The first several hours of Horizon Forbidden West gameplay

Gaming Nexus posted our review of Horizon Forbidden West earlier this week, and it was the first game of 2022 to score our elusive highest score, a 10/10. Our reviewer Rob Larkin compared the new game to the stellar heights of the original, saying that "as the story moved from strength to strength, as this awesome world unfolded before my eyes, as I kept iterating over that fulfilling gameplay loop of stare down giant machine, break gun off giant machine, reduce giant machine to giant pile of scrap to loot with their own detached gun, I settled back into every comfort that made the first the classic it is. Horizon Forbidden West is every bit the game Zero Dawn was, if not better, and deserves the same praise."

The embargo on Horizon Forbidden West gameplay ended this morning, as the game is releasing tomorrow, Friday February 17,  to the general public (and I'm guessing that more than a few players already received pre-ordered physical copies - that's the way these things usually go).

As such, I'll be hopping into Horizon Forbidden West throughout the day today. As the videos get made, I'll be adding them to this article.

First up - the opening hour of Aloy's new journey, where we find our hero reunited with her old friend Varl for trip down into an old data center. For those that missed (or forgot) the ending of Horizon Zero Dawn, this hour wastes no time spoiling the hell out of that first game, so use caution if you plan on replaying the original before jumping into this second chapter. I would also recommend cranking those settings up to 1080p to get the semi-full effect of the gorgeous graphics.

More to come as the day progresses. I plan on jumping back into Horizon Forbidden West at 12:00 PM EST. You can find that stream (and a bunch of other random stuff) at my YouTube channel. 

UPDATE: I am adding hour two, in which Aloy and I fight a big snake, climb a big tower, and get flirty with a big king guy. More to come this evening!

Update #2: My evening attempts to stream were less successful, as I kept getting disconnected from the YouTube server. It was a bummer, but between these two videos, you can still get a pretty good look at what Horizon Forbidden West looks like once it opens up a little bit and becomes less linear.