What’s it say about how far back my backlog dates that I’ve only gotten around to play this at a time when even its sequel is already old news. It’s not quite as bad as that since the Complete Edition I’m playing was only released in 2020. Still, it’s pretty bad and it means I have to be a lot more discerning about what I add to my to play list. As far as I’m concerned, this game looks pretty amazing still playing it now. In my opinion, it’s a fantastic, very well-rounded game and I would have absolutely loved it if I had come across it 10 years ago. Even now, I think it’s really good, yet I played too many open-world games by now to be impressed by its world and yeah, over the month I’ve actually been more engrossed in playing around with ChatGPT than this.

The game tells the story of Aloy, a member of the Nora tribe that to our eyes distinctly resembles a Native American tribe. They live in a world of nature and use bows and spears as weapons, yet they also hunt machines that resemble dinosaurs or cougars. Aloy though is an outcast from birth and is raised by another outcast, Rost. A childhood adventure brings into Aloy’s possession an earpiece she calls a Focus which functions as an augmented reality device and reveals such technology used to be common. After being taught the skills of a hunter, Aloy takes part in a trial that would rescind her status as an outcast. She excels in the trial but they are attacked by outsiders who are part of a cult. In the aftermath, Aloy is accorded special permission by the Matriarchs of her tribe to leave the tribal lands to pursue the cultists. Soon afterwards in the process of defending Nora lands, she learns how to override some types of machines to gain control over them and in the course of her adventures discovers the secrets of the world, and how the once thriving technological civilization of Earth was brought to ruin.

I’ve read enough science-fiction that I could see the whole plot coming a long way away. Even so, execution is everything and the story here is so exceptionally well-written that I enjoyed every moment of it. The audio and hologram logs convey a complete and satisfyingly plausible story about how the development of autonomous combat robots lead to the end of the world. The new world that developed after the fall of the old is less interesting to me as there’s still so much technology around yet they mostly don’t exploit it. Still it works very well and I loved Aloy’s heroic journey as she gets to see more of the world and learn that the Nora is just one tribe out of many. The supporting characters and their developing relationships with Aloy are well-written too. I for one, appreciated that there are no romantic entanglements. At one point the Sun King Avad seems to suggest something but Aloy is quick to shoot him down, citing his recent grief and the crisis the world is facing. Sure, it’s woke as they call it today, but it’s also so apt for the situation and so well considered.

In terms of gameplay, the open world feels much like an Assassin’s Creed game or similar titles, populated by quests and collectibles. While Aloy has melee options, her primary weapon is a bow. I confess that I was truly awful at this for a long time. There isn’t really a lock-on in this game and precise aiming with a game controller was tough for me. Eventually I realized how pointless it was to keep using the starting hunting arrows and that the game really wants you to only target the machines’ weak points. I never really got very good at the combat but I could defeat even the largest, most powerful machines simply by burning resources like special arrows, traps and healing items. This style of combat doesn’t engross me the way the intricate dance of the Dark Souls games does but it works well and matches the setting perfectly. I did like how some of the most annoying machines are the flying ones, just like the Cliff Racers out of Morrowind!

There’s not much to dislike about this game. One quibble is I don’t really like how the game expects you to get to higher ground via specific paths and handholds. The handholds don’t even show up in the Focus so you need to manually hunt around for them. I dislike the inventory management. There are way too many resources and sellable stuff in the game and almost none of it matters. In fact, you can get nearly the best weapons rather early and after that a lot of the rare resource collection effort means nothing at all. Finally the world seems big at first but it’s another case of it being crammed so full of places and items of interest that it quickly starts to feel very small. Fighting some of the largest machines in the game even becomes a problem as you need to worry about other machines or even nearby guards joining in the fight.

As I’ve said, this is pretty much the perfect all round action game. I would have been all over if I were a little younger. As it is, I’m still too jaded from running all over open-world maps in so many games to really fall in love with this world and I generally prefer melee combat to the ranged system this title uses. I’ve also been spending too much time and effort getting involved in the generative AI milieu to pay this my full attention. I probably won’t be playing this sequel but I will stay around long enough to check out the Frozen Wilds DLC.