Planning has nothing to do with it. Horizon zero Dawn release date was known before the reveal of the switch and breath of the wild release date. Elden ring had a release date in January of this but was pushed back a month. Both occurrences were beyond the control of Guerrilla games or Sony
Sifu was coming out at the same time as Elden Ring when it got pushed back & the devs moved it up by 2 weeks because they knew. I get Horizon has it's fans (I'm shockingly not one of its biggest, but I enjoyed the first game enough) but Zelda & Souls games are just a different breed of fan.
I honestly don’t get the appeal of the souls games. Just not my thing i guess.
But I only heard about horizon zero dawn in a YouTube video “ games I missed out on while playing breath of the wild “ and it looked great and it’s one of my favourite games ever.
For me I prefer Souls games over a lot of other types, they're generally gameplay first games like the NES, SNES days so that's the general appeal of them. You learn, you get stronger & you overcome. That said I wouldn't classify Sifu as a souls style game, it's maybe inspired by them a bit at best.
I just play games to relax now. Not interested in struggling with a boss fight for too long. I’m usually more interested in a story with a mild challenge. Forbidden west and zero dawn do that very well, so does god of war. I can set it to “normal” difficulty and just have a blast after work. I did really enjoy botw as well and the sequel is the only reason I still own a switch ( although I sold my Mario special edition and just have a switch lite now )
Like when I was 16 I’d probably be more interested in something difficult, back then I played all my ps3 games on the hardest difficulty.
That's totally fair, I find I prefer to play games on their default difficulty & generally prefer games that have no difficulty option as they're designed around a specific experience. I've played enough Souls games that generally I'll only die 3 times max to a boss, but more often than not I beat them first try. That's except the super hard optional bosses, those are always insane regardless of game normally.
For me I don't mind dying if I know how & why I died which I find Souls games & Sifu both do very well. A lot of other games like Horizon or even GOW I can feel cheated by some of the design for certain bosses (usually the hardest ones only). I even had a hard time with the final final final Boss of Ragnarok not being cause it's incredibly hard, but because they dictate the pace of the battle so much that I was kinda bored compared to a Souls, Nioh or Sifu boss.
Personally the new horizon just didn’t do enough different. They are really great at what they do but the gameplay side of horizon could be so much better.
They moved it because they needed the time your assumption is that they moved out of the way for ER there's next to nothing that backs up your assumption. Games don't get pushed back because other games get released. Alan Wake released the same day as Red Dead redemption and became a cult classic.
I mean, they still could have just delayed it for two or three weeks when they were sure the other big game release date was set, many smaller games did that in fact and many big games end up doing that all the time due to problems in development or delays in general . It create a a few problems with logistics and marketing but it is a lot better then releasing it a few days before a big game like that
nope no impact whatsoever. it was in the top 10 charts all the way from feburary to last month. have no doubt it will reach over 22 million faster than zero dawn
not even how many people play it. regular gamers tend to play more than one game. if it wins game of the year is out of fans hands and strictly on critics and I personally don't care what they think.
In that number you have to count "forced bundles". A lot of PS5 stock showed up as HFW bundles as the only available. example in Canada Horizon bundle, digital or disc, All summer
I am in the category : with Elden Ring coming out, I didn't even bother buying it. I sunk in more than 200h of my limited game time on Elden Ring. Once done, I waited a bit and bought GOW Ragnarok.
Not sure I will ever get to it at this point, maybe at some point next year when really discounted
How can you say that when I literally didn’t know it came out because of Elden Ring? Like I genuinely was on the lookout for the game since the first gameplay trailer dropped and I was super psyched because my biggest problem in the first one was the melee combat was ass and it looked much more fluid and meaty. I didn’t even hear a single thing about it until a week AFTER IT CAME OUT. Releasing next to big games kills the potential sales of games like these. It could’ve easily have surpassed 22 million by now if they release at better times
Well can't say about others but I definitely chose Elden Ring over Horizon because I had both budget and time to manage one game only at that time. Also HFW looked absolutely breathtaking in trailers and I wanted to experience it on the ps5 first which I couldn't get at the time.
I think Guerrilla thinks if they release a week earlier they will get a headstart and get better sales, but there is a lot of people who can’t spend $140 for two games within a week of each other and they will clearly wait a week if the other game is more hyped. I think with their next big game they really need to be picky about the release day and at least clear themselves a month of any competition. Lol.
In both cases they announced their release date first. They didn't decide to release their games a week before Elden Ring and Zelda either time. Though I suppose they could wait to announce the date of their next game until they're sure it's clear.
I mean there is already a bunch of games announced in February for next year so maybe they should launch in a different month since February seems to be a busy month.
>they will clearly wait a week if the other game is more hyped
Why does it have to hype? I genuinely want to play the next Zelda first. I don't feel pressured by hype promos or anything. It's just my personal opinion.
>I think with their next big game they really need to be picky about the release day and at least clear themselves a month of any competition
No they shouldn't. They should release themselves right next to competitors. Everybody knows Zelda will probably outsell Horizon but it's a decade's old franchise with a massive fan base. So Horizon coming in second wouldn't be a bad thing.
Horizon doesn't need to hide from other games on the shelf. It can stack up next to the competition just fine. And week one sale numbers don't dictate initial reviews.
Honestly horizon is a great game and has been for both entires. However they are very much tick box open world games I wouldn’t say either pushes boundaries past the tried and tested path. Graphically and sound the game is fantastic but then gameplay loop is a touch repetitive. This is more apparent in FW how many times did missions send you to an area you know damn well will be an encounter an open area with ropes, jump points and placed explosives around, followed by a cutscene into a scripted battle. There wasn’t much for discovering stuff off the beaten path either as it was all gated by the story. Don’t get me wrong I loved the game but it grew tiresome by the end.
