While Horizon Forbidden West provides a robust story for action RPG fans to sink their teeth into, it also has a wide variety of side missions for fans to pursue, greatly increasing the overall gameplay time of the game. The game offers typical side quests and messages from the first game, but it also greatly expands the side content by introducing Salvage Contracts, Relic Ruins and much more. The Forbidden West has a lot more to offer Aloy than before, but that’s not all positive. Horizon Forbidden West feels a bit messy because there are so many different types of quests that the player can pursue.
Rapid expansion was the name of the game in Horizon Forbidden West. The sprawling new map that brought the American Southwest to life features a lot of new machines, as well as a ton of variants on familiar machines that kept the battle fresh. Guerrilla Games seemed to be concerned with quest design on the same principle, believing that variety was the spice of life. Ultimately, however, Horizon Forbidden WestThe lace content feels like it’s stretched a little too thin across the open world. The next Horizon game needs to find ways to keep its missions under one roof so that players don’t have to keep track of so many different goals.
The evolving side missions of the Horizon franchise
The Horizon Forbidden West sidequest list is growing in all directions. Hunting Grounds, Tallnecks, and Cauldrons all return as quests, but the game has much more to offer. Rather than simply clearing Bandit Camps, Aloy has two options when routing Regalla’s Tenakth Rebels: Rebel Outposts and Rebel Camps. These quests are slightly different, but ultimately the experience is similar. Salvage Contracts give Aloy a new subset task to fulfill in exchange for rewards, while Melee Pits, Gauntlet Runs, and the Arena give Aloy new leagues to win. Collectibles now also get their own quest list and Relic Ruins offer objectives related to certain collectibles.
All in all, many of these search categories seem exaggerated. For example, Melee Pits, Gauntlet Runs, and the Arena don’t seem to be quests at all. While it’s somewhat helpful to remind the player where these minigames are, it seems like map markers would have done the job, especially when Machine Strike doesn’t have a dedicated mission category alongside these other competitive activities. Rebel Outposts and Rebel Camps also seem to have occupied one mission list, rather than taking up extra space in the menu. Not only does this long list clutter up the mission menu, but it’s also harder to appreciate each one Forbidden West‘s new ideas individually when so much is happening in the game at once.
The Collectibles category shows how the third Horizon game can simplify things. Instead of giving each collectible a separate quest type, targets such as Vista Points and Survey Drones are listed together as subtypes in the Collectibles category. Similarly, Regalla’s camps could have been grouped together as Rebel Bases and subtyped as Outposts and Camps, while the minigame-style quests like Melee Pits could be grouped together as Leagues or Challenges. To make Horizon quests for families in this way would better organize the side content of the game while preserving the variety that Horizon Forbidden West had to offer.
Horizon Forbidden West will undoubtedly introduce new types of side missions, possibly related to the advancing threat of NEMESIS or Old World technology that will help Aloy protect Earth. Better organization will be the key to making those new quests attractive; stack them on top of the litany of quest types in Forbidden West can be overwhelming rather than enticing to fans. A wide variety of search categories can provide a sense of discovery to Horizon fans, but the Horizon Zero Dawn Sequel’s approach was a bit over the top. A more efficient organization of the quest would mean that Guerrilla can offer just as much variety – or even more than before – without taking up unnecessary menu space or player attention.
Horizon Forbidden West is now available for PS4 and PS5.
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