Taking down massive, anthropomorphic machines was the greatest charm of Horizon: Zero Dawn. Whether it was the dinosaur-like Tallnecks or the deer-like Grazers, there was a huge variety of metal beasts roaming the lands that Aloy had to hunt and fight. Among the machines are some human enemies that Aloy encounters too, but they are far less threatening than expected. Presumably this will be the same with Horizon: Forbidden West, which is a shame, but it could be improved.
Obviously in a world full of gigantic machines that could tear people limb from limb, humans are comparatively docile and easier to deal with. But for Horizon: Zero Dawn, if anything, the humans were just cannon fodder and vastly easier to deal with. Even one of the final bosses is human, and he’s a pushover compared to the true machine final boss. Aloy is a hero for sure, but it’s not like she is exceptionally smarter or more powerful compared to other humans. For Horizon: Forbidden West, humans should be a much more dangerous threat than their current iteration.
Humans are Prey for Aloy
Whenever Aloy has to tackle a bandit camp or human enemies of any kind, often times players have the utmost confidence in the encounter. Of course in Horizon’s world, the highest dangers come from the various machines roaming the lands, but that doesn’t mean humans have to be easy targets. Moving through a camp without any machines feels like a breeze as humans have less health, can’t detect Aloy very easily, and don’t exactly have the smartest AI programming either. Manipulating human enemies feels a lot like early open world games in general, where enemy AI just isn’t up to par or particularly challenging no matter the difficult.
Whatever Aloy’s capable of, humans should be capable of doing as well. Too many times will enemies slow down for players to get a perfect bow and arrow headshot, or not be smart enough to dodge when attacking Aloy. Humans just bum-rush the player with no regards for their surroundings or personal safety, allowing Aloy to mow them down with ease. Humans should be stronger and smarter, able to dodge just like Aloy can. Same with stealth, humans in Horizon should at least have better spatial awareness rather than being useless obstacles.
Improving Player Engagement
Along those lines, it’d be interesting to make melee combat against enemies far more interesting in Horizon: Forbidden West. Increasing variance would be the first step, rather than just indiscriminate men slowly swinging heavy melee weapons for Aloy to easily dodge. There should be heavy dudes with a sizable amount of health who don’t flinch easily, or enemies who are agile and can dodge bow attacks exclusively. Along those lines, there should be more meaningful melee combat in the game as well. Pretty much any melee encounter is one by staggering an enemy with a heavy attack, and then landing a finishing move.
The game doesn’t have to implement some kind of in-depth combat system like Sekiro, there just needs to be more interactivity with melee combat. Button-mashing the attack button realistically won’t punish players against human enemies, compared to machines who will literally run Aloy over if she tried the same thing. Elements of dueling combat like in Ghost of Tsushima would at least make fights as engaging as the lower-level machines.
Forbidden West’s Possible Solution
At a glance, it seems like Horizon: Forbidden West is attempting to tackle that problem in a unique way. From what can be gathered from the recent trailer alone, it seems other humans will be utilizing and commandeering certain machines to their advantage. There’s a scene in the trailer where several bandits are marching with a tamed new Tremortusk machine, as well as some Bristlebacks being taken over by Sylens and some bandits. Rather than focusing on the humans specifically, Forbidden West may be using the machines to empower human enemies instead.
As long as these machines and humans are often paired together in Forbidden West, it could be an interesting way to circumvent the issue. That being said, humans themselves will not pose a threat to Aloy if their combat capabilities remain the same. Humans almost seem to act as brainlessly as the animals the machines closely resemble, instead of the other way around.
Horizon: Forbidden West is in development for PS5.
