Burning Shores is a story expansion for Horizon: Forbidden West. And, unfortunately, it has weight, because the DLC paves the way for the third part after the hopeless ending of the second. It makes no sense to talk about the gameplay pluses and minuses of the add-on – it’s still an add-on, it doesn’t offer anything radically new. There are new robots, new weapons, a new map is also in place, everything is beautiful. But it’s worth talking about the plot – with spoilers.
О чём Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores?
The main gray eminence of the Silence series discovers that Aloy in the second part did not kill all the “zeniths”, the earthly elite of the past, who fled far into space a thousand years ago. There is another one – Walter Londra, a celebrity and a space tycoon rolled into one. He sits somewhere in the territory of the former Los Angeles and is plotting something there. Obviously not good! As we learned in the finale of Forbidden West, an army of machines is flying towards Earth under the control of artificial intelligence “Nemesis”, which once already destroyed humanity in a remote colony on another planet and is ready to do it again. It is necessary to somehow fight with him, and the unfinished “zenith” can potentially suggest something.
Walter, however, has his own plans. He brainwashes savages, forms his inner circle out of them, looks for a wife by casting, and wants to fly away from Earth to save humanity (and himself, of course) at least that way. And he wants to fly away on a special ship powered by some super-toxic fuel that will infect all of America with radiation. What kind of fuel is this game, of course, does not explain.
So what is the problem with this story?
Horizon continues to bend its line and raises the idea of the second part to the absolute. The game shows a cruel, doomed post-apocalyptic world, but rudely pulls on it the problems of the first world from our reality. At the same time, Horizon leaves no room for choice or reflection. Everything about Burning Shores is completely black and white. He, first of all, talks about the oppression of women by the elite. He doesn’t give a damn about the lore of the series and its fantastic setting. Moreover, he talks very passionately: in the main script of Burning Shores there is not a single positive male character, and Walter Landra is actually written off from Elon Musk, who was supplemented with the image of a caricatured Hollywood producer.
The game depicts Walter as an absolute villain who oppresses not only women in his subordination, but even an AI companion, who, of course, is also a “woman” and wants to die from suffering. The plot of the game does not allow for the thought that Walter’s plan might not be so bad, given that it will actually help save humanity. There will be no reasoning here about the freedom of choice of an adult, because some savages follow Walter voluntarily. Issues of oppression and ecology should obviously go by the wayside when the end of the world is on the nose – all means are good here, and problems must be solved as they arise. We might wonder what a villain Walter is if we didn’t know about the damn army of machines flying towards the Earth, which is opposed by naive fools with bows and spears. But we know. And Walter knows. But most importantly, Aloy knows this very well.
“We Have Hope”
This is the main justification for Aloy, who, in a fit of altruism, immediately undertakes to ruin Walter’s plans without even trying to talk to him. Although, it would seem, for this she flew to Hollywood. Because people are suffering, and the environment is in danger! Her moral compass does not match at all with what she has experienced and knows about the world. She still remains a caricatured, extremely stupid “good-natured person”. A kind-hearted man who, without blinking an eye, mows down the unfortunate savages who have been “brainwashed” by dozens.
Coincidentally, before going through Burning Shores, I finished watching Attack on Titan, an anime about hard decisions and their consequences. There, the characters really suffer under the burden of responsibility and sometimes make difficult decisions, make monstrous sacrifices and try to live with it. What about “Titans” – remember what Shepard sometimes had to do in Mass Effect, since the comparisons between Horizon and Mass Effect have become a meme. Aloy is not capable of this, but it is not surprising, she is not a character, but a function without a character, a shadow of Sylens, the real hero of the series. With which, by the way, it is not clear what will happen next, given that the actor who played him, Lance Reddick, has died.
Actually, Sylens saves the day this time as well. While Aloy was hitting Walter’s head with a stick, Sylens analyzed the celeb data and was able to learn something about a possible weapon against the machine army. He himself is the god of the machine. It seems that if Aloy in Los Angeles just swam in the ocean, cut through the waves on a skiff and kissed her new girlfriend, nothing would change – Silens would decide everything himself again.
And finally – about the love interest of Aloy
The kiss between Aloy and her new friend Seiki is a hot topic that has made a lot of people excited. But she gets so much attention in vain. Yes, for the first time in the series, Aloy decided to kiss someone and, as expected, her choice fell on a woman. Expected, because here we have 2023, California and a game about strong women. And because Aloy is a clone of the scientist Elisabeth Sobeck, and in Forbidden West we already learned that Sobeck was more of a girl (though a clone doesn’t actually have to share an orientation with its genetic source).
However, one can find fault with the way the chemistry between Ela and Seika is built. Because she doesn’t exist. The girls have known each other for just a couple of days and spent only a couple of minutes in heartfelt conversations. But they are so the same, they are not like all those who like to go against orders. They look alike and have an instant love interest, which is also a good example of Horizon’s level of writing.
But do not forget that there is still a choice, and kissing Seika is not necessary. And at the beginning of Forbidden West, you can flirt with a man at all. So it remains to be seen how Aloy’s love affairs will look in the third part. And will they ever!
Horizon are good games when it comes to the combat system. And just ordinary, if you look at their open worlds. In some places they have excellent design and always a chic picture. Lore was also written by people not without talent. But something terrible happens to the main plot. The game and the characters in it ignore their own world. They speak and act like the most progressive people of our time – and they care about the corresponding problems. It’s like the Horizon universe was filled with hits. And it won’t get any better, but I’ll be glad to be wrong.
It is easy to miss the mark in trying to force topical political and social statements onto fiction. So you can speak flatly, and lose the universe. This is what happens with Horizon. And the accusations of homophobia on the players, the massive wiping of critical reviews on Metacritic, do not solve the problem, but exacerbate it.
Review of Horizon Forbidden West – the perfect “safe sequel”
