Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition

 PC
User Score
7.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 1197 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 718 out of 1197
  2. Mixed: 229 out of 1197
  3. Negative: 250 out of 1197

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. ScienceAdvisor
    Mar 10, 2023
    6
    Most missions are boring go there and kill that, rinse and repeat 1000 time. Some of the writing for the missions is great, especially two DLC characters, while others are like most of the main story, pure intersectional feminism. The main character turns out to literally be "the key to everything", and while they did not bother explaining how someone with zero muscles can be the amazingMost missions are boring go there and kill that, rinse and repeat 1000 time. Some of the writing for the missions is great, especially two DLC characters, while others are like most of the main story, pure intersectional feminism. The main character turns out to literally be "the key to everything", and while they did not bother explaining how someone with zero muscles can be the amazing fighter and parkour expert, pulling off leaping grabs that should dislocate her shoulder (making her fall and die), they did make sure to repeat how amazing she is, over and over. Luckily you can skip most of the story when it starts to get woke. If you do not, and you actually pay attention, the main driving mission ends up making absolutely no sense functionally. They toss technobabble at it, but it does not actually work. If they could do what they claim, they could easily have stopped the bots themselves. They even manage to break a lot of their world building by the end.

    One other major issue are the bugs. Some center around the camera, especially in tight spaces. But the two largest are the inability to lock onto an enemy for melee combat, and the ridiculous number of ways to get stun-locked by enemies, making any encounter with more than three robot dinos and exercise in frustration. More minor is that enemy bots will ignore enemy NPC to focus on you, and at times they will even detect you without line of sight (or using bot radar).    … Expand
  2. MetalRobot69
    Feb 16, 2022
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I have many things to talk about this game. If you like long reviews, you are gonna like this one.

    First of all, the graphics and the performance. I had many issues, even though I played 1.08 version and my PC isn't so bad (i5-10400 and RX 580). The performance of this game really sucks, some places my FPS just dropped to 10, especially in a city called Merdiana. Also, there are many bugs in the textures and texture flickering, sometimes I couldn't even see the ground I was walking on. So it really bothers me.

    And the graphics are horrible, sometimes was like a PS2 game, I think it is because the textures are bugged but since it is 1.08 version it is simply unforgivable. So my score is 1/10.

    The combat of this game is a mixed experience. It is really original, you fight against machines using a bow with different types of arrows (elemental arrow, tear arrow, corrupted arrow, etc). Alloy uses her Focus to identify the weakness of the machine and utilizing the right combination of arrows, for instance using a fire arrow to overheat a machine and expose its radiator to destroy it and inflict massive amounts of damage on the machine or shooting an arrow on the "flame cylinder" to explode it. Killing a large machine that way is definitely cool and the design of the machines is breathtaking.

    But one thing that bothered me is how useless is Alloy at melee combat, her damage is practically zero and even the enemy humans deal massive damage but Alloy needs to use her arrows no matter what. I am not a big fan of just shooting arrows or using fire weapons over and over, for me melee combat is pretty much always more fun, no wonder I didn't like so much the combat experience in this game, so for me, it is 6.5/10.

    About the stealth mechanics, it is 5/10. The game has a mediocre stealth system, you can't carry the bodies of the enemies you kill (even the humans). Also, you don't have many options of takedown and you can't stealth kill everything, so it is pretty much impossible to clear a place 100% in stealth, the game really forces you to use the arrows.

    The story of the game is good but the narrative is horrible. I'll explain, the story is about a machine apocalypse that is ok, it was kinda obvious I theorized it at the beginning of the game. The main issue in this game story is that there is not even one charismatic character. The two only characters that I find the most charismatics died in the first hour of this game.

    And the way the story is told, it is always disgraces happening over and over, there is no pause time to appreciate the impact of the changes in the life of the characters. For instance, at the beginning of the game, Alloy was born already as an outcast of the tribe, she can't even talk with the tribe members, so she must pass the probation ritual to join the tribe. It is shown that many tribe members dislike her because she is an outcast, a boy even threw a rock on her when she was a child. When she finally joins the tribe to do the probation ritual, it is one of the most interesting situations in the game, the boy (now teenager) and many more dislikes her, but she managed to befriend a girl that seems cool and she had another friend that she saved his life many years ago. That dynamic was interesting, I thought Alloy would have to prove her worth to the tribe and make them respect her, but no, in the blink of an eye, the villain's gang kill the teenager that hates her and the girl that she befriend and even her adoptive father and consequently killed all this cool dynamic.

