Horizon Forbidden West is supposed to be this massively explorable world, giving you far more freedom than its predecessor (and I would argue that lack of traversal freedom was the Zero Dawn‘s biggest flaw, so it’s great to see it rectified in the sequel). I decided to test the limits of its systems. As it turns out, I managed to get myself stuck out of bounds within the first couple minutes of gameplay.
See, there was a space beneath a tree, where an opening between roots looked just big enough for Aloy to squeeze through if she crouched. So I tried it, but no dice. So I tried rolling to see if I could clear it, then I swung the camera around to get a better look. This combination was enough to get through that tangle of roots, only to find there was an invisible boundary on the other side of it.
I tried the same trick for getting back through the roots, but this time it didn’t work. I’m not sure why, but I found myself wedged between a rock and a hard place. Or, more accurately, a giant tree and an invisible barrier.
Here’s a video of how it all happened:
I used the game’s “Restart from Save” feature, and thankfully I only lost about 30 seconds worth of actual progress. Of course, this happened at the very beginning of the game, and having to restart wouldn’t have been a huge deal. Still, this makes me a little nervous about exploring the boundaries of this game world — something I was greatly anticipating as I watched the countdown clock tick away on my preinstalled copy of the game.
Hopefully I won’t run into any more of these little snafus, because I love video-game exploration, and I’m ready to do a whole lot of it. This is a gorgeous game world, and it looks jaw-droppingly beautiful on a PS5, so I’m hoping to see as much of it as I possibly can.
This isn’t the worst thing in the world, but I really wasn’t expecting to break a triple-A PlayStation title this early in the experience. We’ll see what I uncover on the rest of this journey, I suppose.
I’ve found a place that you don’t even glitch to get into. Near an ‘unknown’ once you actually get into the valley before heading west. You can jump your way up the mountain in a spot to find a sudden drop. Now granted, you aren’t suppose to be climbing here 😅 But after falling in, the only way out is to reload or to use a fast travel pack.
Overall, how are you enjoying the game so far? I pretty much have been farming materials to upgrade all my pouches and not progressing the story one bit.
I’ve been doing every side mission as I get it, because of the way the first game’s ending went 👍 I haven’t worried too much about inventory, after what they added with the storage crate. Kind of stupid if you ask me, I liked it better when you had to be smart about what you picked up. And the fact she says ‘I can put it in my stash’ and stuff makes no sense 😂 Like how does it get there? She’s acknowledged it happens with no logic to it at all
Pouch upgrades are like catnip for me. I don’t even know why, but if a game has a pouch upgrade system that requires specific parts from specific animals that you have to hunt, well, I just can’t not focus on that ,haha.
Pouch upgrades are my open-world Kryptonite!