#16
YoY: = My Rating: 9.3/10
For quite a few years, Horizon Zero Dawn was my favourite open world game ever. From the moment I first played it, I absolutely loved just about everything it had to offer. The world was intriguing and beautiful, constantly pushing me to find the next secret or new location beyond the map's edge, the characters, Aloy especially, quickly hooked with their stories, and the audiovisual side was obviously top tier. I also found the gameplay a lot of fun, the feeling of constantly getting better and over time toppling more and more dangerous robots felt great. It was only this year that another open world game took its spot, and even still it remains one of my favourite games of all time.
There are, naturally, some issues with the game as well. In the main game, the conversation animation never quite works right, the mouth movements very often feeling unnatural and stilted. Fortunately, they improved the system a lot in the DLC. I also often found myself running out of inventory space, even with full upgrades, leading to quite a lot of annoying fiddling throughout the game. All of that is ultimately insignificant, though. The story, setting, the mystery surrounding the past, the characters, music, visuals, and gameplay are all wonderful. I love just spending time in the world Guerrilla Games created, and I can't wait to go back to in Forbidden West when I finally get my hands on a PS5 one of these days.
