Before playing this game I watched a complete playthrough of it, and inmediately went and bought it. The trailer from the E3 announcement fascinated me, I think I watched it many times, and showed it to people constantly. But I didn't have a PS4, so I don't know if I expected to play it. I ended up asking for someone to lend me their console in exchange for me lending them the game afterwards.

And this game was massive for me. The landscape was breathtaking all the time, an aesthetic I later found out the developers called BBC documentary sunset visuals, or something like that. The story is such a masterpiece, with this post apocalyptic optimism, the different tribes, the deep characters, the beautiful performances, the character arcs... And the protagonist was voiced by Ashly Burch, who I loved and looked up to so much. There is all these different costume designs for the different tribes, the art scattered around, the architecture, the machines, the mountains where the machines are manufactured, and so much more that felt beautiful and meaningful and intentional.
The different weapons and armors for your character were awesome, I went crazy for all the artistic details. I looked through the profiles and portfolios of every artist from the game I could find, collecting images and videos of all the elements.

I played this game with minimal HUD, no map, no health bars, I just wanted to basically be Aloy while playing the game. No fast travel either. And I did almost 100% of it, just missing the story line of the murderer, which I messed up by moving away slightly too far from the guy at the wrong time and wouldn't let me do it anymore, but I decided to not care.

I have many feelings for this game and all of them are amazing.

I didn’t want to play through this game for a very long time, it just didn’t touch anything in me in the first hours, but the game opens up a lot towards the middle of the game, when a more expanded shell of the plot is revealed to understand this world. I focus specifically on the plot, and it is written quite well and unfolds at a fairly good pace (well, except for the beginning).

Typical open-world gameplay didn’t really spoil the picture as a whole, but this particular one is boring and I want to criticize it, especially about the step-by-step progression through the plot and additional quests. The level system is incomprehensible, essentially affecting only the leveling tree (which, in principle, does not give much) and 10 HP for each level. There are no complaints about the main plot, but there is still a feeling that everything is crumpled into one heap and sometimes you just get overwhelmed with additional quests, especially when you decide to do it all, after some time, you no longer remember what is there. I didn’t notice grind in the game, it’s more likely that there is a lack of any variety in this regard, there are more useful activities than there are, everyone was already tired of clearing the camp of enemies even then.

Did I like it? Yes, most likely yes, and I can’t help but recommend it to anyone else, I really want to show another story about humanity and what wars, any kind, lead to, perhaps this will always be in us.

Я очень долго не хотел проходить эту игру, она просто не задевала во мне ничего в первые часы, но игра сильно раскрывается ближе к середине игры, когда более расширенная оболочка сюжета раскрывается для познания этого мира. Акцент делаю именно на сюжет, и он расписан достаточно неплохо и раскрывается в достаточно хорошем темпе(ну кроме начала).

Типичный геймплей открытого мира не испортил особо картину в целом, но конкретно этот скучен и его хочется критиковать, особенно насчет поэтапного продвижение по сюжету и дополнительных квестов. Непонятна система уровней, по сути влияющие только на дерево прокачки(которая в принципе ничего сильно не дает) и 10 хп за каждый лвлап. К основному сюжету претензий нету, но все равно есть чувство, что все скомкано в одну кучу и иногда просто заваливаешься в дополнительных квестах, особенно когда решился выполнить все это через какое время, ты уже не помнишь что там. Гринда в игре не заметил, скорее не хватает какого либо разнообразия в этом плане, больше полезных активностей, чем есть, чистить лагерь от врагов уже всем надоело еще тогда.

Понравилась ли мне? Да, скорее да, и я не могу ее не порекомендовать кому-либо еще, уж слишком хочется показать очередную историю про человечество и к чему приводят войны, любые, возможно в нас это будет всегда.

Sucks I had written this off as open world schlock for so long. I really enjoyed my time with this game with a really fun story and setting with challenging combat that really opened up the further I got into it. I do have some minor issues like some of the characters being a bit goofy and the loot system being a bit overwhelming until you get the hang of it which like god of wars recent reboot that sorta makes me question if it wasn’t worth streamlining this a lot more to make things less confusing. Overall though I had a good time with this and will definitely check of the sequel I will try to write off open world games less in the future unless it’s made by Ubisoft or something.