The famous sign “Hollywood” was covered by lush vegetation, half-decomposed tower blocks were surrounded by lava, and famous actors were replaced by robotic monsters. The American city of Los Angeles looks quite different in the world of the video game Horizon: Forbidden West than in real life. Players can see for themselves in the newly released addition called Burning Shores.
At the end of last year’s game, the red-haired warrior Aloy averted a threat from billionaires who returned to planet Earth after a long journey through space. But now she realized that she had forgotten about one of them. He is an eccentric businessman who once made his fortune mining alien raw materials and whose goal is to live forever.
After a debate with Sylens, played by Lance Reddick before his death, he goes to the ruins of former Los Angeles. On the spot, he discovers that the once colorful city, which no longer means anything in the world of the future, has been replaced by a volcanic archipelago infested with robots and is inhabited by the Quen tribe. Among the other members, one girl stands out in it: Seyka. The stubborn fighter with her behavior and experiences is strikingly similar to Aloy.
Seyka will become an important character not only for the game, but also for Aloy herself. | Photo: Aktuálně.cz / Guerrilla Games
The player thus gets a very capable sidekick, with whom the main character will build a strong friendship and, over time, maybe something more. They share sad memories, observations and experiences together, and Aloy opens up more than in previous games in the Horizon series. Constantly repeating remarks about how well each part suits her, she suddenly alternates with a dialogue with a peer who is also an outsider in her own tribe. Female fighters compare their approach to life’s obstacles and support each other in difficult times.
Perhaps it’s just a shame that they are so similar. The player almost lacks any real conflict or tension, except perhaps for a lazy screenwriting trick where the heroines insult each other for not “telling the whole truth” to each other.
In general, the entire DLC is tuned similarly to Horizon: Forbidden West. People die and others act like jerks, but almost everyone eventually learns a lesson. Although both heroines are outsiders, they both find understanding with everyone in the tribe. Sometimes there is a hint of a more mature motive, for example luring a loved one into a dangerous sect. But even such a topic is finally resolved in a way where the person in question realizes his mistake, or regrets that he “was blind”, and returns.
However, the story of the paid add-on is important for one major reason: it is a kind of bridge to the very likely upcoming third part of the Horizon series. The main story line, including three side quests and some collecting and crawling through the ruins of skyscrapers, takes about ten hours, which gradually escalate into an epic battle of gigantic dimensions and a cliffhanger at the end.
Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores – Launch Trailer | Video: Youtube.com / PlayStation
It also offers several new monsters, of which the sprawling “frog” that likes to surround itself with small metal flies is probably the most interesting. They work together to create a challenge that will torment many a player. Another novelty is a robotic bird, capable of diving headlong into the water, similar to the kingfisher on which Aloy learns to fly. There will also be one completely new weapon and the use of geysers or ballistae to solve some puzzles.
The open world works much like before, but compared to other games it feels a bit dated. It doesn’t invite active exploration so much as wandering around and looking at individual places. It is very easy for Aloy to discover an interesting location, but she cannot see it yet for story reasons or she is missing some tool. Similarly, the dialogues do not branch and, with a few exceptions, the tasks develop linearly. The player can thus get the impression that instead of absolute freedom, the game subtly leads him by the hand.
Instead of the villas of Hollywood celebrities, you can now find lava in Los Angeles. | Photo: Aktuálně.cz / Guerrilla Games
But what is the greatest strength of the series from the studio Guerrilla Games, which is created primarily for PlayStation, is the visual aspect. Even in the Los Angeles add-on, the player will enjoy beautiful graphics that sometimes struggle with rendering shadows or distant landscapes, but it is still one of the best in the open world action game genre. The faces of even minor supporting characters have natural facial expressions and look like the faces of real people. And even such water glistens, ripples and overflows incredibly realistically.
Anyone who likes Aloy and her story will probably not find anything surprising in Burning Shores. But the small and compact addition to the main game did not even strive for anything of the sort and scores as an important connector without which fans looking forward to the next sequel cannot do without.
The Burning Shores expansion for Horizon: Forbidden West was released on PlayStation 5 on Wednesday, April 19, the game includes Czech subtitles.
