Morning folks! I spent the entirety of my weekend in Horizon Zero Dawn (minus a bit of time playing World of Warcraft while podcasting of course). I’ve played the game before, in fact it was my game of the year from 2017. However like always, my preferred method of playing games is on the PC and with Mouse and Keyboard and there was a lot of the game that I found trying because if the imprecise nature of controller gaming. Additionally there was a Frozen Wilds DLC that was released after our initial play through, and I never quite returned to pick that up and play it. So with the release of Horizon Zero Dawn on my preferred platform, with my preferred play style, and with new content I had never seen… It prompted me to sit down and play the game with fresh eyes some three years after my first visit to this world.
There is a bit of controversy surrounding this game, and I am not sure if it is coming from legitimate issues or hyperbole. So some things that you need to know before heading down this road. The game install is about 70 gb and there will be a 35 gb patch immediately after installing. I am not sure if the binaries have been updated in steam to allay this issue or not, but I pre-loaded and was greeted with a significant day one patch. The game also really wants you to be on the latest revision of your video drivers, so I highly suggest doing that before attempting to play. Those things out of the way immediately following launching the game it is going to do this step that takes a significant amount of time as the shaders are pre-compiled on your hardware to make sure the game runs as smoothly as possible.
For me this was about a 15 minute process, but for some folks I am hearing it can take upwards of an hour as they wait for their game to reach a playable state. From what I understand if you are running the game on the “Original” preset, you are effectively playing the game with the same graphical fidelity that would have been present on a PlayStation 4 Pro. For me, the game detected High preset and is running at 4k resolution, and I have largely left that alone and run with it. Unfortunately I scale down the screenshots to 1080p and compress them before uploading to the blog so it doesn’t exactly do the game justice. It is hard to state just how pretty the game is and how good the experience of running around in this world feels on a PC.
The other complaint that I am hearing is that the game crashes, and that is not entirely untrue. I don’t have significant issues with crashes but I have experienced a handful while playing. Normally it happens after a two to three hours of gameplay and the game will just lock up… before crashing out and asking me if I want to send a bug report. I am hoping that later patches will remedy this, since hopefully they are getting an influx of bug reports about this issue. However it really hasn’t caused that much of an issue while playing. The game is pretty prolific bout creating auto saves while you run around the world, and I am also extremely used to hitting every campfire I happen to pass. The combination of these has meant that I have never really lost any significant progress from a crash.
I realize it is a bit unusual for me to address things in this order, but in the case of this game and its current mixed reviews on Steam, I felt like I wanted to get the negative bits out of the way first. The positives of the game greatly overwhelm these and for me who has not played the game in three years… it felt like visiting an old friend. The biggest take away I have upon returning to the game is that I am just significantly more powerful than I was the first time. That isn’t a change in a game, but more a change in the way that I approach it. I understand how combat works now, and I understand how important it is to target the weak points on enemies. For example there is a latch on the back of a shell walker, that if you disable with your bow will cause a treasure trove to pop off of its back. I didn’t do a good job of this the first time around and as a result I missed out on a lot of powerful loot as a result.
There is a moment early in the game where you are set up against what is supposed to be a very intimidating encounter. However that same encounter with time becomes something that you see pretty often out in the world, and as a result I went into it knowing exactly how to disable it and take it down efficiently. Essentially as I titled the podcast this weekend “Precision is Power”, I know how the world works now and as a result I can do a much better job of navigating its hurdles. Coming back to the game, I find myself remembering so many things that just keep flooding back in waves as I arrive at areas. It only took a few minutes before the Keyboard and Mouse controls felt like an extension of my arm, rather than something that I was having to account for.
If you want my gaming impressions, you are probably significantly better off reading my original post from 2017. Those are the thoughts of someone experiencing the game for the first time, and probably a better experience for those who have never played the game. To be honest… Horizon Zero Dawn might be on my Games of the Year list for 2020 because playing it on PC and with my chosen input method is such a more enjoyable experience that it elevates everything to a new level. That said… playing the game with the expansion content adds a new dimension to the game. I wasn’t exactly sure how the new content would weave its way into the story, but it does so in a manner that feels seamless.
You can branch out into the new content as soon as I arrive at the city of Meridian, which depending on your play style could be pretty quick… or could be several hours into the game. What is unique however and the thing that I noticed almost immediately is once you have exited the “tutorial” content, the world seems significantly more alive than it used to. The only frame of reference I can really give you is that the game now has Skyrim-esc random encounters as you are roaming the world. You might come across a pack of enemy bandits trying to take down a machine, and you have to choose to either avoid the entire mess or take advantage of both sides and get some easy kills. Additionally there are encounters were you happen across some Nora braves, and you can help them out and get experience for doing so.
It is a little thing, and subtle… but it adds so much life to the world. In the original game, once you left any of the settlements it was more or less just you and the zoids out there. Now there are other human beings along the way that make the world feel more inhabited and vibrant. I love this game so much, and coming back has felt amazing. If you have never had the chance to play the game I highly suggest checking it out on your PC storefront of choice. I picked up the game on Steam and have been happy with that decision, thought it is also available on Epic Game Store. However it seems like the EGS didn’t offer preloading which was a bit odd. Bow combat feels so much better with the precise nature of the mouse and keyboard, and I am legitimately wishing this had been an option from day one. I am hoping as we go through the next generation of consoles, that more games will natively support KBM.