    So, Alloy has to set on an adventure to discover who is her mother and she discovers that she is a clone and her mother saved the world and now she needs to save. But, in this story, it is like I said, there is no charismatic character and only disgrace happens. There is no single time in this game that Alloy is drinking with friends or having fun, it is 24/7 disgraces over and over. She just thinks in discovering who is her mother and after that saves the world and even her "partner" Sylens managed to be even more unidimensional than Alloy, his only wish is to learn every knowledge of the world.

    Also, the villain is just a machine, so it is also very unidimensional and just a cheap villain overall. Even the human villains have ridiculous motivation.

    So for me, the story is just 5.5/10.    … Expand
  3. FoxForce
    Mar 6, 2022
    5
    A generic AAA single player experience: an open world RPG with very nice graphic and sound design.
    I can't in all honesty trash visuals and sounds in this game. The problem with games of this kind is how boring and repetitive they are. If you have played one triple A single player game you have played them all. What is supposed to make them different is theme and story but how boring the    A generic AAA single player experience: an open world RPG with very nice graphic and sound design.
    I can't in all honesty trash visuals and sounds in this game. The problem with games of this kind is how boring and repetitive they are. If you have played one triple A single player game you have played them all. What is supposed to make them different is theme and story but how boring the story is in this game; with all the moronic Californian progressive tropes.

    Ultimately if you are here for engaging gameplay and story you wont find it here, but if you want a very good looking cinematic experience you will be satisfied.    … Expand
  4. Theanbushinobi
    Sep 3, 2022
    7
    Performance issues make this slower score, an rtx 2070 can't get 60fps in 1080p ultra. That being said the story was remarkable but the gameplay was taken straight out of assassin's Creed games and the open world was riddled with pointless things to make the game feel longer
  5. Pmstz
    Jan 25, 2023
    6
    Ok game
    Very average and generic open-world.
    ------------------------------
  6. Hexen-Slayer
    Sep 4, 2020
    5
    HORIZON ZERO DAWN is just an average open world game. It features the same open world tropes that we've seen in other games from Ubisoft to Bethesda. Unremarkable NPCs have quests for you, that they are incapable or unwilling to do themselves, so they just wait for some random stranger to walk by to do it for them. Once you've finished their tasks, it's goodbye, never see ya again. TheseHORIZON ZERO DAWN is just an average open world game. It features the same open world tropes that we've seen in other games from Ubisoft to Bethesda. Unremarkable NPCs have quests for you, that they are incapable or unwilling to do themselves, so they just wait for some random stranger to walk by to do it for them. Once you've finished their tasks, it's goodbye, never see ya again. These "quests" are your average quests that we've completed several times before in just about every open world game before, usually find x somewhere, fetch x here and bring to me or kill x. Early on Aloy, the player character finds a device called a focus which is this game's "detective/witcher vision". Yeah, yeah, yeah, same old, same old.
    Crafting is as tedious as ever, too, collect x amount of x to craft x... it was interesting the first time they had this, now it's just tedious and I wish developers would EXclude crafting completely.
    There's your obligatory skill tree, nothing new here either, a basic stealth system - same mechanics as always, yada yada yada.
    So the bottom line, HORIZON ZERO DAWN is a patchwork of mechanics from other games, with tedious and boring missions, unmemorable NPCs and an unnecessary skill tree. It does everything other open world games do, but there's nothing it does extraordinarily well or completely different than others. I actually got bored playing this and most quests were chores. Only recommended for die hard fans of the open world genre.    … Expand
  7. muzmuz
    Aug 12, 2020
    7
    As much as I was excited for this game to finally release on PC, I also cannot ignore the fact the Horizon: Zero Dawn at PC launch fails to run well even though the hardware monitor reports that my computer isn't being used to its full potential. This shows that this game needs more work to be done in this area as this performance issue absolutely cannot be ignored. Not to mention that theAs much as I was excited for this game to finally release on PC, I also cannot ignore the fact the Horizon: Zero Dawn at PC launch fails to run well even though the hardware monitor reports that my computer isn't being used to its full potential. This shows that this game needs more work to be done in this area as this performance issue absolutely cannot be ignored. Not to mention that the game randomly crashes, which makes it even less tolerable to play, if not even game breaking -- as I have lost a ton of loot because of crashes.

    While the actual game is fun, as we all know from its years in the PS4 market, I wouldn't buy the PC version until they fix the current problems in the technical department.    … Expand
  8. D3D11
    Nov 15, 2020
    7
    Beautiful game with sophisticated gameplay.

