Board 8 > Horizon: Zero Dawn beated (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

This was an interesting game.

For the first ten hours or so of the game, I was enraptured. Combat seemed great, world was intriguing. Then I continued on, and continued on, and eventually I reached a point of being done with the game. I'd say perhaps it was my fault - before continuing on with the Zero Dawn questline, I found everything in the wild and did the whole Meridian quest line. It was nothing remarkable. I got to a point of being pretty done with doing fun machine fights or anything like that. Just running through places in stealth armor trying to get done.

Then I went to the Salt Lake City place and suddenly I was enthralled again.

Everything in the plot about the past and all of that intrigue and the unfolding of the truth of the past and Zero Dawn was an absolute pleasure. I think I might have preferred the game if it was more sprinkled throughout, and I got pushed through it more in that manner. However, the way it was presented, the game was too easy to just compartmentalize it all. I mean, after leaving the bottom right corner of the map, you go to Meridian, then the next step on the Zero Dawn plotline is at the very top-left? Come on.

Anyway, doing all of the other quests was worth it to explore all the characters. And Sylens was the best of them all. I'd have wished for the game to have perhaps placed its plot a little differently to encourage picking up more pieces along the way, but I can't say for sure how I'd have changed it.

I think what got me was that, in the first 20 or so hours of the game, I was hunting animals, harvesting stuff, hunting machines, upgrading my ammo packs... then I was done. After getting all the Shadow items, the last stuff was Hunter's Lodge... which I then got. Collecting items, exploring, all became very worthless. Even finding all of the items around the map sort of was. Finding all the old mugs to trade for... a Modification Box? Come on. Where's the reward? So much exploration to do and not much to gain from it.

It's hard for me to place how I feel about the game on a full scale. I loved all the plot from the past, and loved finding out about it all, and Zero Dawn, and all of that. The modern-day stuff was unremarkable, for the most part. Cool, but nothing special. Gameplay was fun, until it wasn't. Exploration was fun, until it wasn't. And I'm a guy who had fun hunting down every Korok manually in BotW, so...

There it is. Haven't done DLC. Haven't decided if I will, yet. Probably will. Might not play the sequel.

DLC was pretty good if I remember

but yeah, this and the sequel are too full of busy work, and I'm too much a completionist to ignore stuff on the overly crowded map.

also, they are perhaps the worst offenders of "trinket based gameplay" where you pick up a bunch of stuff on the ground and none of it feels like it matters, until you try to upgrade a weapon and you don't have a part.

As someone who felt exactly the same about the first game, maybe don't bother with the second game. The time it took me to get sick of the gameplay and exploration was a lot quicker with the 2nd.

I suppose the question for me is: how long is the DLC?

I'm interested in more plot stuff. And I think I'd be able to stave off any collectathon impulses.

Also is the plot worth it, continuing?

The DLC isn't very long, it's like, one area's worth, so maybe a couple hours if you rush through the story but under 10 if you want to finish everything. It's a bit adjacent to the main game's storyline and it does a bit more worldbuilding. There's a tiny bit that hints towards Forbidden West as well.

The sequel is more of the same as far as gameplay goes, there's some improvements here and there but they feel very similar. Storywise I guess it depends on what you liked about the first game's story. I think there's less sense of "discovery" in the second game.