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Horizon Forbidden West Review Embargo Details

What Will Be The Average Critic Score For Horizon: Forbidden West

  • >95

    Votes: 35 5.2%
  • 93-95

    Votes: 128 19.2%
  • 90-92

    Votes: 261 39.1%
  • 86-89

    Votes: 174 26.0%
  • 80-85

    Votes: 42 6.3%
  • <80

    Votes: 28 4.2%

  • Total voters
    668

TonyK

Member
I think is very difficult to go over 90 these days in the open world genre. We all end tired and bored of the repetition associated with open world games, even reviewers that don't finish the games.

I wish it will be a 95 game, but I'm afraid it will be closer to Horizon 1 or Ghost of Tsushima.
 
85 to 90. I expect it to be a much better game than its predecessor, which will have points docked for being yet another open world game serving a tried formula...I also expect some wokeness issues to be raised, despite the obvious efforts deployed by Guerrilla to please almost every biped on earth...
 

GymWolf

Member
855BkviPSVAo.gif
 

sendit

Member
It's pretty hard to get a high metascore these days, especially over 90. I think it will reach 90 but no higher.
This is actually very true. With people getting triggered over little things. "X character is showing too much skin". Drops score to 2/10.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
85 to 90. I expect it to be a much better game than its predecessor, which will have points docked for being yet another open world game serving a tried formula...I also expect some wokeness issues to be raised, despite the obvious efforts deployed by Guerrilla to please almost every biped on earth...

Zero dawn scored to high in my opinion, it should of scored what Ghost of tshima scored (83).
So i dont know how FW will score, reviewers seem to like these sort of games.
But Guerilla will have to greatly improve the quest quality to make the game better.
 
Zero dawn scored to high in my opinion, it should of scored what Ghost of tshima scored (83).
So i dont know how FW will score, reviewers seem to like these sort of games.
But Guerilla will have to greatly improve the quest quality to make the game better.

they will, don't you worry
 

Ezquimacore

Banned
88 and fortunately won't be overshadowed by Zelda and Nier weeks after. Although Elden Ring is around the corner and you know souls fans will come for that respeck.
birdman-respeck.gif
 
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yurinka

Member
91.

I assume it will deserve more than the half cooked Pokemon and HZD but I don't trust the reviewers, who may decide to boycott it because all the dinobots are white or base there aren't LGBT dinobots.

Everybody was getting trashed for Ubisoft towers in games, Nintendo puts Ubi towers in their game.. "Oh my god, of course, it's so genius."
Add "Nintendo invented the open world games with BotW"
 
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Edgelord79

Gold Member
Wonder if we'll see any reviewers actually review the game on base PS4's? It's a looker that's for sure

Probably going to be an 80 score, but because of reasons it will jump to 90. IMO the first one wasn't as great as some made it out to be.
 
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cormack12

Gold Member
92. No way this is less than 90, but equally can't see it being outstanding enough to hit 93+

Probably a lot of moaning about leaving critics wondering what might have been of it was only next gen, story not being as tight, side quests and there will obviously be something it fails at via an identity politics issue.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Cyberpunk 2077
I will always and forever remember the glowing industry reviews of CP2077.
Just putting this out there for all those who already forgot.
2077 is pretty great. I finished it on pc on review and it was very good. Better than horizon or days gone.
Horizon was boring…. I will be replaying it soon. Preordered fw already anyway.

Game about robot dinosaurs that is boring… but it’s got that something
 
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Hinedorf

Banned
My excitement for this game is 100 and I felt if not for BotW it would have been a front runner for GOTY but coming out within a few weeks of Zelda made it tough for a lot of folks.

Guessing 80-90 range for me it will take a lot not to be a 90 unless they really clusterfuck the story.
 
Why not? In theory they fixed literally any problem people had with the first one (and they showed most of those upgrades already).

You will be surprised by how many people abandoned the game for trivial (or important) reason like shitty digital digital acting or boring sidequests or shitty melee or limited traversal or shitty rewards for exploration etc.

On reeeee i lost the count of people who didn't liked the first one but preordered this one nevertheless.
I always found the complaints with the first horizon to be ridiculous though - so I can see why he would say that, like yeah all these little things may be reasons to say you don’t like it on a forum but if you’re not into the core gameplay because you just aren’t. It’s probably not for you - cus there was not much wrong with it imo that actually mattered
 

Woggleman

Member
I never understood how the first game was accused of being woke. Her tribe is backwards and closed minded and hardly a good example of a matriarchal society plus most of her allies are men. Her resentment and contempt for them are clear even if she does help them. The first thing you see in the game is a depiction of a strong father figure.
 

kingfey

Banned
This game, arceus, or elden ring. I can only finance 1 game this month sadly. Spent 150$ on January. So no more money for this month.