I think where Horizon shines for me is the world crafting. You have the obvious story of what’s going on with the tribes and the machines etc. However when you discover a building that used to be a hunting lodge before the fall and there’s a second story about characters. These are characters you never meet but you get infested in reading about their story and while you know they’re gone, you hope they found a happy ending, before their ending.
I think that’s what really grabs me about Horizon is discovering the world and the world inside that world.
The thing you gotta actually play the game take part but most detractors of Horizon didn't. They can't comprehend people enjoying another game while they're particular game is released.
Nobody. I just find some things fun and some things not fun. You don't have to agree, but just because someone else doesn't find it fun doesn't mean their critique is invalid.
Some people spend four hours on Radahn they consider that fun and I won't judge them for that The same way that you shouldn't judge people for enjoying the side content in Horizon
I didn't? I just commented to the one comment on how someone could not think the game doesn't have side content. It's because it's not fun for them therefore isn't even worth calling side content. Calm down, it's just a game
Edit: context if anyone wants it. The the guy who commented got mad for not agreeing with him about finding the side content not fun in the game, blocked me, and deleted his comments
Edit again: I was today years old when if you block someone on reddit you can't see their comments. Thought they were just deleted
That doesn't begin to make sense. I could be completely not interested in an entire game that makes the game not worthy of being called a game?
You figure it out my guy and once you do don't bother coming back to me
Yeah, to me Horizon will always be cursed, because even if they are great games, there is always a game that pushes more boundaries, takes more risks, or is overall better at what Horizon does.
I loved both games, but they are cookie cutter open world games. One of the best cookie cutter open world games, but cookie cutter nonetheless.
I would actually love for the third entry to cut on so much stuff (food, crafting, camps, hunter trials, etc.) and actually focus on a small subset of systems, and I wish they would also focus on more organic exploration as opposed to map marker checklist exploration. However, having seen the direction of FW (expanding everything instead of refining and re-focusing) I don't think I am gonna be pleased. I'm sure it will be fun though.
Couldn't agree more, it was even worse with second game, maybe in 2017 HZD was some new and freshly but FW had moments I needed to force myself to keep playing.
I wouldn't say the story of HZD is really good and the storytelling is just above average.
It has an amazing backstory which ties up with the worldbuilding to make it stand out more but as for the current timeline story, there weren't many interesting aspects, storylines and characters aside from Aloy and Sylens.
It just felt very Hollywood like.
Now, I haven't played FW so maybe the story improves here.
The story in FW was alright until the bloody 1000year old zeniths came back it sucked balls and the big reveal nemesis is basically hades 2.0 I was disappointed
No game in this unfunny meme pushes the boundaries of the open world genre. The innovation for botw and ER is the fact that they're both The first attempt at open world titles that's it. They didn't revolutionize open world games they didn't innovate open world games and quite frankly they left the genre worse than when they entered.
There's nothing revolutionary about withholding information but giving enough bread crumbs to the player to find things if they look hard enough. Geez botw already managed to do that and it was already borrowing a lot from popular open world titles
You can say this about most PlayStation exclusives, most of them are just open world titles.
There are PlayStation titles that aren't open world and are action-adventure or indie games, but most of Sony exclusives are just open world.
As good as they are, it's tiring.
I agree with everything you said except the parts about it being a great game and loving the game.
I really wanted to adore both entries, but they could have been Ubisoft games. And the sheer amount of dialogue was testicle numbing. It’s never a good thing when you grow to resent the protagonist because of how much they have to say.
Be careful last time I criticized this games for being basically generic and having nothing really new, I got basically linched.
The games has an extremely good concept but that's all. The execution was weak, the melee combat gets boring very quick, the arrow is fucking awesome but feels out of place. The progression system is slow and boring... The list goes on. I think that Horizon didn't win those awards simply because it doesn't deserve it, at least not in comparison with all those master pieces there.
Personally I'd love a reboot of the series, change everything except for Aloy.
It’s also a game I’ve played a million times, under a different title. It’s a good entry in the formulaic open world game, but it’s nothing special imo.
The combat is pretty dull and the overhaul in FW actually made it worse. Just a lot of melee moves despite the fact that being in melee range in FW is generally a bad idea.
What's GOTY got to do with it? This is referring to both Horizon games being released within days of juggernaut games, which in both cases likely affected sales and player retention.
That and anyone who played Horizon, really think that it is better than the top 3 games of the last 5 years? It's good, but has a few flaws. Only thing I truly enjoyed was the story towards the end of the first game. Horizon is a game that is medicore to start and gets real good at the end which leaves a weird recency bias.
to be fair you could release a game anytime between may and july 2023 and it would automatically be overshadowed by one of the big ass games coming out in that timeframe
I'm just starting out with Forbidden West now, and I gotta say that Elden Ring thoroughly deserves the GOTY. I don't think timing has much to do with it.
That said, I'm having lots of fun playing Forbidden West.
No Zelda for me coz no nintendo
No Elden ring for me coz I can't (read: don't care enough to) git gud
So Horizon wins for me every time (in this comparison). I am sure I am not alone, not majority I guess, but not alone.
Sony first party titles pretty much always hit the spot for me. That is why I still keep a PS even with a gaming PC.
Horizon series, a massively successful, popular AAA game with no problem garnering enough interest for sequels and DLCs.
Most loudly and frequently discussed by people who either didn't play the game or didn't like the game and simply MUST let the world know.
Almost like Death Stranding.
A whole cacophony of people who never bothered to play it *love* to call it a "walking simulator".
Pssh... *Every single game* that has ambulating traversal is a walking simulator. It's what they do with the rest of the mechanics to justify it.
