If Sylens is the bad guy in Horizon 2 then its going to be epic. The amount of damage that guy can do following knowledge is intense. Look at what he created with the Shadow Carja just trying to find knowledge about the ancients. Something was a little off about how hades system was corrupted and went into death mode without the will of Gaia. The amount of foreshadowing was immense and im glad know now what woke him up and made him go haywire. That next boss for the next game is going to be insane. I just want to know how its going to be taken down. Sonys guerilla team just found a freaking winner!

Good lord I cant wait for the sequel!!

You think he's going to the villain why? Because he's black!?

All kidding aside, I wonder if everything that transpired was intentional or collateral. He never really struck me as malicious, more...indifferent to the outcome.

Edit: I saw "More than epic" too late.

Well the very problem that Aloy saw in him about his emotional outlook was a great foreshadowing of where hes dangerous. He doesnt mean harm, but he has an unnatural and scienfic need to push his knowledge and what he digs up will only put earth in danger. As you saw, the crew was murdered before they didnt want the failures of the past to be dug up. Hes not malicious, but where he is extremely intelligent (in IQ) hes severely lacking emotionally (EQ). The usual trope of mad scientists who put humanity in danger by pushing the envelope of technology.

I thought the final boss was a let down, but yeah, I can't help but agree with you on how well the setup is for Horizon 2.

Playable? What went wrong for you?

Sylens was such a great character, can't wait to see him as the main antagonist.

Hades is an AI. I never expeted it to cause any harm to me, except for what it controlled (Shadow Carja, robots, etc) That other boss in part two that woke up hades is what will be a real boss. It was even stated earlier that getting to hades would be the problem and the only real thing you need to do to hades was plug your staff into him. Maybe its because I saw it coming why it wasnt such a let down. I can understand where youre coming from.

Totally agree with this: by the way, how sick was the big reveal?

I did all the side quests, as they became available, then went through the storyline. It was definitely the most boring way to play the game, because the plot builds momentum so quickly.

Yeah, the balance with all of the side quests was kind of off. It threw me off quite a bit, but it went back to the main storyline. I work so many hours now that it took me forever to finish it. It was worth it to just go back to the most important quests so I could just platinum the game after I could beat it.  Again, you're right that the side story made it boring. The horizon devs should look at the Witcher to understand balancing of side quests, but id easily give this game a 9.5 if overall quality. This game is going to inspire many other third party titles just like Sony generally does for sure.

As far as the big reveal goes, I looked at it and I said where the boss fight was lacking at the end of this game, the second game is where he will get it kind of like how uncharted started. The big, epic situations could just happen with the sequel.

For me, the pacing of side quests was my only complaint. Anything less than a 9 would not be doing this game justice.

SPOILER ALERT: I spend a lot of time talking with my associates about machine learning and AI safety, and this game did such a great job of outlining a prospective nightmare scenario.