    The story is more or less mediocre, the world is huge but feels empty.

    While it is a decent game, don't expect anything like Witcher 3. This game is nothing, compared to that, however, it is a lot better than the Tomb Raider, for instance.

    If you like the genre, buy it. Not bad, really, but don't expect too much.
  9. mugsy
    Dec 24, 2020
    6
    Nice graphics, there are different beautiful landscapes. Deserts, mountains, forests, jungles, snow lands, rivers, lakes, swamps, etc. There is a lot of boring running around though

    Characters are uninteresting

    Main plot is pretty average and predictable, side quests are boring

    I don't get why this game is so acclaimed

    And PC port is bad. Graphical glitches and stuttering all the time.
  10. F3T1W
    Aug 27, 2021
    7
    A good action RPG in an open world, it feels like it was made without a soul, but for the detailing of robots - like
  11. MadclownJack
    Aug 30, 2020
    5
    Everyone praised this thing to the point that i thought i was playing it wrong. But this is nothing special. The story might be interesting, but since the gameplay becomes dull very quickly, I'm not left with a wanting to pursue the actual story further. It's ok, at best. Combat feels a bit plasticky too. Like i'm using auto-aim all the time. Bosses are just a grind, not very fun, justEveryone praised this thing to the point that i thought i was playing it wrong. But this is nothing special. The story might be interesting, but since the gameplay becomes dull very quickly, I'm not left with a wanting to pursue the actual story further. It's ok, at best. Combat feels a bit plasticky too. Like i'm using auto-aim all the time. Bosses are just a grind, not very fun, just interesting to look at. And riding the machines i guess can be fun too, but how long will that hold you? Just a generic TPS with elements better done in other games.

    Worst part though is that i had to wait 10 fkin minutes for it to "calibrate". Ten minutes? What the actual hell?    … Expand
  12. Redarkduke
    Aug 8, 2020
    6
    В игре очень большие проблемы, а точнее это проявляется в:
    1. Самое главное это оптимизация
    2. Проблемы с анимацией. 3. Проблемы с графикой в частности бывают артефакты. 4. Нерабочая анизотропная фильтрация. 5. Статоры. 6. Проблема с широкоформатными экранами. 7. Цена. Игре которой уже 3 года, она не нова, Песочница в открытом мире с аванпостами и джаггернаутами. По идеи HORIZON    В игре очень большие проблемы, а точнее это проявляется в:
    1. Самое главное это оптимизация
    2. Проблемы с анимацией.
    3. Проблемы с графикой в частности бывают артефакты.
    4. Нерабочая анизотропная фильтрация.
    5. Статоры.
    6. Проблема с широкоформатными экранами.
    7. Цена.
    Игре которой уже 3 года, она не нова, Песочница в открытом мире с аванпостами и джаггернаутами. По идеи HORIZON должна была быть визитной карточкой сони для того чтобы пк бояре посмотрели сказали круто хочу вторую часть и бегут покупать пс5, но нет сони с таким отношением к пользователям НЕТ.    … Expand
  13. DrTarufetti
    Aug 8, 2020
    5
    Horizon Zero Dawn is an amazing videogame, i played 2 years ago in a PS4 PRO. However this is a terrible port full of stuttering, ingame and in cinematics, as well as with the sound. It is incomprehensible that using the same engine as Death Stranding which has a ridiculously well optimized port, this game has such an absurdly bad port. I hope something can be fixed with patches, althoughHorizon Zero Dawn is an amazing videogame, i played 2 years ago in a PS4 PRO. However this is a terrible port full of stuttering, ingame and in cinematics, as well as with the sound. It is incomprehensible that using the same engine as Death Stranding which has a ridiculously well optimized port, this game has such an absurdly bad port. I hope something can be fixed with patches, although I don't have much hope on that.… Expand
  14. Miguek96
    Aug 9, 2020
    6
    Buen juego, pero mal optimizado, esperaba mas de un estudio AAA de Sony con este port; corriendo en Gtx 1070 con i7 6700., En algunas zonas va a 20 fps, exceso de uso en cpu y cuellos de botella en zonas con muchos npc, pero jugable
  15. RagnaPork
    Dec 21, 2020
    6
    Went into this game without any of the hype surrounding it. Personally, as someone who has gotten tired of the open world genres, i was pretty skeptical too. I have a friend who is a PS4 fanboy and he wouldn't shut up about how PS4 games are one of a kind gaming experience and Horizon Zero Dawn is at the top of that list with among the best. So, i was naturally curious to see if he wasWent into this game without any of the hype surrounding it. Personally, as someone who has gotten tired of the open world genres, i was pretty skeptical too. I have a friend who is a PS4 fanboy and he wouldn't shut up about how PS4 games are one of a kind gaming experience and Horizon Zero Dawn is at the top of that list with among the best. So, i was naturally curious to see if he was right and if i was missing out on something. But, am glad to say am not.

