Hey now, this will be a very unique game. Did Horizon: Zero Dawn have horribly grindy MMO game mechanics and monetization so far up your ass you could taste it? This is Tencent after all. Checkmate, haters.
I remember Immortals: Fenyx Rising looking like a shameless, soulless ripoff of Breath of the Wild. Turned out to be an amazingly fun game that didn’t take itself as seriously as Zelda but had a tremendously satisfying gameplay loop and some really solid humor.
This isn’t that though. This is gonna be some creatively bankrupt trash.
I think Fenyx Rising was actually a better game than BOTW. The combat system was more entertaining, the skills you got enabled more interesting platforming, and it actually had a plot/story l.
I think it was a legitimately more fun game, and quite a bit more approachable. The production wasn’t quite as polished, but pound for pound I think I had a better time with it.
Some of those robots look sick, but I'll be damned if they don't look like a Horizon fanfic.
This looks about as creatively bankrupt as Palworld, but at least Ark But With Pokemon took two games that I don't like and mashed up my favorite parts of both. I already like Horizon and Monster Hunter, so Horizon But With Monster Hunter has nothing to offer me
Not disagreeing. Their other game, Craftopia, is also a blend of a bunch of mechanics of other games. The small indie Japanese studio is giving people what they want. And I'm rooting for them.
Ah yes, Horizon Zero, a series well known for being very unique and definitely not another open-world crafting/survival/action game. Are people angry that they'll be playing a copy of a copy?
IMO HZD was not even a good open world game, it doesn't reward (and arguably often punishes) player-initiated exploration. Also it's almost unplayable without the very intrusive HUD, because the stuff you have to find is buried in the very busy background, and they don't use environmental hints much. Except the infamous yellow paint, which is a rather lazy way to do this.
However. Characters and world building are great, and quite unique. And trapping or pinning down machines and exploiting their weaknesses can be satisfying, when it clicks.
It was kind of a curve ball to me, missing some of the stuff I usually consider good game design but making the journey engaging and unique enough that I didn't mind too much.
It's kinda yet another corporate apocalypse, but it does write the characters better. The additional lore in the second game really makes you feel like these are real life billionaire assholes. Halfway through the first game and the entirety of the second game I was done with the combat and couldn't be bothered to try out all the weapons and armour, just went all in on stealth snipe and souls rolled anything that couldn't be stealthed. I think I used the special moves like 3 times only. I'll still play the third one though. I'll probably just unga bunga the whole thing when the time comes.
A world with mechanical animals is not unique to Horizon and was not even new when Horizon came out. The Xenoblade Series for example has mechanimals and this is not even the first either, just the first I can think of right now.
And the rest of the world, and the battle system, looks like Monster Hunter so it is not really new or Horizon exclusive either.
It’s not just that it’s a “world with mechanical animals”, it’s the entire design aesthetic is completely lifted from Horizon. It’s obviously a different kind of game, but the character and animal designs look straight out of the Horizon games.
In a world where human civilization has ceased to exist, traverse grasslands, deserts, forests, and mountains to explore unique Mechanimals and mysterious ruins in different regions, unlocking the secrets of MOTIRAM.
Do you really think the only thing this has in common with Horizon is the mechanical beasts? It can bolt on whatever other mechanics it wants, the base game is a shameless ripoff.
Other people are bringing up other games with robotic animals, but each of these has a distinct visual aesthetic. I can tell a ReCore robot from a Horizon robot from a... wow, those are the only two I can think of. It would have been really easy to enter the market with their own unique aesthetic instead of being indistinguishable from Horizon
To be honest this is the story of every post apocalyptic world, just with mechanical animals.
Yes, it is very close from the optical aesthetic, but is this anything new?
Every somewhat successful game has always inspired other "clone" games, just look at all the DOOM clones, all the Soulslikes, all the battle royal games, etc out there.
This is just the first game in the new genre of Horizonlikes
competition is good, this game might push some new mechanics that work well with this kind of world/story and Sony will have to catch up, thus making the franchise better.