Forbidden West and Shadow of War, blending nostalgia and modernity

The reason I have never written that piece is because in the end it’s a deeply personal feeling and feeling is the keyword here. I have little issue talking about things that are personal, my book reviews are nothing but personal opinions. However I can reason most of these opinions in a logical fashion. Here, it is really a question of feeling where I can find counterpoints to most of my reasoning and it just comes down to that word: these games feel right and perfect for me. I’ll still jot down some thoughts here because at least that way I can turn that page in my mind but I’ll also include a gallery of some of my favourite screenshots taken during my Horizon playthrough because it’s a damn good looking game.

Both Zero Dawn and Shadow of Mordor I played and both I felt much fatigue brought on by the repetitiveness of their gameplay and my lack of enthusiasm for their open worlds. In both cases I also ran into many QoL issues which weren’t deal breakers but still ground against my nerves over time. However in both games again, Shadow of War and Forbidden West smoothed these issues out and increased diversity in every way. Where Shadow of Mordor mostly had one biome for its whole world, Shadow of War has half a dozen. Where Zero Dawn had 24 machine types, Forbidden West has 31 each with several subtypes. Where Shadow of Mordor had only a single magical combo (and then only in a DLC), Shadow of War has 4 different ones each with elemental modifiers. Where Zero Dawn had only a handful of rigid parkour paths, Forbidden West has many free climbable areas. I could go on, the changes range from major to minute but the point still stands: in the gameplay department Shadow of War is strictly better than Shadow of Mordor as Forbidden West is strictly better than Zero Dawn.

There are some issues that still stand, ironically in both cases parkour remains a sticking point. Shadow of War makes parkour quick and efficient but also quite boring as Talon can just climb anything and everything with very little input. Forbidden West gives Aloy more freedom of movement than Zero Dawn did but it’s still a far cry from being a flexible or even very consistent system which can get frustrating. Both games would be improved with a parkour system closer to the old school Assassin’s Creed games but they have many strengths to compensate still. Whilst we’re on Ubisoft games, both Horizon and Middle Earth games could also be faulted for being Ubisoft style open worlds with a plethora of icons and checklists and it’s true that Horizon especially is maybe leaning a bit too far in that direction. However, I don’t hate Ubisoft open world games and moreover in both cases again I do think these games managed to not be overwhelming with their checklists which can be completed quickly as you naturally run around the world without having to go out of your way with a “time to find all 100 feathers” or “time to explore all 300 question marks on my map” mindset. If anything I’m a bit annoyed at how everyone decided to make a fuss about the towers of Assassin’s Creed games because both games almost shamefully only throw a handful in and I would have very much appreciated climbing up a few more to get that rush of map discovery and completing a big climb.

And you know what, at this point I could talk about the Nemesis System for Shadow of War because oh how great it is, and how amazing it makes the open world and yada yada but I won’t because that system isn’t why I enjoy the game. Horizon doesn’t have a Nemesis system and it’s just as good a game in the exact same category. It’s weird because that’s what most people remember and praise about the Middle Earth games but I have come to realise that I really do not care for the Nemesis System; it’s a fun system in its own right but has no influence whatsoever on my feelings for the game.

Instead I’ll talk about difficulty because I have a furious hatred for difficulty scaling in video games that relies on increasing enemy HP. I simply do not think that doubling enemy HP makes any game more difficult, it only makes it more tedious. Shadow of War introduced me to a difficulty it called “brutal” wherein enemies had their HP halved but their damage doubled. I could almost instantly kill any enemy I met but so could they and in doing so real skill came out where my reflexes and my movement through combat became more crucial than ever. Instead of being a simple additional repetition of my movements as would have been the case with increased enemy HP, I had to rapidly and dynamically adapt, always being only one hit from death. In a completely different genre Ghost Runner did something very similar and it was perfection. Horizon technically speaking doesn’t have a specific difficulty of the sort but by letting me separately adjust enemy HP and Aloy’s HP I was able to emulate that “brutal” difficulty and the game found itself much improved through it.

Put all together this is where I get this feeling of comfort which makes me want to play and replay these games again and again. The fluid and rapid combat keeps me on my toes without ever becoming tedious or boring and the cookie cutter open world allows me to just relax without having to constantly be on edge about what might come next. It’s a very similar feeling to the one I got when playing the Ezio trilogy of Assassin’s Creed and in some way I think that’s what I’m chasing and getting through Forbidden West and Shadow of War, a paradoxical feeling of nostalgia whilst playing something that’s, newer, more modern and more polished. And that’s why I can’t really put more words to this than that, I can try to reason and justify my opinions on these games but ultimately my opinion is fundamentally built upon a search for the comfort I experienced in games of this type as a child and that’s ok too.