Review Roundup For Horizon Forbidden West--Here's What The Critics Think

Sony's first major release of 2022 is Horizon Forbidden West, and it's launching this week on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. But what do the critics think of Guerrilla's long-awaited sequel? Ahead of launch on February 18, reviews for the PlayStation-exclusive have begun to appear online.

Here at GameSpot, our Forbidden West review scored the game an 8/10. Reviewer Phil Hornshaw said, "Horizon Forbidden West does a lot more right than it does wrong. It might be jam-packed with stuff to see, do, know, and remember, but when its many systems come together, it can be a beautiful, exciting, and delightful open-world experience."

Forbidden West picks up after the events of 2017's Zero Dawn, which was a massive success with more than 20 million copies sold and 1 billion hours played. Sony is looking to expand the series even further still, with a PlayStation VR 2 game Call of the Mountain in the works for Sony's next-gen VR platform.

Forbidden West brings back the original voice cast, including Ashly Burch as Aloy and Lance Reddick as Sylens. New cast members include The Matrix's Carrie-Anne Moss and Angela Bassett from Black Panther.

For a wider look at the critical reaction to Forbidden West, check out more review scores and excerpts below, while additional insight can be seen on GameSpot sister site Metacritic.

• Game: Horizon Forbidden West
• Platforms: PS4, PS5
• Developer: Guerrilla Games
• Release Date: February 18
• Price: $70

GameSpot -- 8/10

"The story that drives you through the frontier is often well-told and does well to center actual characters rather than audio logs, and while the map is littered with icons, it's much more often that they're fun, skillfully crafted diversions than random busywork to fill a checklist. There's a huge amount to do and see in Horizon Forbidden West, and the great majority of it is worth doing and seeing thanks to strong writing, great visuals, and some marked improvements to the series' underlying ideas." -- Phil Hornshaw [Full review]

Stevivor -- 6.5/10

"It's a game of contrasts. A game about robot dinosaurs where you spend far too much time fighting robot meerkats and boars instead for some reason. One with brilliant voice acting that you begin to hate because some characters won’t shut up. Where the side quests are great, but they're so simple as to feel pointless. Where the combat features a complex balance between elemental strengths and weaknesses but you can ignore all that via a rain of explosive spearheads." -- Joab Gilroy [Full review]

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Gaming Bolt -- 10/10

"Horizon Forbidden West is an impressive achievement in storytelling, game design, and technology, and in improving upon its predecessor in nearly every way possible, it delivers one of the finest games of its kind in recent memory." -- Shubhankar Parijat [Full review]

The Telegraph -- 3/5

"Fans will lap it up, of course, and rightly so. Horizon Forbidden West offers more – much, much more – of the things they loved about the first game, and does most things better as well as bigger. But while there's a lot of things to like here, it's a harder game to love. Like a band who go for extraneous instrumentals and showy solos over memorable choruses, one can't help but want a tad less filler and a touch more killer." -- Dan Silver [Full review]

GamesRadar -- 4.5/5

"What Guerrilla Games has achieved here is nothing short of phenomenal. Story, gameplay, mechanics, and the world itself are all such an improvement on the original game--which in itself is a feat alone. The climbing, ironically, is the only thing that really holds it back from utter perfection, but it's not enough to make Aloy's latest story go without anything bar the highest recommendation. You know a game is good when the robot dinosaurs aren't the thing you want to talk to your friends about first." -- Sam Loveridge [Full review]

MMORPG -- 9.5/10

"Horizon: Forbidden West is everything I wanted from a follow-up to the excellent Zero Dawn, from the twisting story and fierce combat to the cast of memorable characters. Playing this for the first time felt like getting back on a bicycle, and before long I was traveling the wilds with Aloy just as we did before. There are a few technical missteps, and some of Aloy's dialogue sounds forced, but the majority of the game is simply amazing. I couldn't wait to get back into the world of Horizon after Zero Dawn, and now I can't wait to return again after playing Forbidden West." -- Jason Fanelli [Full review] Jason also writes for GameSpot.