Horizon Zero Dawn is the type of game that you want to keep playing for the story. Even if you get bored by the gameplay, you'll want to uncover more about the world. With a lot of post apocolyptic fiction, the actual cause of the apocolypse isn't that important and it's usually more a way to explore human relationships in a new world which often boils down to everyone killing each other. Although, Zero Dawn has quite a lot of that which is pretty interesting with how the different tribes see themselves and their relations to one another, the actual apocolyptic event and immediate response to it is probably the most interesting one I've experienced in fiction. It very layers it as a mystery that you uncover more and more of as the story goes on. It connects it deeply to the journey of the protagonist, Aloy which does do a decent job in making it feel more personal even if it can skew into a chosen one narrative which aren't always the best. A lot of it is told with audio and text logs which a lot of people are tired of but I was interested enough that I sought them all out.
Horizon is an open world game and it doesn't do anything particular unqiue with the format. You have to climb towers to unveil map icons although those towers are moving machines which doesn't actually add much to a rote mechanic. There's areas to clear out whether they're filled with bandits or murderous machines. There's also hunting spots that offer time trial challenges. Fortunately, the map isn't completely littered with these activities so the repitition you'll feel when going for 100% completion. There's a decent number of side quests in the game. These definitely fall under the post Witcher 3 era of side quests where the writing is attempting to be more engaging than side quests of past but still ultimately being fairly standard. The game has a skill tree which you're just going to get everything by the end of the game and some light upgrading of weapons and gear.
The combat in the game is quite good, at least when dealing with machines. There's a pretty large variety of machines to fight that all have different tactics. You also have a large amount of weapons and it is always worth it to swap them around and use different ones for different situations. Playing the game on ultra hard, it felt very rewarding to figure out how every machine works and the best ways to take them down. The DLC adds some new harder enemies which are almost ridiculous but still fun to fight. As good as fighting machines is, human combat is the exact opposite. It's very boring and unsatisfying. There isn't that much of it in the game, especially compared to machine combat but it drags the game down whenever you have to do it.
It is a decent game but I felt it was mostly the story pulling me through. The DLC adds another area with you doing most of the same stuff from the main game with its own self contained and good story.
Horizon is an open world game and it doesn't do anything particular unqiue with the format. You have to climb towers to unveil map icons although those towers are moving machines which doesn't actually add much to a rote mechanic. There's areas to clear out whether they're filled with bandits or murderous machines. There's also hunting spots that offer time trial challenges. Fortunately, the map isn't completely littered with these activities so the repitition you'll feel when going for 100% completion. There's a decent number of side quests in the game. These definitely fall under the post Witcher 3 era of side quests where the writing is attempting to be more engaging than side quests of past but still ultimately being fairly standard. The game has a skill tree which you're just going to get everything by the end of the game and some light upgrading of weapons and gear.
The combat in the game is quite good, at least when dealing with machines. There's a pretty large variety of machines to fight that all have different tactics. You also have a large amount of weapons and it is always worth it to swap them around and use different ones for different situations. Playing the game on ultra hard, it felt very rewarding to figure out how every machine works and the best ways to take them down. The DLC adds some new harder enemies which are almost ridiculous but still fun to fight. As good as fighting machines is, human combat is the exact opposite. It's very boring and unsatisfying. There isn't that much of it in the game, especially compared to machine combat but it drags the game down whenever you have to do it.
It is a decent game but I felt it was mostly the story pulling me through. The DLC adds another area with you doing most of the same stuff from the main game with its own self contained and good story.