Horizon Zero Dawn - Postapocalyptic cavewoman vs Zoids

Well back in the day, would you have rather have played Halo or the games trying to be Halo like Killzone?

And I’m aware of the irony there in that GG made both Killzone and Horizon, but Killzone IMO was always meh and they totally knocked it out of the park with Horizon,

I was kidding, I’m amused by the cyclical nature of the industry, which I guess isn’t much different than any other industry. Of course Xbox will get a Horizon clone, because of course.

Okay - that had me laughing out loud! What a great kudos to the team that made Horizon Zero Dawn! Bravo!

if I’m a fan of story-driven games like Uncharted, Last-of-us, and Tomb Raider, will I enjoy this one? It seems like I might.

It’s a bit more open world but yes most likely.

of those three that you list I would say this plays most like the Tomb Raider rebooted series in game structure, or perhaps a far cry. The combat isn’t necessarily the same however to any of those. It really plays differently compared to which weapons you favor.

22 hours in and while fun, I expected much more from Gonzales. The writing and quest design are so bland. No interesting characters to speak of. It looks beautiful, but somehow the world lack atmosphere / sense of place. I enjoy the combat though. And yeah, dat graphics.

I agree about the lack of interesting characters.

There’s the one bad guy terrorist who is kind of cool, other than that the most interesting characters all died way before the game took place.

I can get it for $40 on Amazon. Tempted to get it.

FWIW, I had the same experience as @Paul_cze. I was really engaged at first, but quickly hit a wall of boredom. After leaving the first area, the characters were dull and quests boring. I’d wait until it’s cheaper.

So, I should just get Witcher 3, then?

I personally think Witcher 3 holds the story and gameplay better than Horizon. There’s also A LOT to do in the game. Horizon simply isn’t as multifaceted as Witcher 3.

The combat is way better in Horizon than in the Witcher. I found Witcher 3 harder to finish frankly but I know I’m sort of in the minority on my opinion of that game.

Yeah, the story and dialogue in Witcher 3 might be better, but the gameplay and combat of Horizon beats it by a lot in my opinion.

Both Witcher and HZD are great games, but Witcher 3 is easily one of the best games ever made.

If you need to pick one between the two, play Witcher 3.

But I’d recommend playing them both.

FWIW, I bounced hard on Witcher 3, because while the plot was interesting, I found the game play just wasn’t fun for me.

For HZD, I loved the core game play, and found the plot interesting.

Obviously, your mileage may vary.

Not gonna surprise anyone with this statement, but yeah I consider Witcher 3 much better. At least the 60fps PC version. Enjoy combat about the same in both games (though obviously TW3 is melee based, Horizon is mostly ranged), but in TW3 a random NPC has more personality in their pinky than Horizon’s main characters have in their whole interactions. Not to mention quest design and sense of place. The previous game John Gonzales worked on - Fallout New Vegas - was also much stronger in those aspects.

But I don’t want to seem like a hater - I am still having fun and intend to finish it, I am curious if the story will go somewhere interesting. There is a good sidequest here from time to time. But Horizon was one of the main reasons I bought PS4 Pro, paid 60 bucks for it…and so far it feels like a “solid 7/10”.

Dunno why people compare those two games besides the open world aspect. They are both great games, people should play both.

Because some people just want to witcher3 the world burn.

Mark specifically asked which one to buy.

And if you can’t compare two open world games with preset protagonists, sidequests, loot, dialogue and detective vision, then you couldn’t compare anything.