Out now on PS4 and PS5, Horizon Forbidden West is Guerrilla Games’ phenomenal follow-up to Horizon Zero Dawn.
Taking players to new territory, it features more mechanical beats to face-off against, enhanced combat, new tools and much, much more. Being available on PS5, it also looks absolutely drop-dead gorgeous for those who are lucky enough to have Sony’s latest console. Though if you’ve picked up Horizon Forbidden West and have just started playing it, you might want to some tips to helps you get the most out of it.
For that reason, we’ve put together a list of tips for those just starting Horizon Forbidden West. From healing during combat to making use of new Valor Skills, pay heed to our words and your time in the Forbidden West should hopefully go that bit more smoothly.
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Collect medicinal berries
Unless you’re absolutely brilliant at playing Horizon Forbidden West, chances are you’re going to sustain some injuries in combat. Thankfully it’s dead easy and effectively free to heal in the heat of battle – providing you put in a tiny bit of legwork. As you explore the Forbidden West on your journey, look out for bushes with purple medicinal berries. There are other purple growths with medicinal properties, too. Collecting them will add them to your pouch, then all you need to do is tap up on the d-pad to heal. You can only carry so many medicinal berries at any one time, however, so remember to keep them stocked up between battles.
Scan your enemies
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. When you encounter any mechanical nasties out in the world of Horizon Forbidden West, make sure you scan them before engaging in combat. When you scan an enemy, you can identify what elements it’s strong and weak against. You can also look at its various parts, such as heavy mounted weapons and canisters. Scanning even allows you to tag an enemy or its individual parts. Heavy weapons can be picked up and used if you manage to shoot them off, while canisters can be exploded if you shoot them with the correct elements, causing massive damage.
Cover as many elements as you can with your weapon wheel
The higher the difficulty you play Horizon Forbidden West on, the more important it is to exploit elemental weaknesses to take down your enemies. Though that’s not to say it still isn’t useful on Easy or even Story difficulties. To make sure you can always exploit the elemental weaknesses of an enemy, try to include as many elements as you can in your weapon wheel. Most weapons can have up to three ammo types that you can switch between. So, if you have a bow that can fire standard, poison and fire arrows, perhaps complement it with a weapon such as a Boltcaster with plasma, frost and shock bolts. Cover as many elements as you can, and you should never find yourself at a disadvantage.
Seek out Tallnecks
The map of Horizon Forbidden West is vast, and it’s filled with things to see and do. As you travel around the world by foot or via a mount, you’ll uncover more of the map as you go. But if you want to reveal large chunks of the map in one go, including any activities that are available, you’re going to want to seek out Tallnecks. Once you’ve progressed a fair amount into the game’s story, the location of numerous Tallnecks will be placed on the map. Seek them out and get on their heads to override them, and you’ll find your map much more useful.
Get a mount
Travelling around by foot is pleasant enough in Horizon Forbidden West thanks to the beautiful scenery and wealth of things to see and do. If you want to travel with increased pace, however, then you’re going to want to get a mount. There are four mounts you can get in Horizon Forbidden West, three of which are ground-based and one air. The ground based mounts are the Clawstrider, Charger and Bristleback. If you find any of these mechanical beasts out in the wild, simply override them to use as mounts. The flying mounts is obtained as part of the main story rather late into the game. Once you have a mount, remember you can call it to your side.
Make use of Valor Skills
Valor Skills are new to Horizon Forbidden West, as many are available to unlock via the numerous skill trees in the game. Once unlocked, each Valor Skill can be levelled up, too. They have a wide variety of effects, such as increasing the amount of damage you do with bow weapons for a period of time, for example, or increasing your critical hit chance. Needless to say, when you’re in a bind, they can quickly turn combat around. Check out all of the Valor Skills available in the skill trees and unlock those which would be beneficial to you. You can only have one equipped for use at any given time though, and it can only be activated when the Valor Gauge is full.
Don’t forget your Pullcaster
One of the new special tools available to Aloy in Horizon Forbidden West, the Pullcaster has a variety of uses and is easy to forget about. While using the Pullcaster to grapple to certain ledges and other objects is easy thanks to you just needing to tap the jump button twice, other applications like pulling metallic crates into place and pulling down wal
ls require a bit more thought. If you ever get stuck in an area and it seems like there’s no way to go, keep an eye out for things like metal vents or brackets on crumbling walls. Chances are you can interact with them with the Pullcaster. You can also use it to pull supply caches off of ledges if they’re out of reach.
Hunt local wildlife
As you make your way through Horizon Forbidden West, you’re going to get though a lot of arrows, bolts, traps and other consumables. If you want to be able to hold more of them at any given time, you’re going to want increase the size of your pouches, quivers, etc. To do that you need materials such as the skins of various animals, and to get them you need to hunt. As you explore the world of Horizon Forbidden West, keep an eye out for any wildlife on your travels. If you spot any, you might want to shoot them with your bow or any other weapon and collect the resources they provide you. Different animals can be found in different areas, and using Focus Mode will make spotting them even easier.
Activate campfires
With the world of Horizon Forbidden West being so vast, you might want to make use of fast travel from time to time. Activating any campfires you come across on your travels enhances the fast travel system immensely. For a start, you can fast travel to any campfire that you’ve activated. Even better, while fast travelling from most places requires you to use a Fast Travel Pack, fast travelling from a campfire is free. Add in the fact that you can also save your game at campfires, and they’re very useful indeed.
Adjust the difficulty to your preferences
This is probably the most important tip on this list. Horizon Forbidden West is a video game, and you’ve paid good money for it – it’s meant to be enjoyed. So, if you’re finding it too hard or too easy, head into the options menu and fine-tune the difficulty to your preferences. There are numerous difficulty presets available, and you can also create your own custom difficulty. So, if you want to enable auto-heal, do it. It’s your game after all, and there are no difficulty-related trophies to worry about.
Enable gyro aiming
Not everyone likes gyro aiming, but if you do, Horizon Forbidden West has it. You would know though, unless you scoured the game’s options with a keen eye. Anyway, it’s there, so if you like to aim with your weapons by moving your controller, make sure you find it and enable it.
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