"Horizon: Zero Dawn" Review

If you're a longtime reader, you may know that I occasionally go on rants about female characters in games. If you haven't seen any of those from me yet, get ready, because I'm starting this review off with one. The issue is that, as a whole, developers seem to subscribe to this idea that representation is about numbers, not depth of character. All that certain developers feel they have to do to have made a feminist game is have a cocky female character that utters the line "I can handle myself" and only shows anger. They throw this patronizing bone, and critics openly feminist and on the fence alike eat it up every single time (at least from the sources I see). But this idea is completely boneheaded. If representation is just about having women in games, then any game that doesn't have the exact same number of women as men in it is sexist. Certain popular Facebook news sources absolutely agree with that previous statement, and they are part of the problem here. The Bechdel test comes to mind when I think about this predicament. At its genesis, the test was applied to ensure that female characters in film were given the same depth of character as any male character, and it did this by stating that a film failed the test if it didn't have at least two women, or if these two women only talked about a man. It was perhaps a necessarily strict idea for the time, given how throwaway love interests tended to be in films. However, most game developers miss the point. Take a moment and ponder a question: Does the Bechdel test require that every woman be asexual or never once speak of a man? At first glance and without any critical thought, one could be forgiven for thinking so. I went to a liberal arts college, and while I was there I was exposed to plenty of people who would have answered "yes" to the previously stated question. To these people, any romantic film failed the test, and any female character who showed an interest in a man was the patriarchy trying to control women through the media. The part of the Bechdel test that states that there should be at least two women is about numbers, that much is true, but the part about these women not just talking about men is not about removing romance, tenderness, or even men from the equation. As I've been trying to say for a while now, that part is about depth of character. Good character development calls for more than one subject to be touched upon, and if the only thing these characters talk about is men, they probably aren't going to be well-developed. Now, I could be wrong about Bechdel. For all I know, removing romance/tenderness/men from the equation could have been the actual end goal, but I doubt it. After all, Cold Mountain passed the test, and that film is like, 60% romance and talking about men. The way this all ties back to games is that many developers have the same mindset as the aforementioned college kids. There has been a deluge of games that have one-dimensional women in them, and these one-dimensional women pass the letter of the the Bechdel test, but not the spirit.
I've spent the past few years of my life never letting this issue go. Every time I've come across one of these one-dimensional, patronizing female characters, I've ranted about it in the hopes of maybe changing things. I've been writing on this blog for around 4-5 years at this point, and I've never kept silent on this issue because I believe that the day game developers stop flooding their games with as many cookie cutter female characters as possible and start taking the time to develop human beings is a day where we'll see better game storytelling and character development than we've ever seen before.
And the reason I've taken so much time to talk about it in this review is because it seems like developers are actually starting to listen.
Horizon: Zero Dawn is the greatest example of a feminist game I've played since starting this blog. There isn't any patronizing to be found here. There isn't any "I can handle myself." There isn't any "Bwahaha! You cannot do that, for you are a woman!" There is just sheer, uninhibited strength to be found here. It's promising that this game has sold so well, and that is to say nothing of how much it deserves to have sold well. It isn't flawless, as we'll discover as we continue, but it is 100% worth your money, feminist or not. Let's go.