I hope the reviews are good.
 

Bragr

Banned
I am surprised that so many of you think this is a surefire 90+ game. I haven't seen the evolution in gameplay like from Uncharted to Uncharted 2. I expect around 88.
 

Elginer

Member
I’m hoping for a 90 plus but honestly I don’t need some asshole journalist telling me what they think, I care about what you assholes think, you spend your hard earned money and give me true insightful opinions both good and bad. I just hope it’s as good as the first which I loved. The story was profound for me make and hit on some really cool aspects of humanity and the lack thereof/
 
88.5 for me they really need to bring back the . point system of rating also do a scale from 1-100 not from 1-10
 
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boomcrab

Member
90-92, though if I had a single number guess I'd say 92. Lot of positive energy around this game, everything looks improved. Embargo lifts the 14th? Sonys confident
 

THEAP99

Banned
It's really interesting and strange how the first game scored an 89 with all the flaws and issues it had. So, wouldn't that mean if some of those issues, such as melee combat is solved in this sequel, it would score higher??

Either way, I don't think it'll be reaching 90. Will get points dragged down for static open world formula fatigue
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
If it creeps into the 90s ill be pleasantly surprised.
But im expecting the mid 80s.
 

GymWolf

Member
I always found the complaints with the first horizon to be ridiculous though - so I can see why he would say that, like yeah all these little things may be reasons to say you don’t like it on a forum but if you’re not into the core gameplay because you just aren’t. It’s probably not for you - cus there was not much wrong with it imo that actually mattered
Nah the game was certainly flawed, it was my gotg (not goty, gotg) and i still can't score more than a 8-8,5 (i enjoyed the game like it was a 11\10 but that is another discussion)

I can defend some aspects of the game but some are legit bad\mediocre like melee combat, combat vs humans both mechanically and animation wise, shit rewards for exploration if you don't care about going deep on the lore (and not everyone care), bad traversal options, bad\simple stealth, cumbersome resource management, shitty digital acting etc.
I loved the game because the highs were much more impactful than the lows, but i'm honest with myself, the game had problems.

I find many of these reasons worthy of stopping a game if the story\charas doesn't hook you from the beginning.

At best we can argue that many games with far higher metacritic have even more flaws than horizon but they still score higher but this is not the topic to discuss that.
 
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GymWolf

Member
We dont know.
All we have seen is combat from quests, which was the same in the first.
If you expect aloy doing more than fighting and quest ala witcher 3 where you can even organize a theatre show, then better prepare to be disappointed.

Horizon focus and selling point is combat, everything gravitate towards that, witcher always had shit combat so they had to focus on something different.

They probably improved acting, rewards and maybe writing but i don't expect a revolution on how you solve quests, at best they are gonna introduce some light puzzles with the pullcaster, some climb puzzle ala tsushima temples, maybe some missions where you have a known companion, but not more than that.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
If you expect aloy doing more than fighting and quest ala witcher 3 where you can even organize a theatre show, then better prepare to be disappointed.

Horizon focus and selling point is combat, everything gravitate towards that, witcher always had shit combat so they had to focus on something different.

They probably improved acting, rewqrds qnd maybe writing but i don't expect a revolution on how you solve quests, at best they are gonna introduce some light puzzles with the pullcaster, some climb puzzle ala tsushima temples, maybe some missions where you have a known companion, but not more than that.

I think for a game like horizon the quests need to be as interesting and as varried as the story. If they dont break up the combat with other tasks they need to add more grander and creative combat scenarios, I did enjoy attacking and defending large outposts with a crazy variety of big and small robos, they need more of that.
I just remembered that there was other types of quests in zero dawn, at the very beginning where little Aloy gets lost and explores the old world and later during the proving where you do that race, there needs to be more of those sort of quests to break the monotony of killing 1000s of robos and tribesmen.

I found the ps3 uncharted games suffered from this, where you would just kill,kill,kill for what seemed long periods of time. UC4 got the balance far better and would break up the combat with other sections.

However this is pretty subjective, I understand some gamers prefer to just kill.
Its also pretty depended on the type of game.
 