    I'll start with some things i liked about the game

    1) Graphics: The graphics is the best i've seen on my pc in a long time. From the way the mountains are rendered in the distance to the beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Graphically, a high level of detail oozes from every corner. And i've never seen any other game render foliage the way this game does, its breath taking to say the least. There were so many times i would pause the game to take a screenshot and mess around with the ingame photo editor. There were some chops in frame rate when the onscreen situation got intense. But i'll be honest, frame rate drops don't bother me like it does for other people.
    2) Combat: The combat is alotta fun! It's the only thing that kept the game interesting enough for me to finish it till the end. The game gives the player a lot of options and strategies on how to bring down the robotic dinos. As the player, you are encouraged to use all the different means at your disposal in bringing down the enemy rather than spamming on a single type of attack. But the human AI enemies were too easy to take down, not worthy opponents compared to their machine counterparts. Only downside was, the encounters with the dinos can get a bit repetitive after you've encountered them for the Nth different time. Its like how the dragons in Elder Scrolls Skyrim were a sight to behold initially, but after you slay the 20th dragon they tend to lose their glorious appeal. It kinda became the same for me with the robo dinos towards the end. But don't get me wrong, i still loved taking these beasts down.
    3) Story: Though not the best sci fi story, it was original none the less and i had no problem getting on board with it. Not the kind of story i felt emotionally invested in, but it was passable for the time i was playing it. And the story definitely does setup a good foundation upon which future sequels can build upon, am really curious to see what the developers would do with it.

    Now for the things i dislike:
    1) Characters: The NPCs in the game were forgettable to say the least. The voice acting wasn't that great either and the characters didn't seem that fleshed out. All of them felt pretty generic. Even Aloy's character feels manufactured
    2) Side quests: I know i know, since when have side quests in an open world game ever have depth, right? So maybe it's not fair of me to criticise that aspect of the game but having played Witcher 3 and how that game has spoiled me with its amazing side quests, i can't help but feel that HZD falls really short at that. The only thing that motivated me to do all the sidequests was to earn the skill points.
    3) Boring human settlements: Even with all the npcs in these cities, the place still feels empty or not lived in. There is nothing much to do other than trade with 1 or 2 merchants, that's it. Assassin's Creed 1 did a way better job at creating believable cities and that game came out more than a decade back.
    4) Clunky movement: My biggest gripe with this game was the movement, it is so friggin clunky at times!! Aloy can be such a spaz. And the game doesn't let you freely climb wherever you want to, it is very limited in that sense. You think for someone like Aloy, who has trained her whole life to master these terrains would have the strength and agility to climb such places but NO!
    5) Role playing elements: It does give you different styles of choices to interact with the main NPCs but it barely makes any kind of difference in the larger picture of the game. Those choices are there just for the sake of it most of the times (if not all).
    6) Weak Melee: Melee could use alot more fine tuning as it all together feels inaccurate and clunky.
    7) Traversal: You are mostly travelling by foot in this game. The game does give you an option to override a few robots and ride them like horses. But i still find myself wishing there were more ways of traversal. If it weren't for the beautiful graphics, the traversal would have been painful most of the times.
    8) Lack of unique boss fights: This game could have really used a generous helping of insane boss battles througout the story mission. It sucks cause there are some amazing monsters you come across in the open world, but its these same machines used for boss battles in the main quest.
    9) Doesn't bring anything new to open world genre: Yup, sadly it doesn't. It feels like a missed opportunity for the most part. It definitely doesn't deserve the game of the year title that so many people give it.    … Expand
  16. WolfsterJ
    Aug 8, 2020
    6
    "Забагованный порт игры трехлетней давности по цене новой игры." - alyalin. Я согласен с этим отзывом, но, думаю нельзя оценивать порт сразу же после выхода. Могут выйти фиксы оптимизации и хотфиксы на драйвера от производителей видеокарт. На пк она вышла естественно хуже, чем на PS4, ужасно перенесено управление с геймпада, абсолютно неотзывчиво. Но сама игра мне понравилась. Если честно,"Забагованный порт игры трехлетней давности по цене новой игры." - alyalin. Я согласен с этим отзывом, но, думаю нельзя оценивать порт сразу же после выхода. Могут выйти фиксы оптимизации и хотфиксы на драйвера от производителей видеокарт. На пк она вышла естественно хуже, чем на PS4, ужасно перенесено управление с геймпада, абсолютно неотзывчиво. Но сама игра мне понравилась. Если честно, то на пк могли сделать и хуже… Expand
  17. Bruh_MrSushi
    Aug 12, 2020
    7
    Just get a crack or wait for the game to get patched. It has several bugs and issues, but story wise and gameplay wise, it has a few flaws but is pretty great.
  18. pmasterfunk
    Apr 30, 2021
    7
    As a man without a PS4, when I first saw this game, I was kinda sad I didn't have access to it. Thankfully Horizon Zero Dawn went to PC and it quickly got onto my wishlist to purchase at a later date at a discount.

