Horizon Zero Dawn: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

Feb 20, 2017 February 20th, 2017

1. Bandit Camps & Fighting Humans Suuuucks

The absolute worst thing about Horizon - and the times it just devolves into an Assassin's Creed clone - come with invading the various bandit camps that dot the map in between everything else actually worth seeing or doing.

They're not a big part of the whole game, nor are the vast majority necessary to get through the story, but the ones you do need to do - or if you're going for a 100% completion - still highlight a number of direly outdated Assassin's Creed tropes.

You'll use a vision mode to tag enemies through walls, hide in bushes/tall grass, whistle to alert one member out of a group, stealth kill one dude next to another as they both look forward, only for no one to react - you've done all of these things a million times, and you can tell Guerrilla designed Horizon back when Assassin's Creed was still flying high, but those days are long gone.

All that said, these are three minuscule bugbears with an otherwise exemplary product. Guerrilla have delivered not only a fantastic game, but the beginnings of a thoroughly riveting franchise - one you can feel the seeds of which growing across its entire runtime.