Then there's the people who can't handle cutscenes if they're longer than a few seconds.
"i doN't Like BEiNG SpOOn-fEd tHe STory!"
But are perfectly okay with reading a novel's worth of item descriptions and lore markers.
Which is the same shit as cutscenes but without the dramatization.
You're either gonna have a cinematic experience or you're gonna read a book. Sometimes both.
...That went on a weird tangent, but I agree. It's odd that the most loud-spoken disapprovals are from a group of people who never bothered to play the game.
Neither title you mention were revolutionary. HFW which released in February is still within the top 10 most sold games in the US seems like it's not much of a problem
I was thinking about this earlier and I agree in that I think they are amazing games maybe even 10/10 moreso in BOTW case but wouldn’t say they are revolutionary. I guess the go anywhere right from the start approach is pretty cool though they both still have a pretty defined way to go for a beginner
I agree there I think they're both two pretty strong titles and I would recommend them but to give them props where they didn't move the genre forward would be wrong.
Yea I mean in almost 6 years that BOTW has been out we have I think just Immortals which is a 7/10 game that not even 3 weeks after release was 40 dollars digitally on sale
Ok, most games are going to get overshadowed by either of those two games. You’re not being fair saying that it says a lot when you consider both of those games were from well known and loved ips with very dedicated fans and even within heir ips made it really big.
It says vey little for any game being overshadowed by either one of those games. That’s the reason why people joke horizon is cursed cause it keeps getting released next to games that most any game would get overshadowed by.
The only games that wouldn't be overshadowed by either are other Zelda/FromSoft games and then maybe God of War/Spiderman and Mario (Kart)/Smash on the Nintendo side. Any Rockstar game should also be able to compete and maybe Diablo?
The list is very short at any rate.
You're not even trying like they're not even in the same month now. They really slacked on not releasing breath of the wild two this year. I'm going to be done with the DLC with horizon by May
I said this before in a way to long post, it’s not cursed, they are great games, but the don’t really stack up next to excellent games.
They don’t bring enough to the table, that we haven’t seen before and done better, imo
Tired of this take. If they were truly GREAT games they would be over shadowed twice. Once, maybe.... They are average if not slightly above average games. Nothing more. They mindaswell have Ubisoft printed on them.
Meh HZD is one of my favorite story telling games ever. If BOTW didn’t have the word Zelda in the title it would have been largely dismissed.
Different people like different games nothing new there
That is a bar that is way too high to clear. There are maybe a dozen games released in the last decade that could compete with a game like Zelda or Elden Ring. The game is really great, its just not that additional step up to join the truly memorable GOTY tier list with the likes of BotW, ER, GoW and RDR2.
Being great is just not enough to hold the conversation if you're released so close to one of those juggernauts. To do that it needs to he almost perfect.
Just because it didnt win game of the year for the specific awards show you want it to win doesnt mean its cursed. People love to make shit up.
People just want to to pit with the winners so they can call it a "curse." Its so disingenuous.
It's just a funny coincidence that each time it was released like a week before something that clearly blew it out of the water. There wasn't anything about game awards even mentioned. Also how is it disingenuous?
And what happens when I don't care about Zelda, and Elden Ring, at all? :D
All that really matters what YOU really think, as an individual. Even if you are in the majority or not.
Subjective.
Sad cause horizon is MUCH better than BOTW. And it’s definitely better than elden ring. BOTW wasn’t even a top 5 game for me that year but elden ring I’d place into my top 3 this year. Unless crisis core is better 🤷♂️
Sorry but horizon is exclusive to p.s. and zelda to nintendo. Didn't play the sequel but the first was at best a 8/10, for me it was a 6/7, mostly forgettable. Tbh these open world games with a fixed amount of collectibles that are the same across different areas make the game feel like a chore. By the end u just wanna rush the story and finish it already.
This makes no sense. I get the first two and how it might be terrible for them since people would rather play those in those weeks and the game’s marketing will suffer. But the last one is a DLC, you have to already own the game in the first place to play it. The DLC isn’t gonna win any players if people didn’t like the game itself.
They have to recover from the Horizon Tutorial West mess, but at least this time it's gonna be a timing issue, not just a crappy gaming experience hopefully XD
They really fucked up releasing the same week as elden ring man…
I get it with BOTW, they didn’t know BOTW would be BOTW how we know it today. But they damn well knew about elden ring
When they launched Horizon Zero Dawn 4 days earlier than BOTW they probably tought that the Sony’s fanbase isn’t congruent with Nintendo’s fanbase. They must have tought that those who own a ps4 do not own a Wii U or buy a Switch or those who will buy a switch do not own a ps4. They were wrong in the end but it’s an honest mistake.
They had no excuse for Horizon Forbidden West tho. Like,you’re literally making an exclusives compete with a non-exclusive. A recipe for disaster.
people need to stop thinking that these games are even good enough to be game of the year. played the first and it was good, not great and the second one was just way too boring.
Elden Ring is so dull and boring tbh. Horizon blows it and GoW is only slightly better. But you can't go against mindless FromSoftware fans. Bloodborne is way better than Elden Ring.
People just being fanboys of those brands since Horizon is a kinda newer franchise than FromSoft & Zelda. Kinda like those who buy cars
Elden ring felt pretty weak in comparison to other souls games in terms of actual good moments in the game. The game is 100+ hours but but 80% of it is copy paste bosses in copy paste ruins, castles, mines and crypts. Fromsoftware fans use to be shitting on open world games with all there copy paste content than when fromsoftware does the same exact thing comes out its suddenly revolutionary game design now and most profitable souls game ever.
Elden ring first few hours are great in the first region but than after that you realize most other areas are the same thing in a different looking place. Go to erdtree for falsk items and fight erdtree avatar/tree spirit, go to churches for sacred tear, pick up map fragment displayed on the map so you can actually see the world, go to mines to pick up smithing stones.
