Horizon Forbidden West Launches with Significantly Fewer Players than Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam

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Horizon Forbidden West finally arrived on PC last week, but the definitive version of Guerrilla's action-adventure sequel failed to capture as many players as the original did on Steam on launch day, according to figures that can be found on SteamDB.

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I think the first game was the first big Sony-exclusive game to come out on PC, and no one was expecting it. I think that's part of why it sold greater amounts at launch. As for this 2nd game, I mean shiat I wanna play it, but I'm not paying full price for a game that has already been on sale for half price or less on PS5 multiple times over the last few years. I also just plain don't play games at launch, period. I don't think it really means anything in the long run if not as many people are playing the 2nd game right now. Some of us just haven't gotten around to it yet.
 
I've been playing and mostly having a blast. I'm barely in but doing the grind since I enjoy some of the exploration/side mission stuff. I just finished clearing Daunt and some side missions there. Here's hoping things change up just a bit because even though I am having fun it's feeling more like a DLC for the 1st game but at least full-sized (compared to the RE3 remake). Since I did want to have more of the 1st game I'm happy with this but they will really need to do something different for the 3rd game if they want to keep interest from anyone.

I do have to give praise to Nixxes though. I've tested this game on every rig in the house. Even had a little tax money and bought a 4080 Super for the rig in the cave (no longer in my signature but mostly the same at the other two). The cave has the 65" 4K/60 Hz Sony Z9D so my main concern in there is a quiet rig that can perform admirably for 4K gaming. From 3090 Ti, to laptop 4080 (aka 165W desktop 4070), 4080 Super, and 4090, I'm truly impressed at how scalable this game is with different hardware. For those that have a 4090 and are playing at 4K, setting AA to DLAA and anisotropic filtering to 16x really brings the IQ to another level.

I've only noticed a couple of reviews online that mention this as most only talk about anisotropic and how it's just a minor upgrade but DLAA is the cherry on top. A 4080 at 1440p can probably pull it off but when I tried it at 4K FPS drop to the mid 40s so not really worth it. The 4090 can hold 60-80 w/o frame gen and then 90-120 with although I did see at least one strange drop to the 50-60s but I think some kind of buffering was happening because it went away pretty quick.
 
The second game had good sales but luke-warm reception on PS5, it completely fell out of public discourse in a month after release. So no wonder enthusiasm for it is much lesser on PC now.

I started playing the game, and while the gameplay is solid it is not exactly reinventing the wheel, it is more of a throwback to simpler times. Where it really drops the ball however is the story and characters. It is extremely cringe and predictable. Girl power fantasy in the worst imaginable way. Sure there was some of that in HZD as well, but not to this extent. Your character basically has savior complex and looks down on everyone around her. The male characters are either unambitious dudebros, submissive simps, or cartoonishly dumb villains.

It is so bad that despite the good visuals, there is nothing calling me back to continue playing the game. I trudged along for 3 hours when it came out, but haven't even touched it since.
 
Seems that our resident poster from the egyptian retirement homes yet again doesn't like a powerful character. Everyone is deferring to Alloy because she saved everyone you've met. It's one of the first sequels where everyone is like. "YOU'RE AMAZING THANK YOU FOR SAVING US ALL CAN WE DO ANYTHING FOR YOU?!" Yet you know there is more to be done. So you put on your New York Cop pants. Wave goodbye to Nakatani tower and head out to do what you need to do. There's some annoying politics to deal with but otherwise.. meh. You're the badass and they are letting you know you're the badass to EVERYONE that knows what you did.

Now to be fair I haven't made it past the valley area yet. Just unlocked the ability to buy some new gear and bows. But I do NOT see things in the same light as our resident pyramid napper. Same character could be male and other than everyone wanting to be your SO for some reason or another you are driven to keep going because the sense of duty you have. Substitute a male character and it would be a post apocalyptic John McCane.

SPOILER HERE:
Potentially genetically engineered to have.
(My own guess.)
 
Why does it always have to be reduced to this nonsense? Oh, you must not like powerful characters then, well except for all the powerful characters I like. But who gives a **** as long as we can handwave away criticism by labeling the critic in some negative way, right?

No, what I don't like is bad writing, bad story telling and nonsensical character motivations If you think for just one second about it it all falls apart. Aloy doesn't possesses anything special apart from her being able to operate some tech due to her DNA, nothing more. For this reason alone it would be imperative to protect her and not let her go out alone into danger. They should at least go out with a giant hunting party so she doesn't die to a random ambush or whatever trivial happenstance.