    And I'm not sure how I feel about it. The story is thought-provoking, but not really through its plot. I’ll stay spoiler-free, but basically the setup to the premise is    As a man without a PS4, when I first saw this game, I was kinda sad I didn't have access to it. Thankfully Horizon Zero Dawn went to PC and it quickly got onto my wishlist to purchase at a later date at a discount.

    And I'm not sure how I feel about it.

    The story is thought-provoking, but not really through its plot. I’ll stay spoiler-free, but basically the setup to the premise is more interesting than the events that take place in the game. I also feel like there’s also a bit of a dissonance between the overarching theme and the events that happen in the game. There’s critique of capitalism and blind fanaticism and cult of personality, but it’s also not really relevant to the plot. Neither Aloy nor any of the secondary characters seem to face moral dilemmas, it’s all very clear-cut good vs bad, and I feel like that’s a missed opportunity. Killing machines serves a purpose, and I never felt bad about it like in say, Nier: Automata, but killing tons of humans indiscriminately feels strange in a story that is ultimately about saving humanity.

    You meet randos who have family members that are any combination of lost/injured/imprisoned, and saving them never feels particularly satisfying. These sidequests often come down to vengeance, but there's never any discussion about whether the resulting violence and death are really justifiable.

    Aloy is a decent main character, but it seems like she suffers from Captain Marvel syndrome; she seems to be defined less by a personality and more a combination of adjectives. “Strong”, “honest”, “courageous”, “empathetic, yet sassy”. She seems like a forced attempt at feminism, but considering a lot of her actions are dictated by male mentor figures it feels a bit vapid.

    She doesn’t have much agency, she doesn’t have much of a plan, she somewhat randomly ends up where she needs to be, and because she’s “special” she kinda just happens to save the world.

    The supporting cast is really weak. Don’t you love it when a character goes: "I will tell you these things later, as I've been sworn to secrec- GAHHH I'M DEAD". There's a minor antagonist that gets killed early on that could have been a really interesting character. His death doesn't have any impact, since we barely know the guy it's not even mildly cathartic, and there's so much that could have been done with him instead as a survivor.

    From a purely mechanical point of view, the game is quite polished. Menus look good, interactions are snappy and responsive, voice acting is really good, but the conversations have that weird [Jim Sterling voice] TRIPLE A [/JSV] format that I personally find odd and jarring. Loading times are a pain, but once in-game it plays pretty seamlessly. It annoys me that lots of save points are really close to enemy spawn points. I wish the world had less enemies so that walking around randomly weren’t such a stress-inducing activity. Resource management is a pain, and I found myself going back to earlier areas to farm stuff on occasion.

    The game is visually impressive, even on my semi-potato of a computer. I kinda wish the visual style were a bit less realistic, as I really enjoy Loish's concept art. The enemy designs in particular are great. As impressive as the world looks, it does feel a bit empty – apart from those machines. A lot of really interesting vistas serve no purpose beyond being eye candy. I've often thought: "Look at this old dilapidated building on a small island, surrounded by dangerous machines, surely there's something inside!"

    Nope.

    Destroying machines is pretty fun, though it can get tedious when facing large groups of them. Any one machine can do quite a bit of damage in a single hit, so stealthily taking them out one by one seems to be the prime tactic. Once the enemy number becomes less than 2, melee strategies become functional and the difficulty drops tremendously, even against the really big guys. Large enemies have tons of HP, so killing them often turns into a battle of attrition. However most story related battles have you start in plain view of the enemies, so those great stealth tactics I’d spent hours honing went down the crapper.