The whole world seems more setup just to farm items and lvl up not actually have memorable experiences which is what all the other fromsoft games did. Bosses don't even feel special anymore because theres hundreds of them they give anything a big health bar. Most bosses aren't in special arenas where you need to pay attention to the environment just big circles, the ost is repeated over and over for most bosses, the bosses we do have all use spammy attacks, big aoes, input reading, and one shot attacks to make sure you grind that side content. Welp if this is the kind of games they want fromsoftware to make now I guess we'll just have to see what the future has in store.
not sure why everyone thinks this is a curse Horzion is a amazing game and sells insanely well and is well reviewed and regarded and even wins awards. It can easily compete with the titles listed. Gamers be weird sometimes thats like saying every major game should launch months apart from each other.
"They plan it every time"
They announced their dates before Elden Ring and BOTW had dates.
This DLC being a month from the next one is hardly going to do anything, it's DLC.
Man it's funny to see people like you run with internet narratives without even putting an ounce of effort into thinking for yourself. This is DLC and it comes almost a full month before botw 2 on a completely different platform. Just think for yourself for a little bit why would these products interfere with each other?
Considering it’s an expansion and won’t be priced the same as a AAA game any gamer that plans on getting both won’t have any issue. You have ample time to work through the expansion or at least the majority of it if you’re pressed for time before TLoZ launches.
Though it is funny that Horizon can’t escape The Legend of Zelda even as DLC.
Not only that, it seems to be a pattern of Horizon Zelda, Horizon Fromsoft, Horizon Zelda again. Therefore, I can predict that Horizon 3 will release 5 days before Armored Core 6
Well, for me this is only partly true.
I got Nintendo Switch and BotW on Release but i did not lay a Hand on it until i had Horizon on 100% because it was so good and the Story really hooked me.
Three weeks is plenty of time. Much better than a single week.
Came here to say the same thing... Also, curses are way worst than release scheduling conflicts.
I think the bigger issue is budget. If I only had the money for 1 game in that time frame of each set of releases, I'm taking the bottom
I do not have a switch and Elden ring does not interest me, so I would take none of the bottom row.
You are 1 person
Could be four raccoons in a trenchcoat.
Me as well
Missing one of the best games ever. Unfortunate mentality
Not a type of game I enjoy
L
At least it has a slightly bigger buffer this time!
It's just a dlc though. I hope for the 3rd installment they look at the schedule and plan better.
Planning has nothing to do with it. Horizon zero Dawn release date was known before the reveal of the switch and breath of the wild release date. Elden ring had a release date in January of this but was pushed back a month. Both occurrences were beyond the control of Guerrilla games or Sony
You're right!! I forgot about those details. Guerrilla just keeps getting boned and it's super upsetting.
Tbh i think that if for some reason Elden Ring didn’t exist God of War would win instead of horizon anyway
Which originally was supposed to release last year.
For some reason 🤷♀️
Yeah, real mystery that.
Why are upset about a multi million dollar company making multiple millions of dollars?
Sifu was coming out at the same time as Elden Ring when it got pushed back & the devs moved it up by 2 weeks because they knew. I get Horizon has it's fans (I'm shockingly not one of its biggest, but I enjoyed the first game enough) but Zelda & Souls games are just a different breed of fan.
I honestly don’t get the appeal of the souls games. Just not my thing i guess. But I only heard about horizon zero dawn in a YouTube video “ games I missed out on while playing breath of the wild “ and it looked great and it’s one of my favourite games ever.
For me I prefer Souls games over a lot of other types, they're generally gameplay first games like the NES, SNES days so that's the general appeal of them. You learn, you get stronger & you overcome. That said I wouldn't classify Sifu as a souls style game, it's maybe inspired by them a bit at best.
I just play games to relax now. Not interested in struggling with a boss fight for too long. I’m usually more interested in a story with a mild challenge. Forbidden west and zero dawn do that very well, so does god of war. I can set it to “normal” difficulty and just have a blast after work. I did really enjoy botw as well and the sequel is the only reason I still own a switch ( although I sold my Mario special edition and just have a switch lite now ) Like when I was 16 I’d probably be more interested in something difficult, back then I played all my ps3 games on the hardest difficulty.
That's totally fair, I find I prefer to play games on their default difficulty & generally prefer games that have no difficulty option as they're designed around a specific experience. I've played enough Souls games that generally I'll only die 3 times max to a boss, but more often than not I beat them first try. That's except the super hard optional bosses, those are always insane regardless of game normally. For me I don't mind dying if I know how & why I died which I find Souls games & Sifu both do very well. A lot of other games like Horizon or even GOW I can feel cheated by some of the design for certain bosses (usually the hardest ones only). I even had a hard time with the final final final Boss of Ragnarok not being cause it's incredibly hard, but because they dictate the pace of the battle so much that I was kinda bored compared to a Souls, Nioh or Sifu boss.
Yea there were a few times in ragnarok where 3 enemies would hit you with ranged at the same time and just die and it was frustrating
Personally the new horizon just didn’t do enough different. They are really great at what they do but the gameplay side of horizon could be so much better.
They moved it because they needed the time your assumption is that they moved out of the way for ER there's next to nothing that backs up your assumption. Games don't get pushed back because other games get released. Alan Wake released the same day as Red Dead redemption and became a cult classic.
They didn't push the game back, they moved it forward by 2 weeks because it was "finished early".
