One of the strengths of sequel Horizon Forbidden West, despite not being mentioned too much, are its achingly beautiful settlements. They may lack interactivity, but they’re outstanding areas to simply explore, bursting with environmental storytelling that reveal more about the lifestyles of the clans that inhabit them.
Burning Shores, the upcoming PS5 exclusive expansion for the release, will include a new town for you to tour: Fleet’s End, the home of the Quen. “The Quen that ended up in the Burning Shores have been here for some time,” a social media post starts, “and while survival has been a constant challenge, they’ve managed to establish an impressive settlement.”
This place looks absolutely enormous, as it’s flanked by ancient ruins and shipwrecks. Those who’ve played Horizon Forbidden West will know that the Quen are informed by knowledge of the Old World, although their access to information is curtailed, and they’ve come to worship the CEOs and business tycoons of the 21st century. We anticipate this will prove pivotal to the plot of the DLC.
Aloy will also work with a new Quen character named Seyka when she arrives in the Burning Shores, as pictured in the key art embedded above: “She’s an ambitious marine who has stepped up to help her people survive,” lead writer Annie Kitain explained on the PS Blog. “As a new companion for the DLC, Aloy will spend a lot of time with her throughout the story and rely on her help in many situations – a position she doesn’t often find herself in. Confident, compassionate, and fierce, Seyka’s quite unlike anyone Aloy has ever encountered, and she plays an important role in the next chapter of Aloy’s journey.”
[source blog.playstation.com]
Comments 34
The Utaru capital was the best city in Forbidden West. It was the way it had the working fields around it and felt like a functioning part of the environment.
I'm waiting for the series to step it up yet another level now.
Removed - trolling/baiting
Pre-ordered the expansion this morning, if its as good as the first games DLC then we're in for a treat.
@rakghoul Because it sells well and is generally highly regarded. Also they don't own MGS and a new one is up to Konami.
Bought the game on day 1 played about 5 hours and haven't touched it since.... massively underwhelmed me ...maybe I will return one day...is the first one more engaging? As I own that one aswell lol
I read that whole article realizing there were probably spoilers and I haven't finished the game yet, so thanks for no spoilers that I am aware of. I'm like this><close to the end, PS5 says 96%. Decided to go to a bunch of side stuff before going into the final battle. Have some camps, outposts and races to do.
At the risk of spoilers for others, really hope that Quen marine Seyka teaches us how to fight underwater. Arrows shouldn't work underwater but spearguns have existed my entire life. And I do a lot of fighting melee, so at least let me whack a robot.
Preordered already
@rakghoul Horizon Zero Dawn on its own has sold over 20 million copies so this is a huge franchise for Playstation, on par with those games you just mentioned.
@rakghoul I don't think anyone wants remakes of old games. We want amazing sequels and brand-new games. Leave the Remakes and Remasters alone for good. If you want to play old games, go play them on an old system.
I disagree with the settlements, that's the one thing I think ZD did better than the FW... FW settlements don't even look like they give inhabitants any shelter from the elements
@rakghoul funny isn’t there rumors on all 3? Mgs 3 remake heavily rumored to be announced soon , a new twisted metal game to tie in with the tv show, and the new studio in California is working on uncharted
Will we ever see a better looking true open world game, than HFW Burning shores, this generation.
It truly is a site to behold.
@NarutosBiggestFan sure buddy REmake 4 sold 3 millions copies ( only counting physical sells) in 2 days but hey, nobody wants remakes right? riiiight???!!!!
@rakghoul Because it sold over 8 million copies and has an incredible fanbase that still plays it to this day. Guerilla is their first-party studio, this is their franchise, and they plan to see it through as the planned trilogy it has always been. You are in no way obligated to play it, but you have no right to demand more games not be made just because you want other games to be made.
@rakghoul For me Uncharted is done and dusted it had a great end let's move on to something new. It already has 5 or 6 parts I think thats enough.
@StylesT Similar experience, and I wholeheartedly agree. Force myself to push through for 30 hours and finally decided it was not a good use of my time because I only wanted to finish the story, but found all of the story and cinematics so bad that I couldn't watch them. But be careful, you're not allowed to publicly state you think this franchise is overrated. The woefully bad characters, dialogue, voice acting, storytelling, and mission design are things we're supposed to be quiet about.