    Flying enemies suck.

    Ultimately, am I going to replay this at some point? Probably not. The story did leave me uneasy (in a good way I suppose), but most of the interesting stuff is told through exposition dumps found in discoverable info drops, which is inefficient and kind of a boring when it happens. It’s dark and depressing, and it got me thinking about my own mortality, but the emotional impact it had felt somewhat exploitative. None of the actual plot has any moral ambiguity or much emotional depth, that stuff is only relegated to backstory and premise setup. The action isn’t good enough to bring me back, either.

    I gotta say it’s pretty cool that they got cool AF badass Lance Reddick in the game... but I wish it were LeVar Burton.    … Expand
  19. Ordnik
    Oct 31, 2021
    5
    The game is interesting. I love the musics and story. Graphics are meh because of weird antialiasing. Anyway, when it comes to bow combat, it is awfully terrible. I have never seen this bad combat in my entire life. I've been playing games for 10 years and this game has the worst combat of all. Arrow logic does not exist in this game, and there is something off with the aiming. WhileThe game is interesting. I love the musics and story. Graphics are meh because of weird antialiasing. Anyway, when it comes to bow combat, it is awfully terrible. I have never seen this bad combat in my entire life. I've been playing games for 10 years and this game has the worst combat of all. Arrow logic does not exist in this game, and there is something off with the aiming. While playing the whole game I thought about quiting the game, but I didn't because of the story and ambiance, music etc. I can't stand the combat in this game, it is really really terrible designed.… Expand
  20. IdleSpace
    Nov 1, 2021
    6
    Типичный сони-экслюзив, который заглянул и на боярскую платформу.
    Если играли в фар край праймал - практически та же игра.
    Душно, скуный сюжет, однообразие игрового процесса, кривизна/простота практически всех игровых механик. Из плюсов: красивый мир, неплохой звук, игра побуждает использовать разную экипировку (единственная работающая механика).    Типичный сони-экслюзив, который заглянул и на боярскую платформу.
    Если играли в фар край праймал - практически та же игра.
    Душно, скуный сюжет, однообразие игрового процесса, кривизна/простота практически всех игровых механик.
    Из плюсов: красивый мир, неплохой звук, игра побуждает использовать разную экипировку (единственная работающая механика).
  21. sugarnite
    Mar 13, 2022
    5
    Killing big robots in the open world is where I got all the fun. The problem is, you're usually encountering herds of small-medium robots which become a whack-fest in no time.

    Boss fights are just arrow-fests, so you don't get to sneak around and plan like you do in the open world. Movement and combat feels floaty and gameplay is pretty shallow. There's simply not much to do in the    Killing big robots in the open world is where I got all the fun. The problem is, you're usually encountering herds of small-medium robots which become a whack-fest in no time.

    Boss fights are just arrow-fests, so you don't get to sneak around and plan like you do in the open world.

    Movement and combat feels floaty and gameplay is pretty shallow. There's simply not much to do in the open world except kill robots and collect crafting items. Just like Far Cry.

    The thing is, Far Cry has things like vehicles and forts which add some layers to the world-traversal. This game really doesn't have much to keep my attention.    … Expand
  22. JackPlack
    Feb 1, 2022
    7
    Great story, great characters design. Great nature, and electro-dinos. Too boring after leaving first village. Odyssey, Origin, Valhalla - were repetetive but not boring. Maybe HZDown hasnt good fighting and AI quality system. Conquering camps a specially - weak. I have one copy on PS4 and one PC. I've hated PS4 for gamepad - so terrible, a specially shooting birds. PC with mouse isnt problem.
  23. theap99
    Aug 8, 2020
    7
    I didn't play the PC version but I played it a lot on PS4 and loved the game. Would rate it about an 8.5/10 for what i played on ps4, but it seems that the pc version runs worse, so i'd deduct a point and a half. 7/10 for the pc version, the console version is recommended
  24. nbuet
    Dec 28, 2020
    7
    Works well on modern PC, graphics are good looking and frame rate is good. XBOX360 controller is perfectly supported with all buttons properly mapped and so on. Loading times are quite annoying, but manageable.
    Some words on the game: the first hour of story setup/tutorial feels slow, it opens afterwards for the best. It feels quite close to assassin's creed origins/odyssey, but inferior    Works well on modern PC, graphics are good looking and frame rate is good. XBOX360 controller is perfectly supported with all buttons properly mapped and so on. Loading times are quite annoying, but manageable.
    Some words on the game: the first hour of story setup/tutorial feels slow, it opens afterwards for the best. It feels quite close to assassin's creed origins/odyssey, but inferior to these 2 on the character dynamic and combat. This last one feels especially lacking depth, fairness and excitement.
    Overall, an average game on PC, to be considered if you like the look and fell mostly    … Expand
  25. max1c
    Aug 13, 2020
    7
    The game has great art, the world is beautiful, the music is good, and the main story is interesting. I've had no performance issues. Only occasional crashes which is annoying but not the worst thing ever. Playing on all Ultra settings the graphics are good but not great. The main thing that makes this game shine is the enemy variety. There are plenty of cool creatures to fight and theyThe game has great art, the world is beautiful, the music is good, and the main story is interesting. I've had no performance issues. Only occasional crashes which is annoying but not the worst thing ever. Playing on all Ultra settings the graphics are good but not great. The main thing that makes this game shine is the enemy variety. There are plenty of cool creatures to fight and they are somewhat unique and fun to fight. And while the combat itself is primitive a variety of traps and ranged weapons make it fun.