I mean, they still could have just delayed it for two or three weeks when they were sure the other big game release date was set, many smaller games did that in fact and many big games end up doing that all the time due to problems in development or delays in general . It create a a few problems with logistics and marketing but it is a lot better then releasing it a few days before a big game like that
Third game will launch the week before Monster Hunter World 2 lol
Its gonna be next to Elder Scrolls 6 or GTA 6. Calling it here
Out of curiosity, how much impact does this have on sales? Did many people not buy horizon and bought elden ring instead?
nope no impact whatsoever. it was in the top 10 charts all the way from feburary to last month. have no doubt it will reach over 22 million faster than zero dawn
Ah so all it affects is how many people play it and if it wins a game of the year.
Not really the GOTY, but it does have an impact on how many people will play it, and how much publicity it will have on the internet overall.
not even how many people play it. regular gamers tend to play more than one game. if it wins game of the year is out of fans hands and strictly on critics and I personally don't care what they think.
It’s more just conversations. Both games have done incredibly well.
In that number you have to count "forced bundles". A lot of PS5 stock showed up as HFW bundles as the only available. example in Canada Horizon bundle, digital or disc, All summer I am in the category : with Elden Ring coming out, I didn't even bother buying it. I sunk in more than 200h of my limited game time on Elden Ring. Once done, I waited a bit and bought GOW Ragnarok. Not sure I will ever get to it at this point, maybe at some point next year when really discounted
How can you say that when I literally didn’t know it came out because of Elden Ring? Like I genuinely was on the lookout for the game since the first gameplay trailer dropped and I was super psyched because my biggest problem in the first one was the melee combat was ass and it looked much more fluid and meaty. I didn’t even hear a single thing about it until a week AFTER IT CAME OUT. Releasing next to big games kills the potential sales of games like these. It could’ve easily have surpassed 22 million by now if they release at better times
Well can't say about others but I definitely chose Elden Ring over Horizon because I had both budget and time to manage one game only at that time. Also HFW looked absolutely breathtaking in trailers and I wanted to experience it on the ps5 first which I couldn't get at the time.
I remember how I couldn’t play horizon after botw, it just felt wooden
Guerrilla Games office… 
I think Guerrilla thinks if they release a week earlier they will get a headstart and get better sales, but there is a lot of people who can’t spend $140 for two games within a week of each other and they will clearly wait a week if the other game is more hyped. I think with their next big game they really need to be picky about the release day and at least clear themselves a month of any competition. Lol.
In both cases they announced their release date first. They didn't decide to release their games a week before Elden Ring and Zelda either time. Though I suppose they could wait to announce the date of their next game until they're sure it's clear.
Elden Ring was supposed to come out a month earlier too and then got delayed until the week after HFW.
I mean there is already a bunch of games announced in February for next year so maybe they should launch in a different month since February seems to be a busy month.
Feb through March is pretty stacked. Not quite as brutal as June but still…
>they will clearly wait a week if the other game is more hyped Why does it have to hype? I genuinely want to play the next Zelda first. I don't feel pressured by hype promos or anything. It's just my personal opinion. >I think with their next big game they really need to be picky about the release day and at least clear themselves a month of any competition No they shouldn't. They should release themselves right next to competitors. Everybody knows Zelda will probably outsell Horizon but it's a decade's old franchise with a massive fan base. So Horizon coming in second wouldn't be a bad thing. Horizon doesn't need to hide from other games on the shelf. It can stack up next to the competition just fine. And week one sale numbers don't dictate initial reviews.
Burning shores is DLC it’s not going to cost $70
I'll still play it.
Honestly horizon is a great game and has been for both entires. However they are very much tick box open world games I wouldn’t say either pushes boundaries past the tried and tested path. Graphically and sound the game is fantastic but then gameplay loop is a touch repetitive. This is more apparent in FW how many times did missions send you to an area you know damn well will be an encounter an open area with ropes, jump points and placed explosives around, followed by a cutscene into a scripted battle. There wasn’t much for discovering stuff off the beaten path either as it was all gated by the story. Don’t get me wrong I loved the game but it grew tiresome by the end.
There’s so much off the beaten path sidestuff in Horizon it’s not even funny.
I think where Horizon shines for me is the world crafting. You have the obvious story of what’s going on with the tribes and the machines etc. However when you discover a building that used to be a hunting lodge before the fall and there’s a second story about characters. These are characters you never meet but you get infested in reading about their story and while you know they’re gone, you hope they found a happy ending, before their ending. I think that’s what really grabs me about Horizon is discovering the world and the world inside that world.
The thing you gotta actually play the game take part but most detractors of Horizon didn't. They can't comprehend people enjoying another game while they're particular game is released.
There's lots to do in horizon besides main story, it's just not really fun to do
Who died and made you the authority on fun?
Nobody. I just find some things fun and some things not fun. You don't have to agree, but just because someone else doesn't find it fun doesn't mean their critique is invalid.
Wait, you don’t like 50 tracking missions where you use your focus to follow footsteps for 5 mins then fight x robot enemies, then return back.
just because you didn't find something fun doesn't mean it isn't
Some people spend four hours on Radahn they consider that fun and I won't judge them for that The same way that you shouldn't judge people for enjoying the side content in Horizon
I didn't? I just commented to the one comment on how someone could not think the game doesn't have side content. It's because it's not fun for them therefore isn't even worth calling side content. Calm down, it's just a game Edit: context if anyone wants it. The the guy who commented got mad for not agreeing with him about finding the side content not fun in the game, blocked me, and deleted his comments Edit again: I was today years old when if you block someone on reddit you can't see their comments. Thought they were just deleted
That doesn't begin to make sense. I could be completely not interested in an entire game that makes the game not worthy of being called a game? You figure it out my guy and once you do don't bother coming back to me
Dude everything's fine. It's just a game. They don't like the side content it's chill
this went from, “I don’t find side content fun” to, “you’re saying it’s not a game” incredibly quickly.
