Horizon Forbidden West continues Aloy's adventures as she travels to the Forbidden West to stop natural disasters from devastating life on Earth. A strange, red blight is growing and killing everything it infects. If it is left to continue spreading, it will destroy nature, leading to mass starvation. Along the way, Aloy receives help from friends like Erend and Varl, and she also has to deal with some difficult figures such as Sylens. She will need all the help she can get since the Forbidden West is teeming with new machines to hunt and hostile tribes to defeat.
To deal with the new dangers she will face, Aloy has a host of fresh weapons, abilities, and skills in Horizon Forbidden West. She can override many new machines, including flying ones that make traversal easier than ever. Aloy also has plenty of new weapons which allow her to get the best of the machines and tribespeople that attack her. However, with all the new weapons Aloy has access to, the weapon wheel can feel a tad cramped. This could be improved by expanding the weapon wheels and giving players more slots to use.
New Weapons in Horizon Forbidden West
With Horizon Forbidden West, Guerrilla Games was determined to improve the foundation laid down by Horizon Zero Dawn in every way. Hence, it is not surprising that Aloy has a plethora of new weapons and traps to play with. In terms of weapons, she can use the Shredder Gauntlet that throws discs that return to the player if they make contact with an enemy. If the returning disc is caught, it can be launched again to deal higher damage. Aloy also has access to Spike Throwers which are a little like explosive javelins. There are also new traps, such as the Purgewater Traps that, when set off, drenches machines in steamy water that makes them more susceptible to shock and frost build-up.
Aloy needs a wide range of weapons because the machines of Horizon Forbidden West are weak to different types of attacks. Different machines are vulnerable to certain elemental attacks such as fire or frost, and they are resistant to other elements such as acid. Furthermore, the components that makeup machines will have their own weaknesses and strengths, too. Hence, if Aloy wants to ensure she always has the advantage over the machines she faces, she needs to pack a good variety of weapons that have different elemental attacks.
Why the Weapon Wheel Needs Improvements
With the greater number of weapons and traps at Aloy's disposal, there are more opportunities to craft smarter strategies. However, creativity can often feel stifled by the fact that Aloy's weapon wheel is very limited. In Horizon Zero Dawn, players had four weapon wheel slots to experiment, and with Horizon Forbidden West, the number of slots has been expanded to six. Furthermore, as is the case in Horizon Zero Dawn, many weapons can fire multiple ammo types, allowing players to make the most of each slot. Despite this, it can often feel like there are not enough slots to pack all the weapons necessary to deal with machines one might encounter in the wild. Consequently, this forces gamers to switch weapons on the fly, which can be quite an immersion-breaking experience.
The simplest solution would be to expand the weapon wheel and add additional slots, allowing players to carry more weapons with them. If this seems like it would make the game too easy, weapon wheel improvements could also be hidden behind skill upgrades in the same way that Valor Surges and additional skills are. Hence, players would have to work hard for the privilege of an expanded weapon wheel.
Of course, not all players will see the need for a more expansive weapon wheel, and others appreciate the limitations, as it forces players to think on their toes and make the best of what weapons they do have. However, for many other players, it feels like an inconvenience that Aloy owns all these new weapons but can only make use of a fraction of them at any given moment.
Should Guerrilla Games decide to tinker with the weapon wheel, a DLC may be the perfect place to introduce it. Although it has yet to be confirmed, there have been rumors that a Horizon Forbidden West DLC is on the way, much like Horizon Zero Dawn received the Frozen Wilds DLC. If so, Aloy will likely be facing even more new machines, which will make the need for an expanded weapon wheel greater.
Horizon Forbidden West is available now on PS4 and PS5.