But since she is presented as someone with a savior complex (probably the writers self insert) she ditches even the one guy who wants to follow her. But what's even more nonsensical is that the king doesn't even insist on giving her a hunting party. "Oh, I guess you are busy saving us again, ha ha hee hee... Utterly nonsensical. They act as if she is at least superman and any people would just get in her way. John Mccane might be good at taking down bad guys one by one in ambushes, but this is equivalent of sending him to conquer Afghanistan alone in 2001.

But I'm the big bad, for thinking about the story and not just taking anything it throws at me at face value. Sorry if it offends you, but I'll never be the one to just "consume product, then get excited for next product"
 
The only genetic advantage Alloy has is the ability to enter and be recognized by AI based on her DNA markers. That's it. All of the other stuff she does so far is based on her bluetooth ear thing... that she now has a bag full of. And following it's leads/directions/markers. Nothing else.

Sure she is a bit Mary Sue but I don't chalk that up to bad acting. And I'll be the first to own I give the game a pass on plot because I enjoy the game. That and the voice actor for the lead uhhh badguy... yea... I will miss his work.

But it wasn't meant as some assault on your opinion. Just how you come across with a bit of tongue in cheek. I'm not NEARLY far enough in to call bad writing. Hell the GAME hasn't really begun until you actually enter the Forbidden West. Everything else is just color and mechanics.
 
I will say this. The load times are noticeably fast for this game post initial install. I believe it uses the direct storage tech right? Well it is truly noticeable.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
DLAA is the cherry on top
Click to expand...
I can't say enough how much I f*cking love DLAA. In every single game I have ever tried it in. Brings IQ to a whole new level.

Peter_Brosdahl said:
setting AA to DLAA and anisotropic filtering to 16x really brings the IQ to another level
Click to expand...
Honestly 16x AF has been an automatic "turn this on don't even think about it" type of thing for what feels like decades now. Always very surprising when a game caps out at 8x (or requires you to do stuff like use dev console or modify a config file to turn it up to max). I can't imagine a scenario for any game where it was ever needed to go below 16x AF. Max it out and move on.
 
Grimlakin said:
The only genetic advantage Alloy has is the ability to enter and be recognized by AI based on her DNA markers. That's it. All of the other stuff she does so far is based on her bluetooth ear thing... that she now has a bag full of. And following it's leads/directions/markers. Nothing else.
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I said, since she is the only one who can turn on the machine when they actually find it, it would make sense to not let her face danger alone.
Grimlakin said:
Sure she is a bit Mary Sue but I don't chalk that up to bad acting. And I'll be the first to own I give the game a pass on plot because I enjoy the game. That and the voice actor for the lead uhhh badguy... yea... I will miss his work.
Click to expand...
She is not a Mary Sue, they showed her training in the first game, and her ability to operate the machines makes her position earned. They even show her interest in old tech at an early age, so in this regard the first game did well. It even makes sense in HZD that she is alone as nobody believes her, or understand the tech. This is why Forbidden West feels like such a downgrade, as nothing makes sense anymore.
Grimlakin said:
But it wasn't meant as some assault on your opinion. Just how you come across with a bit of tongue in cheek. I'm not NEARLY far enough in to call bad writing. Hell the GAME hasn't really begun until you actually enter the Forbidden West. Everything else is just color and mechanics.
Click to expand...
I don't think I'm further ahead of you, I think it counts as bad writing if it makes no sense until some twist or revelation later.
Good writing makes me intrigued, and motivated to find out what happens, nonsense like this game makes me want to quit.
 
DrezKill said:
I can't say enough how much I f*cking love DLAA. In every single game I have ever tried it in. Brings IQ to a whole new level.
Click to expand...
This is the first game I've really put time in with it. I tried it with CP2077 but there's so much already going on there that I mainly only noticed the drop in FPS but that's not its fault. It's on my radar now and I'll be looking out for it more.

DrezKill said:
Honestly 16x AF has been an automatic "turn this on don't even think about it" type of thing for what feels like decades now.
Click to expand...
Totally agree and was minorly annoyed that Very High settings didn't automatically do this.
 
MadMummy76 said:
16xAF for me has been a thing that I've been enforcing from driver as far back as I can remember.
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I used to but I try to minimize how many recurring driver settings I have since they get reset every time I do an update and I'm never fully confident that a game/engine doesn't manage an end-run or at least some way to mess with it.
 
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