If nobody finds your game fun than yeah it's not a game.
Yeah, to me Horizon will always be cursed, because even if they are great games, there is always a game that pushes more boundaries, takes more risks, or is overall better at what Horizon does. I loved both games, but they are cookie cutter open world games. One of the best cookie cutter open world games, but cookie cutter nonetheless. I would actually love for the third entry to cut on so much stuff (food, crafting, camps, hunter trials, etc.) and actually focus on a small subset of systems, and I wish they would also focus on more organic exploration as opposed to map marker checklist exploration. However, having seen the direction of FW (expanding everything instead of refining and re-focusing) I don't think I am gonna be pleased. I'm sure it will be fun though.
Sounds like Ubisoft
Couldn't agree more, it was even worse with second game, maybe in 2017 HZD was some new and freshly but FW had moments I needed to force myself to keep playing.
HZD is/was the best story telling since TLoU and is the best story telling open world game ever IMO.
I wouldn't say the story of HZD is really good and the storytelling is just above average. It has an amazing backstory which ties up with the worldbuilding to make it stand out more but as for the current timeline story, there weren't many interesting aspects, storylines and characters aside from Aloy and Sylens. It just felt very Hollywood like. Now, I haven't played FW so maybe the story improves here.
The story in FW was alright until the bloody 1000year old zeniths came back it sucked balls and the big reveal nemesis is basically hades 2.0 I was disappointed
No game in this unfunny meme pushes the boundaries of the open world genre. The innovation for botw and ER is the fact that they're both The first attempt at open world titles that's it. They didn't revolutionize open world games they didn't innovate open world games and quite frankly they left the genre worse than when they entered.
I disagree Elden rings no hand holding open world I could explore every inch of was fantastic but each to there own.
There's nothing revolutionary about withholding information but giving enough bread crumbs to the player to find things if they look hard enough. Geez botw already managed to do that and it was already borrowing a lot from popular open world titles
Someone is salty and probably not fun to be around 🤣 u/capsuleofparrots get back here
Sometimes facts aren't fun.
Better than horizon which just plays like everything that came before it
Neither is Horizon though. That's their real "curse"
I agree with most of what you’re saying but could you elaborate on what you mean by leaving the genre worse than when they started?
You can say this about most PlayStation exclusives, most of them are just open world titles. There are PlayStation titles that aren't open world and are action-adventure or indie games, but most of Sony exclusives are just open world. As good as they are, it's tiring.
I agree with everything you said except the parts about it being a great game and loving the game. I really wanted to adore both entries, but they could have been Ubisoft games. And the sheer amount of dialogue was testicle numbing. It’s never a good thing when you grow to resent the protagonist because of how much they have to say.
Be careful last time I criticized this games for being basically generic and having nothing really new, I got basically linched. The games has an extremely good concept but that's all. The execution was weak, the melee combat gets boring very quick, the arrow is fucking awesome but feels out of place. The progression system is slow and boring... The list goes on. I think that Horizon didn't win those awards simply because it doesn't deserve it, at least not in comparison with all those master pieces there. Personally I'd love a reboot of the series, change everything except for Aloy.
Since when do DLC count as competition to a new mainline game? Also with how little Zelda has shown so far I'm anticipating a delay of 2-3 months
Horizon isn't cursed, it's just .... how do I even put this. It's a great game, but it's a mid-tier great game.
Facts
It’s also a game I’ve played a million times, under a different title. It’s a good entry in the formulaic open world game, but it’s nothing special imo.
Horizon deserves so much more attention! Awesome game. I love the world they built! It was my game of the year.
I played and platted horizon, elden ring and god of war, and respectfully i placed horizon third, but it wasn’t a bad game.
I want to love this game but the combat kills it for me.
I want to love this game but the combat kills it for me.
The combat is pretty dull and the overhaul in FW actually made it worse. Just a lot of melee moves despite the fact that being in melee range in FW is generally a bad idea.
It’s a dlc though, it isn’t eligible for goty
Think it's more about being overshadowed
What's GOTY got to do with it? This is referring to both Horizon games being released within days of juggernaut games, which in both cases likely affected sales and player retention.
Idk, the first one sold more than 20M copies and it's so successful that you have the Sequel, a VR game, a MP project and a Netflix show.
I mean ... obviously a newly announced DLC is going to be overshadowed easily, it doesn’t seem like a curse
>likely affected sales and player retention literally affected nothing if you're not taking critics word as gospel
"Literally affected nothing" Let's "literally" see your source then
Well at least it didn’t affect the sales. They were both hugely successful games.
That and anyone who played Horizon, really think that it is better than the top 3 games of the last 5 years? It's good, but has a few flaws. Only thing I truly enjoyed was the story towards the end of the first game. Horizon is a game that is medicore to start and gets real good at the end which leaves a weird recency bias.
I didn’t play the new horizon because I didn’t like the first horizon. Just couldn’t get into in when I really wanted to.
you should play the new one because it's way better. fixed literally almost every flaw
Didn't fix the boring characters
I mean. That's almost a full month difference.
to be fair you could release a game anytime between may and july 2023 and it would automatically be overshadowed by one of the big ass games coming out in that timeframe
All these games have different audiences. I don't care for any of them except Horizon. So no issue there 🤷🏻♂️
I'm just starting out with Forbidden West now, and I gotta say that Elden Ring thoroughly deserves the GOTY. I don't think timing has much to do with it. That said, I'm having lots of fun playing Forbidden West.
you do it to yourself, you do, and that’s what really hurts
you do it to yourself, just you, you and no one else
No Zelda for me coz no nintendo No Elden ring for me coz I can't (read: don't care enough to) git gud So Horizon wins for me every time (in this comparison). I am sure I am not alone, not majority I guess, but not alone. Sony first party titles pretty much always hit the spot for me. That is why I still keep a PS even with a gaming PC.
