Despite having proven to be a playable gem, Horizon Zero Dawn is one of those games in which the seams are marked much more than you remembered. It is, compared to other blockbusters of Sonya much rougher game in its presentation.
It is enough to approach any of the conversations with an NPC from that first adventure to understand it. Animations that jump from one expression to another, fixed shots and without much taste, archaic interactions… But it is also enough to approach any cinematic of Horizon Forbidden West to understand to what extent all that has changed in the sequel for PS4 Y PS5.
The evolution of Sony blockbusters
Guerrilla Games signature on Horizon Forbidden West the leap that sagas like Uncharted and God of War took before them. An evolution that, without forgetting their origins or what made them fun, embraced the cinematographic to offer the most impressive bill possible.
Nothing of an avatar planted in front of another talking in a reverse shot and showing how from a basic face it goes to a surprised one. Having already shown its potential, and become one of the first great strengths of PS5, Horizon Forbidden West I had to aspire to much more.
The result is a superb twist that exudes quality in animation and acting regardless of whether it is showing the most important scene in the game or it is a simple conversation with a character that we will not remember 10 minutes later. A yardstick with which you can afford to splurge upwards, but never downwards.
And on the rebound, looking for everything to scratch at the highest level, the challenge of creating a much more cinematic game it has ended up spilling over into everything else, from scenery to exploration, from enemies to combat.
Other open world style
To show a button. A clear example of how Horizon Forbidden West He has changed the way he understood the scenarios to move away from that gamer style and approach another level of visual spectacle: Aloy’s climbing.
With a open world slightly larger than the original in land extension, the really remarkable sum in this new installment is the verticality. Aloy can approach any mountain and undertake a climb, so sticking to the classic yellow mark strategy indicating where you can grab on would completely stain any wall.
Solution? Get rid of them, eliminate any hint of visual guidance imprinted on the rock, and surrender to two even more effective strategies. That Aloy’s viewer is in charge of overprinting the path digitally and that the ascent is made based on cracks created procedurally in the rock.
The result? A more realistic, free and organic experience that opens the doors to a leap in exploration and mobility. One in which the textures of the rock, the spectacular animations of Aloy and his hook, and the planes of the horizon along the “walker above the sea of clouds”, are not obscured or stained by yellow daubed borders on the wall.
pointing up
How to transfer that same spirit to a fight that was already quite spectacular? Setting the stage for the encounters, but not as it happened in the final battle of Horizon Zero Dawn, no. Remember that this seeks to escape from the gamer, and there is nothing that breathes that feeling more than a circular plaza surrounded by stones and walls at medium height in which to shelter.
To the short and fast shots of Hollywood action that will accompany an Aloy with many more skills and strategies in the melee -if she even throws discs that are like Captain America’s shield, pardiez-, there is an opening shot that it goes beyond puffing out the chest with superb vegetation. The important thing no longer happens at the level of your eyes, but much higher.
Mechanical elephants destroying buildings while you narrowly escape the blow and debris jumps towards the camera. Metal birds that drop on your head as if lightning fell from the sky. Giant snakes bursting with their tails a kind of arena that will allow you to relive the most epic battles as if you were in a Coliseum.
A twist to the “bread and Circus” on which the Romans that Sony and its studios have reconverted to shape their biggest blockbusters relied. What fattened the crop there, the bread, here is in charge of giving you the sight in the form of a superb visual display. And about the circus, well, actually the circus trick hasn’t changed much more, Horizon Forbidden West It’s still pure spectacle.