Horizon Zero Dawn Gameplay Roundup: 11 Things You Need To Know

5. Creature Variety Creates Combat Variety

Many previews noted that the various creatures you come against force you to vary tactics on the fly. Fighting a horn-headed charging beast, for example, means you'll have to prioritise dodging, whereas to down flying foes, you'll need to perfect your bow and arrow.

According to Gamespot's Kallie Plagge,

"Even as I began to favor stealth, there were still options: you can track a machine’s movements with the scanner to sneak past it undetected, get close and take it down with an unlockable silent kill, or plant a trap along its tracks with an upgradeable weapon. There’s enough flexibility in attacks, weapons, and skills from what I saw to potentially keep me engrossed for quite a while."

This could be Horizon's way of creating innovative encounters outside Aloy's base foundation of abilities, as aside from the enemy class system seen in Assassin's Creed II, we've not had a game of this size and scope force you to employ a variety of different, overlapping tactics to deal with any large groups of foes.

Here's hoping there's a healthy challenge embedded within these dynamic encounters, as - and I'd love to be wrong - the potential for "Hide in the grass, use your vision mode to spot foes, stealth kill, repeat" setup could get old, fast.