    Now let's talk about all the terrible things with this games. First off, facial animations and many other animations in the game are just awful. The voice over and writing are incredibly bad and cringy. The **** face attitude unlikable protagonist doesn't help either. The basic gameplay features like crafting arrows, using 3 arrows, horse riding, junk selling and some others are very poorly done and outdated. The hit boxes are also not good. The arrows can go straight through the enemy head without hitting them or get stuck in the cover you're shooting from which is clearly not there. In addition, the lighting effects and sound are also terrible. Visibility at night is terrible, and when someone calls you to come over it sounds like they are right next to you which makes it hard locating them. There are probably other small issues that I am forgetting. Most of these issues are definitely the problems with the game itself and are not platform specific. It's a decent game but by no means a masterpiece.    … Expand
  26. curzon_dax
    Sep 4, 2020
    7
    The game is great for its genre, however it is not very original, so you will love it if you have not played a lot of action adventures/soft-RPGs before but if you're very experienced in this kind of gaming you might find it repetitive/a sequel/another of the same for a large part of it.
  27. Razrback16
    Dec 14, 2020
    5
    Pros:

    * Exceptional graphics / world detail. * Good game controls. * Great character in Aloy (she's a cutie, too). * The machines in the world are just so well-animated and textured. * Stealth combat is a lot of fun - going up against these machines, especially later in the game with the bigger ones is pretty enjoyable because it's like you're being stalked a lot of the time, which    Pros:

    * Exceptional graphics / world detail.
    * Good game controls.
    * Great character in Aloy (she's a cutie, too).
    * The machines in the world are just so well-animated and textured.
    * Stealth combat is a lot of fun - going up against these machines, especially later in the game with the bigger ones is pretty enjoyable because it's like you're being stalked a lot of the time, which makes it pretty fun to sneak around and try to get the jump on them - the machines are also good strategy in the weapons system, too - you can set traps for them and use special arrows to try to exploit weakness and weak spots on the machines.
    * Excellent kill animations on both the machines & humans.
    * On-the-fly adjustable difficulty settings.
    * Very good core story that kept my interest throughout.
    * I have seen some folks talking about bad performance, but overall the game ran really well for me - very smooth once I got all my settings adjusted properly for one video card (since multi-gpu is non functional)

    Cons:

    * No multi-gpu support.
    * A good bit of the narrative / world setup is on the feminism spectrum, which annoyed me. Didn't completely ruin the game or anything, but anytime I see SJW-driven feminism or "down with the patriarchy" type stuff it makes me cringe a bit.
    * Building on the above point, a lot of the men in the game are pretty "soy boyish" - very feminine and weak from their body language to the voice acting for them. And as I'm getting toward the end of the game now (~65 hours in) it's become more and more apparent that the majority of the male characters in the game are either bad / evil, feminine / soy boyish if they are good people, or if they are really masculine men they are painted in some way to be responsible for cataclysmic events, while nearly every female in the game is a hero, of perfect upstanding morals and someone to be worshipped. This devalues the overall core story (which as I noted in the Pros section, is actually pretty good) with its absurdity, lack of realism, and in-your-face gender politics agenda.
    * The melee combat needs more variation - need to be able to counter and have close-up fighting abilities besides just sloppy hit-box swinging and then dodging which is basically all the combat is once you get up close and personal.
    * Late release on PC - released in 2017 for PS4, but took another 3 years or so for the PC release, and they are still asking $50 retail for it - crazy for a 3-year-old game.
    * Game is missing the "Nora Lookout" outfit & Longbow and it's a really cool outfit, so very disappointing to see that missing. Laughable when they call it the "Complete Edition" when it's not complete...