Horizon: Zero Dawn takes place in the post-post apocalypse. Essentially, after the end of the world, the surviving humans reverted back to tribal structures and were surrounded by the machines of the past world. You play as Aloy, a woman who is an outcast from the matriarchal Nora tribe for reasons that become clear as the story progresses. Aloy is an incredibly human character. That is, she isn't defined by a single trait. At times she's smug, at times she's pissed off, at times she's depressed, and every time she's any of these things, it makes sense in the context of her character. She feels compassion for people who are hurting and anger at people who cause others to hurt, and at certain story moments, you get to decide in which way Aloy reacts to a situation.  These decisions never really change anything, but they never feel out of character, no matter the situation.
Earlier I mentioned there wasn't any patronizing, and I'd like to elaborate on that a little bit more (oh, you thought we were done? Nope). I spent the opening of this review talking about developers who think the way to develop strong female characters is through pure anger and bitterness. Well, there's another type of failed feminist developer, one with significantly better intentions, but about the same rate of success. Take, for example, Square Enix, who thought that the way to show Lara Croft (in the Tomb Raider reboot) as a strong female character was to have her barely fight off a rapist. Under the right circumstances, such an event absolutely can be a catalyst for strong character development provided the focus is on how the character's worldview is changed or how it changes the character's sense of self. With the Tomb Raider situation, the focus was on the event itself, and the purpose was to try and get the audience to really care about Lara. Likewise (albeit to a much lesser degree), in games where you choose your gender at the start, oftentimes if you play as a woman, you'll get condescendingly called "sweetheart" every other line. In such games, there's never a time when this prompts the main character to do something new or makes them distrustful of certain types of people. Like Tomb Raider, this is a bad case of trying to define the character through hardship itself rather than reaction to hardship. The way that a character acts in the face of adversity is oftentimes the most significant way to develop them, but adversity itself can only spur development, not become it. I've already mentioned that Aloy leaps over the first hurdle in modern female character development by having the ability to feel both compassion and anger, and she jumps this hurdle as well. You'll see the hardship coming a mile away, but Aloy's character is developed exclusively through how her mission is changed by this hardship. There's only so many ways that I can say Aloy is a brilliant character before I start to get truly repetitive, but let me say it one more time: Guerilla Games should be proud of what they've accomplished with this character. I mean, I suppose if you're the kind of person who really wants to find something to complain about with Aloy (and I am not such a person), then I guess it can be argued that she's "too conventionally attractive". I've always found that to be a weak criticism, though, and that's especially true in this case given how every aspect of Aloy's development comes from her skill and dedication.

Moving on, the story of Horizon: Zero Dawn deals with both tribal politics and the fall of the old world, and while some developments are about as predictable as they come, the strength of the worldbuilding makes it all worthwhile. There are just so many tiny details that make this world stand out, and no attention is drawn to any of them, so they just become things that you end up noticing on your own. For instance, Aloy's spear is a rifle with a spearhead attached, but its so covered in various wrappings that you don't notice it on first glance. Another small detail is the fact that one of the game's villains wears a shiny necklace that signifies his dominance, and the necklace is made up of bullets. It's just incredibly interesting to see how the tribal humans in this scenario interpret items from the old world. And thankfully, there isn't one of...those moments. You know, where the protagonist walks up to the ruined husk of a bank and says "this must have been their place of worship." There is absolutely zero modern political commentary to be found in this tribal world, even when Aloy is learning what a corporation is. Some might be disappointed by that, but in my opinion, it helps the world to stand on its own. In addition, there are also little details, like the fact that the kingdom of people who worship the sun spans exclusively desert and jungle regions (in other words, places where the sun beats down the strongest). As the story continues, you also get a chance to see why certain tribes of people came to worship different things and how their cultures began, again, with no attention put on it. As if that weren't enough, the world itself is also physically well-built. I mean that in terms of the level design, technical prowess and the graphics. Given how buggy your average sandbox is, its worth noting that I never once encountered any glitches. There were framerate drops when the action got too intense and sometimes there was texture pop-in in the distance, but I never came across any true glitches. In terms of graphics, there are times when Horizon rubs shoulders with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in the "most beautiful game I've ever played" elevator. At all times of the day the world is beautifully rendered and bathed in atmospheric lighting. The fact that the soundtrack is beautiful as well only strengthens the beauty of the world. There's also plenty of variety to be found in each ecosystem. There are cliffsides, hills, waterfalls, long valleys, etc. in every area in the game. There is so much variety, in fact, that you'll almost certainly see something new every time you go off on a side quest or in search of a collectible.