GymWolf

Member
I think for a game like horizon the quests need to be as interesting and as varried as the story. If they dont break up the combat with other tasks they need to add more grander and creative combat scenarios, I did enjoy attacking and defending large outposts with a crazy variety of big and small robos, they need more of that.
I just remembered that there was other types of quests in zero dawn, at the very beginning where little Aloy gets lost and explores the old world and later during the proving where you do that race, there needs to be more of those sort of quests to break the monotony of killing 1000s of robos and tribesmen.

I found the ps3 uncharted games suffered from this, where you would just kill,kill,kill for what seemed long periods of time. UC4 got the balance far better and would break up the combat with other sections.

However this is pretty subjective, I understand some gamers prefer to just kill.
Its also pretty depended on the type of game.
You have limited resources and priorities in an open world, some chose the sidequest path like rdr2 or w3, some prefer to have combat as a main focus, you can't have all unless you have unlimited time\money.
Latest ac games tried to do everything and they failed in almost everything because everything is half baked.

They added a gwent wannabe minigame to play with npcs, maybe they added something new that we don't know yet.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
You have limited resources and priorities in an open world, some chose the sidequest path like rdr2 or w3, some prefer to have combat as a main focus, you can't have all unless you have unlimited time\money.

They added a gwent wannabe minigame to play with npcs, maybe they added something new that we don't know yet.

then shortern the story, I much rather play a varried and polished 14hr story then a tedious 23hr one. And put the filler as the side quests and add other little games (like card games, triathlons, hunting) to extend playtime for those interested.

If resources are an issue they could also make the map smaller too.
 
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GymWolf

Member
then shortern the story, I much rather play a varried and polished 14hr story then a tedious 23hr one. And put the filler as the side quests and add other little games (like card games, triathlons, hunting) to extend playtime for those interested.

If resources are an issue they could also make the map smaller too.
They added timed combat arenas where to win the best loot and melee trials were to learn new combos other than the minigame i was speaking early, still focused on combat but it is something.

We really don't know how they improved the quests, i can only guess making them more varied with puzzles, kinda free climbing, companions, maybe some choice to make here and there.

I don't want a shorter story, i buy open worlds to be entartained by long ass plots and at least 50 hours of gameplay, i loved the story in the first one and how intricated it was, you can't set up things properly with a shorter plot.
 
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Arun1910

Member
And I loved Days Gone

8UaoksV.jpg
There was a reason for that. Technical issues plagued this game on release as well as bugs. That 70 was deserved.

I remember trying to play this and the game literally going to 0fps because my bike was too fast for the world to even load what was coming next.

If this game released with all it's patches and on PS5 at 60fps, I could have seen it reaching a solid 80.
 

GymWolf

Member
There was a reason for that. Technical issues plagued this game on release as well as bugs. That 70 was deserved.

I remember trying to play this and the game literally going to 0fps because my bike was too fast for the world to even load what was coming next.

If this game released with all it's patches and on PS5 at 60fps, I could have seen it reaching a solid 80.
The game was absolutely not more bugged than any ac games on release or bethesda game on release or pretty much any non-sony super polished open world out therez i would argue that it wasn't nearly as bugged as bethesda\cd project games and kinda on par with far cry\ac games.

If dg deserve 70 for the bugs, almost every open world in the market deserve that score.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
They added timed combat arenas where to win the best loot and melee trials were to learn new combos other than the minigame, still focused on combat but it is something.

We really don't know how they improved the quests, i can only guess making them more varied with puzzles, kinda free climbing, companions, mayne some choice to make here and there.

Yes this is what I originally said hence its to early to make a dertimination on the game. Read the full conversation for full context.

Dont get me wrong its not to shit on the parade, the animation, voice acting and settlement realism all look a lot better then the original. But how the quests are is still an area that has not been addressed by guerilla yet.
 

GymWolf

Member
Yes this is what I originally said hence its to early to make a dertimination on the game. Read the full conversation for full context.

Dont get me wrong its not to shit on the parade, the animation, voice acting and settlement realism all look a lot better then the original. But how the quests are is still an area that has not been addressed by guerilla yet.
Yeah, we can only wait and see.

One thing i'm gonna say, if you are not in the lore\world of horizon that much, i don't think that you are ever gonna love sidequests in this game, i was super invested in the world building so i enjoyed even the most shittiest sidequest because talking to npcs always revealed some microdetails about the world and tribes and machines etc.

Same reason why i didn't cared for most of the sidestuff in tsushima, because i just don't care about samurai stuff or that honor bullshit or mongols killimg innocents etc.

So i personally know that sidequests for me are gonna be super enjoyable no matter if they only focus on combat.
 
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