    Game Length: 72 hours - I completed about 99% of the game (including the DLC "Frozen Wilds") - basically everything except for a couple sets of collectibles that I didn't feel added much value to the game / narrative so I didn't bother going after them.

    Overall Rating: 5 / 10 - Due to the feminism narrative angle I covered in the Cons section, I'm really glad I didn't buy this game and opted instead to borrow a copy from a friend as I really don't like giving money to any project that pushes gender / identity politics, feminism, or any form of "wokeness". Disappointing given how the core story itself is very interesting and engaging, but was rendered less enjoyable by the end of the game due to the political agenda of the writing that was needlessly shoved down the player's throat. If you decide to buy it, just buy it when it's heavily discounted.    … Expand
  28. Skillzaa135
    Aug 8, 2020
    7
    The game is really good. The character settings, the plot and every other aspects of the game play is great including the songs, environment etc. However the main problem lies within the optimization..When I opened the game at first the game forces itself to optimize for you, and the optimization takes like 30 mins and mine freezed at 100% where I had to reboot the pc and restart it, thereThe game is really good. The character settings, the plot and every other aspects of the game play is great including the songs, environment etc. However the main problem lies within the optimization..When I opened the game at first the game forces itself to optimize for you, and the optimization takes like 30 mins and mine freezed at 100% where I had to reboot the pc and restart it, there are stuttering, freezing issues, also low fps.. The devs should've looked into optimization and completely made sure it's ok to launch the game for the consumers.. Heck I don't even mind if they delay the launch date and made sure it's a clear crystal game that we can all enjoy without no optimization issue. So, the conclusion the game is good, there is no doubt.. One of the best single player game in this decade but this pc port is a mess. The optimization is terrible, the devs are already working to fix the issue but why would they release a badly-optimized game like take your time and made the game good enough with no performance issue and test it well and then release it rather than releasing it and then giving out updates and patches to fix the issue...… Expand
  29. grochu88zc
    Aug 10, 2020
    7
    Optymalizacja leży i kwiczy. Gra mimo ze teoretycznie powinna się odpalić w max detalach na niskich laguje. Często zdarzają się błędy wywalające z gry. W tym momencie mimom ze gra jest piękna jest niegrywalna.

    Optimization is lying and squealing. The game, although theoretically should start in maximum details, on low lags. Bugs that crash the game often happen. At this point, despite    Optymalizacja leży i kwiczy. Gra mimo ze teoretycznie powinna się odpalić w max detalach na niskich laguje. Często zdarzają się błędy wywalające z gry. W tym momencie mimom ze gra jest piękna jest niegrywalna.

    Optimization is lying and squealing. The game, although theoretically should start in maximum details, on low lags. Bugs that crash the game often happen. At this point, despite the fact that the game is beautiful, it cannot be played.    … Expand
  30. Tornan
    Sep 9, 2020
    6
    Wonderful game yet not ported well for PC. I also think that it somehow damaged my GPU.
prev
Page:

Awards & Rankings

27
#27 Best PC Game of 2020
17
#17 Most Discussed PC Game of 2020

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
84

Generally favorable reviews - based on 50 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 46 out of 50
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 50
  3. Negative: 0 out of 50
  1. GameGrin
    Jan 10, 2022
    100
    Horizon Zero Dawn truly expresses how videogames nowadays are an art form, if not only through its visuals and storytelling, then certainly through its expertly incorporated combat. A glee-filled experience through and through.
    Read full review
  2. CD-Action
    Oct 15, 2020
    85
    I had tons of fun with the PC version of Horizon Zero Dawn. I appreciated the story, enjoyed exploring the vast, remarkable world crafted masterfully out of extremely diverse elements, and found defeating the largest mechanical beasts to be deeply satisfying every single time. Additionally, the Complete Edition features The Frozen Wilds expansion, which is not only large, but also visually stunning. [10/2020, p.56]
  3. DualShockers
    Aug 25, 2020
    85
    Even with its technological hangups, the PC port of Horizon Zero Dawn brings an experience wholly unlike anything else I've ever played.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »