Perfectly playable, a billion-dollar polished sheen in service of unimaginative game design. Look, not every game needs to break new ground, but FORBIDDEN WEST would have been dated in 2018. It's a cluttered pile of compromises; it doesn't commit to open-world realism (RDR2, Death Stranding), nor spatial boundlessness and narrative minimalism (BOTW, Elden Ring). Let me feel the thrill and danger of hunting and crafting, please challenge me to tread the vastness of the terrain. A game so ensnared by ecological themes should by all means structure its core gameplay loops around this dance, around this duality of man and nature – the alternative, what we have here, just leaves me cold. Traversing its world becomes a matter of formality in between the story missions, a story revolving around not just saving, but preserving, cherishing, that very world, and the life it bears. If you want to create a world oscillating between resplendent beauty and danger, don't mark machine-territories on the map like a Far Cry game – just let me stumble into the lion's den, and then provide the players with the tools necessary to engage that challenge. The players will remember that location next time, and can then choose to avoid it or tackle it head-on. Providing total clarity of your surroundings (through either the Focus or the map, or worse still, Aloy herself) destroys the world, it defiles the core tenet of its themes. More than that, it makes the game a slog to play through.