Horizon Zero Dawn: 7 Ups & 3 Downs

Downs

3. Randomly Stilted Facial Animation

Onto the negatives, which I'll be completely honest, didn't ruin or get in the way of my enjoyment of the game whatsoever, but are still worth addressing objectively.

First up, facial animation. Guerrilla were clearly listening when a variety of leaked clips showed some strange, twitchy head and eye movements during conversation, as I've not experienced that in the final build. What does occasionally stand out though, is thanks to the breadth of characters you'll be interacting with, many have minimal or blank facial expressions.

Pre-rendered cutscenes get the full works, Uncharted/Halo-style, but many exchanges feature whoever you're talking to just standing with their face barely emoting at all. This is especially noticeable during dialogue that was recorded where a character is clearly beginning to cry, or expressing a strong reaction to something.

Aloy tends to get by, as the majority of her in-game interactions are questions - and obviously, being the main character, there's been a lot of work put into her - but you'll still notice the occasional 'cut' between facial states as she and others transition from one animation to the next.