With such an intense media profile it would be forgiveable to assume that Aloy, the red-headed protagonist from Guerrilla’s open world adventure, was some sort of political deity. You know the type, the kind whose portrait adorns the walls of every household to remind the citizenry of the devotion they owe to their beneficent goddess. But whilst the girl certainly doesn’t have the egomania bordering on psychosis that affects such demagogues, she is however very much Sony’s own Katniss Everdeen; their girl on fire to lead their franchise ambitions to glorious, monetary revolution.
Such things are of course to be expected. When one considers the level of commitment that has clearly gone into Zero Dawn it’s hard to be too critical of the ubiquity of its marketing, even if every Youtube video must now preface itself with Ashly Burch’s portentous, overly earnest delivery. Horizon is a triple A title in its most obvious sense; a visual tour-de-force on an XXL scale. You can feel the expense oozing out of every pixel as it massages your eyes with some of the most impressive visuals yet known to console. Be it the mournful beauty of the setting sun or the bracing chill of an icy wind, Horizon renders them with the greatest of fidelity, doing all it can to pull you into its post-post apocalyptic landscape.
That humankind suffered some great tragedy is self-evident; the loss of what we understand as the modern world is there for all to see, but it is its point of departure that intrigues us. How exactly did we end up here? What drove humankind to this juncture where maternal and solar devotions hold sway over this particular corner of the earth? It’s the question that ultimately drives our heroine and Horizon’s narrative forward but it’s curious as to why so few others within the world remain unconcerned with the origin of their existence and instead seem resolved in their ways of superstitious idiocy.
That’s not to say our own heroine isn’t afflicted with odd personality traits, but rather the stunning lack of them. One suspects many meddling hands and meetings were involved in Aloy’s creation, doubtless concerned with appealing to as many tastes as possible, as otherwise it is hard to fathom how a singular writer could lack the imagination to conjure so bland and uninteresting a protagonist.
One could be mistaken for having thought that with someone who has grown up isolated and outcast from society, that they may struggle with interacting with others, that something might be made of this and her lack of experience in social situations, but no, Aloy is quite the people person and much more besides. In fact it’s something of a challenge to come up with anything that she isn’t good at. She’s faster, stronger and smarter than pretty much every other human encountered and solves their problems with such effortless grace it’s a wonder humankind hasn’t suffered a second apocalyptic event in her absence.
It all whiffs of a character by committee, where any potential alienating element has been carefully omitted so as to not offend anyone except those who might genuinely be interested in playing an actual human being for once. There's no vulnerability or internal weakness to fight and overcome, no odd quirk of character that distinguishes one person from another, no depth or nuance to her mind, just a one note superhero that undergoes little to no character development at all over the dozens of hours necessary to bring her story to a close. NPCs will endlessly gush over her and her accomplishments and the game is clearly in love its big-haired huntress, but no amount of telling me how great she is will change the answer to the most essential of questions, is she interesting as character? No, and in the context of her origins and upbringing that is a quite breathtaking failure. Being exceptional is no excuse for being boring.
There are compensations however; the plot itself is a perfectly serviceable affair where the mysteries uncovered paint a quite dramatic and engaging history, a history I would very much have preferred to be taking part in. That it is delivered via the ever lazy and cancerous crutch of audio logs and text dumps sours the storytelling and runs counter to any good sense of pacing, but where such elements might collapse the experience, the world of Zero Dawn comes to its rescue, for it, more than anything else is the true hero.
Horizon Zero Dawn looks breathtaking; the textures, lighting, weather effects, they are all best in class but what truly makes it so immersive is the physical landscape, the unique geography that accounts for each gentle stream or towering vista. The contrivances that allow for a snowy forest juxtaposed with desert pay dividends in keeping locations varied where the most thrilling aspect of exploration isn't in new quests or items, but in images and environments. The decayed relics of the past that litter the game world do more to create emotion than anything spoken or read, and with it provide the most compelling reason to push on through the standard collection of side quests and item gathering.
Zero Dawn pulls many of its systems from other games; you get a version of Ubisoft's tower climbing to unlock more of the map, you have strongholds to conquer, hunting challenges to complete and the ever tiring busy work of crafting for extra ammo capacity and whatnot. Early on you are sent out to hunt the perpetrators behind a sinister attack and whilst the importance of this task is emphasised by the tribe you belong to, no one thought that maybe it might be a good idea to equip you properly for the task, much better it seems to have you spend hours hunting for the right loot drop rather than have you get on with the urgent mission at hand.
It's all pretty standard and whilst not inducing complete paroxysms of boredom it nevertheless characterises an experience that has nothing new to offer, and with most of the best equipment available pretty early on it's not hard to find yourself over-levelled with little else to find beyond slightly better modifications for your weapons and armour. At this point I do have to mention that the outfit design in Zero Dawn is quite imaginative where salvaged technology is integrated elegantly into some beautiful interpretations of styles from civilizations past. It's admittedly a minor point, but it's one that reinforces the view that far more creative thought went into the aesthetics than anything gameplay related.
Combat is of course a large portion of the experience and there is a decent thrill to be found in it. Successfully diving out the way of on an onrushing robot monster never really loses its appeal and there is a visceral satisfaction in the many stealth kills and critical strikes you can perform on unsuspecting or vulnerable enemies. Whilst melee attacks are limited and often not worth it on anything you can't kill in one or two strikes stealth offers a number of fun mechanics. Be it luring an unsuspecting guard into the long grass to get their throat stabbed or overriding a robotic beast to have them sow chaos amongst their former allies, you have multiple options to tackle any given encounter and with your arsenal of traps and status effect weaponry there are always alternatives to simply shooting your bow. Add to that enemies with specific weaknesses and vulnerabilities and you have a system that at least encourages you to try new things and gives value to developing your offensive capabilities.
For as fun as the combat can be the camera will sometimes do its best to spoil things. Especially when looking up to tackle the game's few flying enemies does the camera often take a loving look at the grass rather than the life and death battle taking place behind it. Similarly with everything pulled so close when aiming it's hard not to be constantly blind-sided necessitating a quick switch back to the standard view to unstick Aloy from some rock or other. The aiming itself is smooth and lining up head-shots is remarkably easy, but in the chaos of battle it can be very easy to lose track of your environment and make the otherwise enjoyable combat somewhat finicky and cumbersome.
Horizon Zero Dawn personifies everything that's great and grating about big budget productions. It displays truly astonishing levels of scale and scope with some of the most beautiful visuals in the industry, yet at the same time seems so afraid to try and go beyond what has already proven popular. The world it portrays, the ideas that underpin the story, they deserved far better than the generic open world design and ham-fisted storytelling they're given, and with Aloy there is a chasm of difference between someone being cool and being interesting, and it's a lesson Horizon never truly understands. It's fun for sure, but it's hard to shake a feeling of missed opportunity.