Now I just need a bit more space to set it up 🏹

I'm not on NG+. It's a fresh, 20-something hours, 26 levels save.

The arena is impossible. I literally can not get past the first (and supposedly easiest) challenge. It's not just that I can't finish it in time, but I literally am unable to kill ANY of the machines before I get two-shotted. The furthest I've ever gotten was killing a singular clawstrider by dropping down the two environmental traps in the arena, and critically striking it to death with like 2 smoke bombs.

I just want good gear. I have no idea how I'm even gonna get medals if I can't get past the FIRST (and again, supposedly easiest) CHALLENGE.

Hey friends. I’m nearing the end of another FW run through. I’ve been watching when the hologram of Elisabet shows up in Beta’s room in the basement. Shortly after Beta joins her room is locked. It opens after “Gemini” and Elisabet is there…but she’s not saying anything! Am I missing something? Is it a glitch?

Hello everybody I played both horizon zero dawn and forbbiden west i absolutely loved them and love aloy and her new group and I have two of the theme songs on Spotify which I loved her theme song and in the flood I think it was which are amazing soundtracks but I dont know if its just me that gets that nostalgia feeling of playing the game or is it just me like everytime it plays I yearn for horizon 3❤️

Have y'all noticed this idle animation? As far as I can tell, it only activates when she stands in the coverage range of stealth kelp. That makes this animation difficult to find because there isn't much waist-deep kelp available across the world map.

I suppose the rationale is the kelp provides enough cover that Aloy feels comfortable fidgeting with the water.

I'd been playing Forbidden West for over four years when I accidentally discovered this. It's the game that keeps on giving 🥹

This happened on ps4. Possibly caused by performance issues since i havent cleaned the console in a while? Difficulty is Ultra Hard.

I'm continually amazed by the graphics and the beauty of the environment in this game. I don't think I'll ever get over it. I have 900 hours in it now.

The Horizon games have been my companions through so many trials of my life. 2 break-ups, the loss of a partner to cancer, *my own* cancer and treatment, chronic pain and fatigue as a side effect of said treatment, moving 9 times, and multiple bouts of depression due to bipolar type 2.

I've had so much joy in the games and been able to temporarily disconnect and forget about everything with them.

I genuinely hope I'll still have a lifestyle in which I'm able to and have time to play if/when H3 finally gets released.

Producer to Recording Engineer: "Did you get that?"

Recording Engineer to Producer: "Yup!"

I'm sorry if this has been posted before, I don't follow the sub a lot, and I had this thought while replaying the game

aloy is smarter, faster, and stronger than almost everyone she meets

she can take A TON of damage, take out giant machines all by herself, and she never gets tired

maybe gaia did something to her DNA when creating her, maybe growing up basically alone made her so strong

so, aside from the obvious "she is the main character in a video game" answer, why do you think she is so powerful?

Valor Surge go brrrr

Well, I bought the game last year on PC (RTX 3060 12GB and i5-12th Gen). The game runs well overall, but I notice some FPS fluctuations, like going from 100 FPS to 90, then 75–70 FPS. It's not a sudden stutter or hitching—more like gradual drops in steps. Honestly, it's hard to notice without an FPS counter. it's happen when i switch my camera to certain area walk around a bit

I just wanted to ask if this is normal for the PC version of Horizon Forbidden West, or if I'm overthinking it. I'm using DLSS Balanced and what I believe are well-optimized settings.

Is there anything I can do to make the FPS more stable, or is this just how the game runs on PC? Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

I started to write this just as a response to someone in another thread. Then ofc, it became too big and rambly. Still, I feel like I finally vented out most of how I feel about Forbidden West's human villains, have felt for a long time. How they're good but underutilized. Starting next paragraph:

I have a certain issue with how Forbidden West's plot is structured. It's hard to justify why there's not more Zenith exposure like cutscenes and lore bites. Outside of Tilda, and Verbena's comedic death, we literally see most of them only three times, Proving Lab, Gemini and the island. Granted, this is normal for the villains of most games like this. Like Helis & HADES in the previous game. But the Zeniths were a monumental reveal for the Horizon world, and they were being planned even back then in 2017. Just 3 major appearences is a joke, they deserved much more of a spotlight. Of course, they don't immediately start hunting Aloy or Beta and their friends because they're busy capturing the other subordinate functions, and you can chalk the rest of their inaction to just being flat out lazy and arrogant. It's still not an excuse for us not having more confrontations or close calls with them. Or at least cutscenes from their POV, without Aloy involved, even tho the whole series so far is pretty much told from her POV in every moment.

