5 Reasons Horizon Zero Dawn Could Underwhelm

Emotional attachment gives a player much greater reason to invest their time and energy in a heroine and her struggle. Despite the beauty and intrigue of the setting, we haven't been given much more – besides a few hints that some of the human enemies may or may not be behind the 'infection' that caused the mysterious machines to go rogue and battle humanity.

This is to the credit of Guerilla Games - who have done a great job keeping the plot under wraps - it is unlikely that everything will be revealed in the game. Still, before even reaching shelves it's looking like Horizon is going to be a huge success and likely part of a larger franchise. Therefore, we should expect that some questions will go unanswered until a later entry in the series.

That said, the game needs to be careful not to hold too many cards close to its chest for too long. The fewer answers we get to the more compelling questions, the less personal the enemies will seem.

If Horizon doesn't intrigue as I'm hoping, it won't matter how big and impressive the adversaries become - if we can't understand why Aloy is taking them down, they will just be faceless, impersonal beasts that could be forgotten before the story has a chance to truly entertain.