Horizon Zero Dawn: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

5. One Of The Best Single Player Stories This Generation (That Solves The Open-World Problem)

Following the trailers and marketing materials released for Horizon, you might've thought the game was going to centre entirely on blasting apart robo-dinos for loot and treasure. That is certainly a good three-quarters of what you'll be doing, but the thing that really surprised me, was just how personal and incredibly nuanced Aloy's story is.

From the get-go, you're painted as a literal Outcast, forced to grow up not knowing who your mother was - or being allowed to know. The Nora tribe despise the idea of a motherless child, refer to you as 'it', with the children even throwing stones at the sight of you. It's this essential narrative groundwork that allows Horizon to dance between operating on a micro and macro level at all times.

You truly care about Aloy's personal plight, and understand her drive to explore and succeed, but the world's history itself is just as interesting. Atop that, where so many other open-world games fall down is in giving the player an overarching goal needs to be complete immediately (Fallout 4's missing infant, Mass Effect 3's devastation of Earth, etc.).

Horizon certainly has hooks, twists and turns across the main campaign, but it makes sense contextually that Aloy would go off and explore to her heart's content, knowing whatever main quest marker she's chasing will be waiting just around the corner.

As for that story, take it from me: You're going to want to go into this as blind as possible. Every part of discovering what's really going on, who Aloy is, what happened in regards to her mother etc. should be discovered whilst playing through for the first time.