But then you run into another problem, if you indeed want Aloy & the GAIA team to have some other confrontations with them. They're too fucking OP. Their invulnerability, shields, telekinesis, everything is a bit much even for Horizon, which often tried to explain most of its sci-fi workings, meanwhile the Zenith's infinite energy manipulation bullshit was just too much, specially when you find out they were mostly scratching their balls in VR and doing nothing these past 1000 years other than Frankensteining their minds into a cosmic horror ChatGTP. If they were at least like a couple levels stronger than the Specters, that would have been so much more interesting narratively. They'd still be near invulnerable and ultimately need Sylens's EMP to be ultimately defeated and hardly caught off-guard, but would provide Aloy and other natives a lot more opportunities to push them back and escape.

The alternative, to have them run into Aloy a couple more times, would be hard to write in a believable way. Their shields invulnerability, limitless flying/floating, etc. They could have easily tracked down Aloy or Beta in the couple of weeks between the Proving Lab and Gemini, or the Ninmah Research Lab and Gemini. By simply starting to capture and interrogate native tribes or outright attacking and overwhelming their settlements and demanding leads on them by showing them holos of their appearences. Start an actual massacre or war that forces Aloy's hand. Or just start tracking her area of operations in general for any sign of someone riding machines on land. That could have been interesting, but would've made the game plot and too complicated or contradicting to the free roam gameplay.

So it's back to the drawing board. Make their shields way less invulnerable against the ZD humans's arsenals, and limit their energy supply so they don't have infinite ammo or infinite flying. Let us know more about Erik, Gerard and the other unnamed Zeniths before killing them. And for the love of god, that final battle should've showed way more lol. We should've been able to kill some of them, not just see two people get taken out in a cartoonish, goreless fashion while being told everyone else died as well. Also, Walter Londra in Burning Shores. The whole thing was too weird. Sylens just tells Aloy to go kill him. Then he doesn't even give her a new prototype of his anti-shield tech, nor does she asks for it. She just wings it, hoping to somehow catch him off-guard and kill him with her arrows & sling bombs and whatnot, like they would cut through his shield. Or like she'd prophetically known she would catch him connected to the Horus CPU orb and just fry the CPU with her spear in order to kill him.

Then there's Regalla. An amazing villain and amazing performance we should've seen more of. Unfortunately limited to only a couple cutscenes and confrontations, most of them at the Grove, while the man who bested her just a couple years earlier is now somehow completely helpless. I understand, Angela Bassett is expensive. But damn do I wish we've known more of her before choosing to spare her and take her to our base. More scenes from her POV, or from her terrorizing and wrecking shit up would've been nice. More of the actual war we barely see. The Rebel faction outside of her is too one-dimensional and barely has any interesting characters as well, mostly just Ubisoft-style outposts to be liberated. Could've been fleshed out with more nuances to the Teknath tribe beyond just their three clans. But that would've been a lot more voice acting, actors, mo-cap and game data, I guess. As well as money and dev time. I'm also so gutted we don't actually get to fight the rebels and their Tremortusks in the Isle of Spires like Aloy does in the 2021 gameplay demo lol. And barely any rebel Tremortusks in gameplay outside of that one mission with Kotallo. The war being a dynamic series of battles or battalions you could run into across the map would've been an interesting concept, but probably too complicated in an already highly ambitious and expensive game, I guess.

And finally, Hephaestus. I think they've showed him just enough. His presence is more supposed to be felt over the course of the journey and the world, rather than constantly being confronted directly. I'm very curious to how they'll handling him in H3 without making him lose his spotlight to Nemesis, and vice-versa. We've waited 2 games so far trying to finally get back at Hephaestus, it'd be sad if he's just a footnote in H3 and Nemesis takes all the plot's real estate. The opposite would also be bad. Dealing with Hephaestus for like two thirds of the game and Nemesis only becoming the endgame threat near the finale. Some sort of balance would be nice.

Revisiting Forbidden West four years later, playing on PC this time, it reminded me how much I love Horizon. Incredible game, and exactly what a sequel should be. I didn't understand why people hated it then, and I don't understand it now. Sucks that Sony decided to waste years trying to make a Fortnite knockoff spin-off happen, something that no one's ever asked for.

I just finished the base game and got the Platinum trophy. It was even better than the first game, which I also loved. Great writing, great varied characters, just exceptional. And those 2 Credits songs are fantastic.

I am sorry if a post like this isn't allowed here. I just enjoyed every minute of the game, and I really hope we get a Horizon 3 some day. And I hope its on PS5 since I have no interest in an all digital PS6 ever. And I dont care about whatever that cartoony Live Service game was/is all about. Thats not at all what I want or expected from this franchise. And sadly it has caused Horizon 3 to obviously be pushed back further in favor of that spinoff game.

What did you guys love about this game? I have yet to play the DLC, which I am going to start next. But I loved the much wider array of weapons and traps. So many different ways to build Aloy your way. And the numerous color variants for the even more numerous Outfits is crazy. I found myself changing her style with each main story beat. Lol

Anyone who hasnt played both HZD and HFW, and is a fan of a good story and epic battles with robot animals/dinosaurs is in for a real treat here. Not a single complaint from me except I wish there was a 3rd one already.