izigame.me

This review is about the game itself, not the PC port. If you played it on Playstation and just want to know if the migration to PC is worth it, I'd say yes, it is. The frame rate is stable, what few bugs I encountered were annoying but easy to fix, and the whole thing generally feels polished.
Now to the game itself.
I'm sad to say that after the awe and wonder Horizon: Zero Dawn inspired in me, Forbidden West failed to elicit the same emotional response. I normally spend a bit of time with introspection at this point, trying to pinpoint where exactly the game dropped the ball, but in this case that's unnecessary for it is blatantly obvious.
First of all, technically the game is great. Graphics have been improved even further, the world is gorgeous and lovingly crafted, the soundtrack is really good. The new machines are all incredibly impressive, well-animated and a whole lot of fun to fight. Well, most of them, anyway (damn Clamberjaws...).
That gets us to the gameplay, the first aspect where cracks began to show. It's safe to say that Horizon: Forbidden West is peak 2020s gaming, and I don't mean this as a compliment. Whoever designed the gameplay seems to have tried to cram absolutely every tired old open-world and action RPG gameplay element in the book into this one game. Grappling hook? Check. Pointless food crafting for temporary buffs? Check. Convoluted yet utterly pointless melee combo system in a game that's 99% ranged combat? Check. About twice as many mostly pointless collectibles as in HZD? Oh, you bet. Incessant internal monologue by the player character clearly meant to make sure even the dumbest player can figure out the game's simple puzzles? You guessed it, check. I could probably list another dozen examples, but you get the gist of it. The only gameplay element in Horizon: Forbidden West that's actually fun and somewhat unique to engage with is fighting the machines. Everything else has been done a hundred times before, with next to no innovation whatsoever.
The next thing that put me off was the completely uncalled-for overhaul of the weapons mechanics. Veterans of the first game will remember how it used to work: hunter bows dealt physical and fire damage, war bows covered most of the other elements, sharpshot bows launched my beloved Tearblast arrows, and so on. Each weapon class had four to five models that differed only in their base stats, growing stronger as you progressed through the tiers.
Well, in Horizon: Forbidden West, every weapon is pretty much unique. You can find just about any element on any weapon, in random combinations that inevitably have massive overlap. The tier system still exists, but if you grew attached to a particular weapon, no exact equivalent on a higher tier exists. Why would it? That would be way too easy and convenient. I found it incredibly frustrating to try and recreate the HZD weapon roster I was used to. In fact, it's pretty much impossible on a first playthrough. For instance, the one high-tier sharpshot bow with Tearblast arrows in the entire game can only be acquired in a New Game+ campaign, basically forcing you to play about 100 hours without it. The game seems to try to compensate for this with more slots on the weapon wheel, which does functionally work, but it can't do a thing about the fact that all this extra gear needs to be upgraded separately.
And oh boy, the upgrade process... I can't begin to describe how incredibly grindy this part of the game is. You'll spend hours upon hours upon hours just getting a single legendary weapon or armor maxed out, and there's scores of them. True, you won't need most of them, but still, it's tedious AF.
Now that my gameplay pet peeve has been adressed, let's get to the main reason why I can't in good conscience recommend this game, and unfortunately, it's part of the peak 2020s gaming mentioned earlier.
Horizon: Forbidden West is by far the most misandrist game I've ever played, or even heard about. About 70% of all named characters are women. Almost all the game's movers and shakers are women. If a villain is female, they'll turn out to be of the tragic sort that usually can be redeemed. Conversely, all male villains are absolute monsters without even a hint of redeeming qualities. All the game's most powerful fighters are female. One of them, and I kid you not, is an old woman in her late 60s who swings around a giant sword that looks to be heavier than she is, and this granny is the Forbidden West's officially recognized, undefeated arena fighting champion. Let that sink in for a moment.
Every other sidequest is given by, or involves, a woman who was or is being kept down by men, had her revolutionary invention stolen by men, had to go on the run so she could escape the oppression by men, or just wants to take revenge on some abusive man. If a quest involves searching for a group of missing persons, the one survivor will almost always be a resourceful woman, or a meek, useless excuse for a man who survives only because Aloy bailed him out in time.
Speaking of male characters, they're almost to a fault either useless sissies, stupid jerks, or allegedly badass warriors who still exist only to enable and praise Aloy every chance they get. None of them shows any noteworthy amount of agency. Probably the best (or worst) example is Erend, our favorite Oseram Vanguard captain from HZD. He's back, and literally his only contributions to the entire mainquest are 1) gushing over how badass Aloy is every time they talk to each other, and 2) carry something heavy during the final quest. That's it, that's everything he does. What a disgrace.
Aloy herself has also taken a sharp turn for the worse character-wise. After taking much of the first game to learn that she can't - and doesn't need to - save the world alone, she apparently forgot all about that in the few months between the games and is now back to pushing everyone away, only to then complain about how lonely she is. Yeah, no s***, Sherlock. She's also frequently one of the worst offenders in terms of how men get treated in this game, often displaying stereotypical girlboss behavior to a degree that would be comical if it wasn't so offensive. Apart from that she's turned into a downright Mary Sue who can do everything, knows everything, is instantly better at everything than any (male) expert with decades of experience, is never wrong, can bulldoze through any and all established laws and customs without suffering any consequences, and can bully everyone into doing what she wants without anyone holding a grudge over it.
Now that I've finally gotten all this off my chest (I've been waiting to do so for days because I wanted to finish the game first), I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I absolutely enjoy well-written strong female characters in fiction, and I'm a sucker for strong women in real life. I want equality and fair treatment for everyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or whatever else they identify themselves through. What I do take offense at is this insane school of thought among modern-day writers that a character can be written as strong by portraying everyone around them as irredeemably evil, weak, or stupid. That's not how that works. A D grade in school doesn't magically become a good grade just because everyone else in class got an F. Applying this to Horizon: Forbidden West makes the whole thing especially frustrating because it was absolutely unnecessary. Aloy proved her strength in HZD while paired with, or pitted against, mostly competent sidekicks or enemies. This switch in characterization only weakens her, denigrates everyone else, and thus creates nothing but a lose-lose situation overall. It's just sad, and it makes me worry about how the next installment in the series will approach this issue.