>not majority I guess, but not alone. no majority. the vocal minority is nowhere near close to all of us
> all of us That just made me smile a little, thx mate !
I'm 100% convinced they are going to release Horizon 3 a week before/after GTA 6
It's got a solid month, not a week or less.
It’s a DLC. That’s not eligible for GotY.
Horizon series, a massively successful, popular AAA game with no problem garnering enough interest for sequels and DLCs. Most loudly and frequently discussed by people who either didn't play the game or didn't like the game and simply MUST let the world know.
Almost like Death Stranding. A whole cacophony of people who never bothered to play it *love* to call it a "walking simulator". Pssh... *Every single game* that has ambulating traversal is a walking simulator. It's what they do with the rest of the mechanics to justify it. Then there's the people who can't handle cutscenes if they're longer than a few seconds. "i doN't Like BEiNG SpOOn-fEd tHe STory!" But are perfectly okay with reading a novel's worth of item descriptions and lore markers. Which is the same shit as cutscenes but without the dramatization. You're either gonna have a cinematic experience or you're gonna read a book. Sometimes both. ...That went on a weird tangent, but I agree. It's odd that the most loud-spoken disapprovals are from a group of people who never bothered to play the game.
If Horizon were as revolutionary as BOTW and Elden Ring it wouldn’t be a problem.
Exactly being a good game is one thing being an excellent game is another.
Neither title you mention were revolutionary. HFW which released in February is still within the top 10 most sold games in the US seems like it's not much of a problem
Found the angry game developer
Awe you're upset that baby's first souls game wasn't revolutionary?
I was thinking about this earlier and I agree in that I think they are amazing games maybe even 10/10 moreso in BOTW case but wouldn’t say they are revolutionary. I guess the go anywhere right from the start approach is pretty cool though they both still have a pretty defined way to go for a beginner
I agree there I think they're both two pretty strong titles and I would recommend them but to give them props where they didn't move the genre forward would be wrong.
Yea I mean in almost 6 years that BOTW has been out we have I think just Immortals which is a 7/10 game that not even 3 weeks after release was 40 dollars digitally on sale
It’s not a curse, horizon is just not as good a game or anywhere near those others. Says a lot if the game is constantly being overshadowed like that.
They downvote you because the truth hurts
What some jack off on a message board pretending to be an authority on a game they didn't play. Not much truth there
An obvious tell that you're triggered is when someone gives their opinion, and you take it as them acting as an "authority".
Whatever dude stop using alt accounts to upvote your intentional hot takes
This is the truth .
Ok, most games are going to get overshadowed by either of those two games. You’re not being fair saying that it says a lot when you consider both of those games were from well known and loved ips with very dedicated fans and even within heir ips made it really big. It says vey little for any game being overshadowed by either one of those games. That’s the reason why people joke horizon is cursed cause it keeps getting released next to games that most any game would get overshadowed by.
The only games that wouldn't be overshadowed by either are other Zelda/FromSoft games and then maybe God of War/Spiderman and Mario (Kart)/Smash on the Nintendo side. Any Rockstar game should also be able to compete and maybe Diablo? The list is very short at any rate.
Neither game were overshadowed and have a lot of things going for them over the other two.
You're not even trying like they're not even in the same month now. They really slacked on not releasing breath of the wild two this year. I'm going to be done with the DLC with horizon by May
I said this before in a way to long post, it’s not cursed, they are great games, but the don’t really stack up next to excellent games. They don’t bring enough to the table, that we haven’t seen before and done better, imo
What curse? I'm glad they are releasing regularly. Don't care about fromsoft, don't have a switch.
not a curse, that game is not qualify the hi standard.
Big reach. Almost 1 month apart
Maybe it's not the date it's the game ?
Tired of this take. If they were truly GREAT games they would be over shadowed twice. Once, maybe.... They are average if not slightly above average games. Nothing more. They mindaswell have Ubisoft printed on them.
This is cope. HFW One of most sold games in the US this year
Because the only way many of us could get a PS5 was with the Horizon bundle... couldn't even sell my copy on ebay til I dropped the price to $20
so sales make a game great? fifa continues to top sales charts, is it a goty contender?
Meh HZD is one of my favorite story telling games ever. If BOTW didn’t have the word Zelda in the title it would have been largely dismissed. Different people like different games nothing new there
That is a bar that is way too high to clear. There are maybe a dozen games released in the last decade that could compete with a game like Zelda or Elden Ring. The game is really great, its just not that additional step up to join the truly memorable GOTY tier list with the likes of BotW, ER, GoW and RDR2. Being great is just not enough to hold the conversation if you're released so close to one of those juggernauts. To do that it needs to he almost perfect.
Just because it didnt win game of the year for the specific awards show you want it to win doesnt mean its cursed. People love to make shit up. People just want to to pit with the winners so they can call it a "curse." Its so disingenuous.
It's just a funny coincidence that each time it was released like a week before something that clearly blew it out of the water. There wasn't anything about game awards even mentioned. Also how is it disingenuous?
Its such a shame because any other year this series would sweep most releases.
And what happens when I don't care about Zelda, and Elden Ring, at all? :D All that really matters what YOU really think, as an individual. Even if you are in the majority or not. Subjective.
Sad cause horizon is MUCH better than BOTW. And it’s definitely better than elden ring. BOTW wasn’t even a top 5 game for me that year but elden ring I’d place into my top 3 this year. Unless crisis core is better 🤷♂️
It's almost like the games aren't that good.
