thing. I have too many un-played games to be worrying about if one is difficult enough, so it doesn't hurt my pride. I fully enjoyed it + DLC and might buy again on PC.
 
ZHD ... was an exclusive to get folks to buy the console. I dont see how it is "exclusive" anymore so could be a big money maker if ported to PC

Personally I'd buy it the day its released and that's saying something since I've never paid full price on release - ever
 
HAL_404 said:
ZHD ... was an exclusive to get folks to buy the console. I dont see how it is "exclusive" anymore so could be a big money maker if ported to PC

Personally I'd buy it the day its released and that's saying something since I've never paid full price on release - ever
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As already mentioned a few times in the thread, it will most likely only be $30-$40 on PC when it launches, as it's only $20 on PS4 now and even cheaper when they run sales on it on PSN (I've seen it as low as $6 or so directly on the PSN store) and I highly doubt there will be that large of a price difference between the PS4 and PC version.
 
Doesn't seem to be available for preorder from 3rd party stores yet....hmmm contemplating just buying from steam.
 
Horizon Zero Dawn Official PC Requirements
MINIMUM:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10 64-bits
Processor: Intel Core [email protected] or AMD FX [email protected]
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 (3 GB) or AMD Radeon R9 290 (4GB)
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 100 GB available space
RECOMMENDED:

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10 64-bits
Processor: Intel Core [email protected] or Ryzen 5 [email protected]
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB) or AMD Radeon RX 580 (8GB)
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 100 GB available space
 
I'm irked that it's going to cost $49.99 full retail... I already own it for PS4 & was hoping it'd cost the same as what they sell it for. $25 or LESS 🤬
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
I'm irked that it's going to cost $49.99 full retail... I already own it for PS4 & was hoping it'd cost the same as what they sell it for. $25 or LESS 🤬
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With the current steam offer for purchases over $30 USD is comes down to about $43 USD, but yes it would have been nice not to pay more than $25.
 
Derangel said:
Great trailer. Nice to see that they backed off on not having FOV customization. Hopefully the port itself is as good as the trailer makes it look because it's looking like they put a lot of work into it.
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From the options menu I am very pleased they have actually put in the effort to properly port this to PC, rather than doing a quick and dirty job like some other devs/publishers tend to do.
 
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