Of course, being a modern sandbox game, Horizon is filled to the brim with side quests and various collectibles to bump up the game completion %. I've certainly seen worse side activities, but I personally wasn't compelled to go after every single one. Being the dedicated Far Cry 3 fan that I am, I crafted every last storage upgrade I could get my hands on, but other than that I only got to about 50-60% completion. Certain collectibles were compelling, such as the vantage points and Tallnecks (essentially radio towers from Far Cry 3), but others, such as the hundreds of data logs, were not. In addition, certain side quests such as cauldrons and bandit camps had plenty of variety and offered unique rewards, while others were simple "I lost my ring while I was hunting" side quests. All-in-all, side activities are kind of hit-or-miss. They're entertaining enough to get lost in for a few hours, but not entertaining enough to make Horizon: Zero Dawn a months-long endeavor.

Like the side activities, gameplay can also be pretty hit-or-miss. You essentially go up against both machines and humans. Humans are your average human enemies: some are elites, some are normal, etc. Machines, on the other hand, are varied to a frankly ridiculous degree. Each machine has different attack styles, weak points, and rewards for breaking off various components. To fight these machines and humans, you use a bow and arrow, a spear, a sling, a rope caster reminiscent of what the pilots used to bring down the AT-ATs in the battle of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, an electric trap, and a rattler (something somewhat resembling a shotgun/machine gun). In reality, you'll probably only use the bow, the spear, and the rattler. When you're going toe to toe with enemies using these weapons, the gameplay truly shines. Its a little difficult to get used to because its significantly faster-paced than you might be expecting, but when you're in this mode, gameplay is a thrilling dance of dodging, aiming, and attacking in a matter of seconds. The problem is that the game would rather you not play like that. Instead, the game wants you to use stealth. Stealth is literally my favorite kind of gameplay, and the reason I list it as a negative here is that the stealth in Horizon just isn't good. You can only be undetected in certain kinds of grass. It doesn't matter how tall other kinds of grass are, you can only hide in the designated kind. Anywhere else and you have no way of knowing if an enemy can see you until its too late. This ensures that there are only x amount of places to hide in any hostile area, and this causes the game to commit the cardinal sin of stealth: it makes the stealth feel inorganic. It just feels like you're going from one place to the next, not using your surroundings to your advantage or anything like that. The fact that Aloy feels the need to jump out into the open and perform an acrobatic feat for about five seconds for silent takedowns doesn't help the stealth gameplay either. A silent takedown ought to take out an enemy quickly and allow the attacker to return to the shadows, but 9 times out of 10 if you perform a silent takedown you'll be seen right in the middle of it. So, if you want my advice, this is the one game that I would actually advise going in guns blazing for. Maybe use stealth to get an idea of the kind of resistance you can expect, but I wouldn't rely on stealth for a good time.

We've arrived at the end of this review. At this point, I've spent most of my time talking about how Horizon excels as a feminist game, but I've also talked about how well it develops its main character, how well its world is built, and how well (some) of its gameplay is done. As longtime readers will know, I never factor politics into my final score unless a political statement is made in such a way that the gameplay or story is affected. One example of a game where I did take off points for politics was Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor (Right Trigger Worst Game of the Year 2016), which tried to make a statement about gender being an economic construct by forcing in a terrible game mechanic wherein you had to switch genders every few hours or have the text start flickering, making an already nauseating experience even more nauseating. It doesn't matter how strongly I feel about political content in a game, as long as it doesn't negatively impact gameplay or story, it has no place in criticism. If a game's message pisses me off and brings humanity to a new low but it is well put together and has solid gameplay, it will receive a high score. Likewise, if a game promotes peace and harmony the likes of which we'll never see on this earth but feels like it was put together by amateurs, I'm going to slam it. The reason I'm reiterating all of this is because I want you to understand how happy I am that a game that signifies real positive change in gaming feminism is also solid enough to warrant the score I'm about to give it. Do you realize how rare that is? Horizon: Zero Dawn isn't perfect, but it is 100% worth your time and your money, and it hopefully is a good omen for games in the future: evidence that a game with a well written female protagonist can sell well and deserve every cent it makes.

Let us review:
Hit-or-miss side activities: -0.2
Weak stealth: -0.5

So, the final score for Horizon: Zero Dawn is...

9.3/10 - Fantastic
Excellent work, Guerilla Games, excellent work.