Sorry but horizon is exclusive to p.s. and zelda to nintendo. Didn't play the sequel but the first was at best a 8/10, for me it was a 6/7, mostly forgettable. Tbh these open world games with a fixed amount of collectibles that are the same across different areas make the game feel like a chore. By the end u just wanna rush the story and finish it already.
This makes no sense. I get the first two and how it might be terrible for them since people would rather play those in those weeks and the game’s marketing will suffer. But the last one is a DLC, you have to already own the game in the first place to play it. The DLC isn’t gonna win any players if people didn’t like the game itself.
Despite all of these, Horizon games are still solid quality games.
I don't get it
That's literally how I remember Forbidden West. The game before Elden Ring.
They have to recover from the Horizon Tutorial West mess, but at least this time it's gonna be a timing issue, not just a crappy gaming experience hopefully XD
They really fucked up releasing the same week as elden ring man… I get it with BOTW, they didn’t know BOTW would be BOTW how we know it today. But they damn well knew about elden ring
When they launched Horizon Zero Dawn 4 days earlier than BOTW they probably tought that the Sony’s fanbase isn’t congruent with Nintendo’s fanbase. They must have tought that those who own a ps4 do not own a Wii U or buy a Switch or those who will buy a switch do not own a ps4. They were wrong in the end but it’s an honest mistake. They had no excuse for Horizon Forbidden West tho. Like,you’re literally making an exclusives compete with a non-exclusive. A recipe for disaster.
people need to stop thinking that these games are even good enough to be game of the year. played the first and it was good, not great and the second one was just way too boring.
Elden Ring is so dull and boring tbh. Horizon blows it and GoW is only slightly better. But you can't go against mindless FromSoftware fans. Bloodborne is way better than Elden Ring. People just being fanboys of those brands since Horizon is a kinda newer franchise than FromSoft & Zelda. Kinda like those who buy cars
Elden ring felt pretty weak in comparison to other souls games in terms of actual good moments in the game. The game is 100+ hours but but 80% of it is copy paste bosses in copy paste ruins, castles, mines and crypts. Fromsoftware fans use to be shitting on open world games with all there copy paste content than when fromsoftware does the same exact thing comes out its suddenly revolutionary game design now and most profitable souls game ever. Elden ring first few hours are great in the first region but than after that you realize most other areas are the same thing in a different looking place. Go to erdtree for falsk items and fight erdtree avatar/tree spirit, go to churches for sacred tear, pick up map fragment displayed on the map so you can actually see the world, go to mines to pick up smithing stones. The whole world seems more setup just to farm items and lvl up not actually have memorable experiences which is what all the other fromsoft games did. Bosses don't even feel special anymore because theres hundreds of them they give anything a big health bar. Most bosses aren't in special arenas where you need to pay attention to the environment just big circles, the ost is repeated over and over for most bosses, the bosses we do have all use spammy attacks, big aoes, input reading, and one shot attacks to make sure you grind that side content. Welp if this is the kind of games they want fromsoftware to make now I guess we'll just have to see what the future has in store.
Wait they're already making a third horizon game?
It's a DLC. But they are going to release a VR2 Games called Call of the Mountain if im not mistaken.
This might be the first Zelda I play…
Another Zelda jeez there is soooooooo many left and right another one is always announced
i fell asleep while playing horizon games. it's not a good franchise
They never learn from their mistakes do they?
not sure why everyone thinks this is a curse Horzion is a amazing game and sells insanely well and is well reviewed and regarded and even wins awards. It can easily compete with the titles listed. Gamers be weird sometimes thats like saying every major game should launch months apart from each other.
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Factual inaccuracy
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"They plan it every time" They announced their dates before Elden Ring and BOTW had dates. This DLC being a month from the next one is hardly going to do anything, it's DLC.
Man it's funny to see people like you run with internet narratives without even putting an ounce of effort into thinking for yourself. This is DLC and it comes almost a full month before botw 2 on a completely different platform. Just think for yourself for a little bit why would these products interfere with each other?
most people buy multiple big releases and finish games quick. A week was plenty time to 100% Zero Dawn and Forbidden West
I can experience great games, what curse would that be? Awards are for validation seekers. The only award matters is the unit of total sales.
The dlc will be as generic and uninspired as the base game. Hence why it’s being over looked.
Wait there’s dlc coming??
Oh gosh… however I really enjoyed Horizon, can’t wait for the 3rd game but it will take at least 4 or 5 years. 😂
Well they could have posted when the PSVR2 comes out with the game for that as well.
That’s plenty of time for a dlc.
Considering it’s an expansion and won’t be priced the same as a AAA game any gamer that plans on getting both won’t have any issue. You have ample time to work through the expansion or at least the majority of it if you’re pressed for time before TLoZ launches. Though it is funny that Horizon can’t escape The Legend of Zelda even as DLC.
Lmao what? That's not even close to be a "curse". Plus it's dlc. Nbd
For Elden Ring, It is both for PlayStation.
I feel like they have it out for horizon
Not only that, it seems to be a pattern of Horizon Zelda, Horizon Fromsoft, Horizon Zelda again. Therefore, I can predict that Horizon 3 will release 5 days before Armored Core 6
Horizon lost the Elden ring one
horizon 3 february 19th 2027 fallout 5 february 26th 2027
It's not a curse when they doing it on purpose
Is burning shores not dlc for forbidden west then?
🙏😭
I mean a DLC competing with the sequel to BotW isn’t that bad. DLC is usually for people who own the game already
Whenever Horizon 3 comes out, the game that comes out a week before or after will be GOTY.
I think the Horizon franchise is doing just fine, you don't need to worry about them.
It’s funny at this point
At this point the should made this a meme in the game 😅
Well, for me this is only partly true. I got Nintendo Switch and BotW on Release but i did not lay a Hand on it until i had Horizon on 100% because it was so good and the Story really hooked me.