Horizon Forbidden West | Tips and tricks

Horizon Forbidden West is the sequel to Zero Dawn, so you might expect that most of the tips and tricks you read when the original came out will come in handy here as well. This is true, but only partially: the second chapter for PS4 and PS5 presents some innovations and some peculiarities that you will have to explore just as if you were in a whole new game.

Before starting Horizon Forbidden West –

After reading the Horizon Forbidden West review, get ready by taking a look at the tips and tricks before starting the game, ranging from exploration to history, obviously passing through the complex combat dynamics that govern life, and often also the death of the protagonist Aloy. You will need them, on your journey to the Forbidden West.

Scan the machines –

An often overlooked aspect of Horizon is the scanning of the machines you will face… before you face them. By doing so, you will discover detachable parts and weaknesses before launching yourself in the challenges with robotic dinosaurs and all kinds of bestialities that this world will throw at you. This will make fights enormously easier, since using acid arrows against a car with an acid weakness, for example, will cause that being’s life bar to deflate much sooner than you would imagine. Pick a spot to observe the machines a second before you collide with them, do it, and then target the weak spots, even in order to fill Aloy’s special ability bar with which to shorten the fights further.

Use the bow –

In the first Horizon, many complained that Aloy’s spear and close combat in general weren’t satisfying enough (and didn’t do too much damage). In Horizon Forbidden West things have not changed e the game continues to strongly invite you to use the bowand to attack from a distance.

The sooner you figure it out, the sooner you start detaching parts and exploiting the weaknesses of the machines, which is also the funniest part of the whole game. In addition, with opponents not too fast, use the precision bowwhich is much slower but does much more damage.

Beware of defense –

Forbidden West does not have a parade dynamic, which is quite a shame, but Aloy has a good arsenal of moves on her side that help her avoid getting hit with every attack made by enemies. During fights, try to figure out when to dodge, when to jump (for radial machine attacks), and when to slide. This determines not only the chances of avoiding an attack, but also unnecessary frustrations dictated for example by Aloy clinging to surfaces or walls instead of responding to a dangerous attack.

The Collilunghi –

As in Zero Dawn, this chapter also involves its twist on the tower formula to display points of interest on the map. Therefore, override dei Collilunghi to discover new areas as soon as you enter, so you don’t miss out on anything useful as you explore.

But keep in mind that the Collolungo in the Sparkling Desert you will not be able to “unlock” it up to a certain point in history, which is why you will see its icon accompanied by a padlock, and that, while doing it and unlocking the bonfires, there will be areas shrouded in fog that you will have to visit firsthand, especially for the portions of the game that you will not be required to navigate through the main storyline.

Potions –

One thing that Horizon Forbidden West doesn’t explain too well is that you can initially carry only three potions with you. But we are not talking about three types of potions, they are just three potions, regardless of whether they are healing, stamina or purifying potions. Generally, you will need cleansers, although for most battles the berries (there are plenty of them) will be more than enough. Make sure you assign you the task to expand the number of potions you can carry with you, even if it won’t be easy to spot squirrels.

Horizon Forbidden West builds –

If you’re not aiming for any particular build, you should go with the skills Warrior plus Survivorso you have a full arsenal of combos as you play and good health potential for the more complex boss fights that will arrive in the second half of the story.

In particular, Warrior has the first Valiant Charge, Improved Criticalwhich will exponentially increase your chances of critical hits and can have a significant impact on battles (as long as you hit the weak spots – and possibly associate it with the Passive Survivor branch booster “Valor on Impact”, which earns you Valor when you get hit).

In the ruins –

This is a very minor detail, but you’ll thank us later. In secondary content, especially in the Ruinswhen scanning data points, immediately press on the touchpad of the DualSense controller and take at least mental note of any codes: the game does not do a good job of cataloging the new arrivals in the notebook and therefore finding those notes is always rather tedious.

Experience points –

To gain experience points more quickly, leave the side quests and errands alone, and focus on the Ruins of Relics (the best secondary content in the game by the way) and on the Calderoni. The secondary missions themselves are very complex and have many complex secondary bosses to beat, an aspect that is certainly to be commended in terms of entertainment.

But, for these reasons, to bridge the gap between your level and the required one from the mission – and up to three or four levels below the game’s recommendation you’ll be fine – you might want something quicker and that doesn’t have combat as a main course. As for fights, when you have to parry in front of you and not be excessively long, run away as little as possible, since they also provide many experience points depending on the creatures faced.

Dialogues in Horizon Forbidden West –

During the story, talk a lot with the characters at your base and in general with the interesting ones around: doing so will often allow you to summarize the story, understand the motivations of those characters, deepen the mythology. In addition, Guerrilla Games has created a mechanic where the protagonists say different things based on the progress in the game, and Aloy herself enters the conversations (or comes out of them) with jokes to re-tie the threads of the conversation, connecting the pending side missions with those. pg to the main dialogue: a delicious treat.