I'm not the biggest fan of the warm locations or their settlements. They obviously looks pretty but they don't get me excited as much as they probably should.
I LOVE the cold environments and their settlements much more.
Some of my favorite environments were around Yellowstone and of the boreal/deciduous forests as you approached the snow covered landscapes in both games, especially the first one.
I love the palette of colors used in those environments, almost tundra-like in their ground or near-ground level plants.
I also want to see a comparison of graphics in the DLC to the main game. I want to see how much the PS4 held the game back.
First game I loved. Was really into Aloy. Second game it was pretty evident that her personality isn't so nice (were they trying too hard with the strong woman trope?). I don't think the story ever reached the first's either. They didn't do enough with Sylens and now with Lance gone it's too late.
Now we are left with strong confrontational sassy Aloy and her new girlfriend who may be the same. I think the only thing that would draw me in is a rumoured working Horus.
Bought HFW during Black Friday and ended up completing it, putting in 200 hours. Wasn't really playing anything else at the time, and enjoyed it for the most part. Since I never bought a PS4, didn't play HZD, and probably won't unless the rumored remaster happens.
Although I was really impressed with the overall graphics and world, I personally didn't find the settlements 'achingly beautiful'. They served their purpose, but have to admit that I'm not a fan of what I consider their mostly convoluted layouts. Kind of a hassle to find stuff, at least for me.
However, I'm definitely looking forward to the DLC.
The Tenakth are pretty cool but other than them the rest of the clans in Horizon are generally one of the things I dislike about the games. They just aren't as interesting as the old world lore generally speaking.
That said though as I've stated playing the games again recently I've really tried to pay closer attention to some of the tribe lore and there is some good stuff there. I think they just struggle to present them in a compelling way sometimes.
Very excited to play Burning Shores though!
@Dezzy70 Maybe Horizon 3 when it's built from the ground up for the PS5, but as of right now I'd have to agree. It really was a beautiful game and at worst the best looking PS5 game at the time of release.
Forbidden West will never truly get the credit it deserves in a way, but there's no way you can argue about how good the game looks, especially once they patched the Performance mode (so that both modes were close instead of the Quality mode being superior due to issues that took a long time to fix).
@rakghoul because its fantastic? 😂
@KilloWertz
Yes it was much improved on my PS5 after the patches and I’m glad I waited until it was patched before getting to into the game.
@ThomasHL That's my favorite too! It's just so refreshingly different from anything that I've played before and beautiful.
@Dezzy70 Besides the DLC, I'll have Performance mode to look forward to when I replay the main game shortly before the third game comes out. I ended up playing it in Resolution mode given the graphical issues in Performance mode and I got used to the 30 FPS.
Obviously I prefer 60 FPS, but I wasn't going to wait to play what was easily my most anticipated PS5 game since before the system even came out, so oh well.
Do I need Forbidden West to play this? I own it, just wondering if I need to download it on top of expansion...
That said... I love Horizon... Boring story aside I think it's some of the best gameplay from the ps4-ps5 era.
My problem is when I beat games I move on from them. I don't like the idea of re learning games for a DLC released well over a year since I finished the last game.
Especially that days where every button on the controller is utilized and several systems work on top of one another.
Beautiful screenshots! Hard to believe the DLC is finally dropping in less than 3 weeks...
@JohntheRaptor I don't think it's that as much as the writing in FW just isn't as good as ZD generally. Every character is weaker compared to the first game, especially the villains.
Probably the best written character was Zoe, and Aloy's slightly territorial reaction to Zoe moving on Varl.
EDIT: Actually I'm being a little harsh. Hekarro, Kotallo and handful of the side characters were decent too. But it was a game with some interesting intentions and very middle of the road execution.
@rakghoul believe it or not, Sony doesn't just exist to please you, rakghoul
I liked the first settlement where Petra was because Petra was there. Love that gal.
@Corc11 i guess they now exist to please geeks with red head fetishes
@WallyWest helmut can call hideo and say here a couple thousands start pumping it out
@rakghoul Kojima is done with MGS, he was done with it by MGS2 its just Konami kept forcing him to pump them out.
@rakghoul I love redheads lol
But they definitely deliberately tried to make Aloy not very feminine looking in her face.
Just look at her character model, she looks much more feminine. That means the changes were deliberate.
She still looked good though.
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