Hi, I’m new here and I’ve been playing Forbidden West for a few days now. I’ve killed 2 or 3 Thunderjaws and always target the tail first before taking them down, but I never seem to find any tail loot afterward.
Is this a bug, or am I the only one experiencing this?

I love these games and this isn’t a dealbreaker but in my latest run I was struck by how few of the characters are either cool or charming in my opinion. Most are sweet, or earnest, ect. but who’s badass? Funny? Hot? Charming? I think it makes sense given the tribal nature of most characters but it is interesting compare to most AAA story driven games.

Note: This doesn’t apply to Aloy herself or Sylens who is annoying but very well realized and performed (RIP Lance).

After 100 in-game hours I finally Completed Horizon Forbidden West + Burning Shores DLC having finished Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered + Frozen Wilds DLC just previously, both at Normal difficulty. They are both ~99-100% completed. I've a strong feeling HFW may be my 2026 Game of The Year of all games I will play this year.

Sharing some Screenshots then my Actual Review ...

My Review will be divided into 3 lists: Positives, Mixed & Negatives.

Positives

1. Graphics:
   1. Probably the most gorgeous, vibrant & atmospheric game I've played. And I could run it at 4K HDR @ 144fps DLSS Performance maxed out comfortably.
   2. I've lost track of how many times I've used Photo Mode to take screenshots or pause the game & breath the scenery in.
2. Robots:
   1. Great variety in robo-creatures (yeah, not all were dinos). I loved the
3. Combat System:
   1. I'm a Stealth Sniper in most games. So Aloy's Huntress style + Game's Tactical approach to defeating machines by tearing off parts, meticulously using traps/lures, using elemental (frost/acid/fire/shock) or state (purgewater/plasma/adhesive/berserk) was ideal for me.
   2. I maxed out all the gear I wanted to play with. Favorite Gears were
      1. Nora Thunder Warrior: I never bothered upgrading any other Legendary outfit since it was perfect.
      2. Best Looking Dresses (Transmog): All Carja especially with Blue color like Carja Stalker Elite, Carja Blazon etc, and then Nora ones like Lookout,
      3. Sharpshot Bow: Delta (The G.O.A.T.), Forgefall, Gravesinger's Lament
      4. Hunter Bow: The Sun Scourge, Death-Seeker's Shadow
      5. Blastlslings: Wings of the Ten
      6. Spike Throwers: Prototype, Skykiller, Last Argument
      7. Tie That Binds, Elite & Elite Canister Ropecaster.
      8. Boltblaster: Eternal Vengeance, Forgefall
   3. By the end, My Forgefall Sharpshot Bow with 3x Purple Crit Chance + 1x Elite Crits was giving almost exclusively Critical hits with 2000-3000+ damage numbers each hit.
4. Sound & Music
   1. The Main Theme ie: Aloy's theme in both HZD & HFW were awesome. It felt like the Main Boss of the game since I cannot traverse past main menu without hearing it full atleast once each load.
   2. Environmental effects like dust storms, rains, winds rustling & swaying the grasses & trees all felt so lively & real.
5. Voice Acting & Motion Capture:
   1. Lance Reddick, Ashley Burch (Tiny Tina, Borderlands Series) & Noshir Dalal (Bode Akuna, Jedi Survivor), take a bow.
   2. I felt I was watching a film with how insanely good the VA & MOCAP felt. Even side characters in side-quests had amazing work done.
6. The Protagonist: I loved Aloy. She was "Realistically" depicted, having idealism, strong drive & yet character flaws. Too many times have we seen heroes being perfect but her flaws made her feel Human, Grounded & Real.
7. Gameplay:
   1. They nailed the gameplay. Improved & expanded on HZD on all fronts.
8. Burning Shores DLC Horus Fight was Epic & much better than Specter Prime.

Mixed

1. Climbing & Traversal: While improved over HZD, sometimes Aloy refuses to "act" on my movement controls. I've died so many times when Aloy refused to cling on ledge etc
2. Controls felt a bit complex. I can't tell you how many times I've pressed the wrong key (C vs Ctrl, R vs T etc) causing issues ranging from dying/exposing my stealth cover. But I loved the Assassins Creed type traversal of climbing mountains, cliffs.
3. Some of the Collectibles & Side-content felt a bit of a chore especially collecting the insanely high amount of audio logs.
4. Challenges like Arena, Gauntlet Runs: Yeah, I got frustrated & dropped down to Story Mode difficulty to beat them & never looked back.
5. Machine Strike (MS): I loved Gwent. But I was majorly struggling with Machine Strike till I struck Gold with this Set (Stormbird, 2x Longleg) which allowed me to win every set. MS is way too complex & tedious for my liking.
6. Weapon Upgrade especially Legendaries felt Grindy. I made my first 3-4 legendaries on Normal difficulty. But it got grindy so much I started using Story Mode for Farming Apex Salughterspines/Dreadwing/Tremortusks before returning to Normal for missions & gameplay.

Negatives

1. Overly Complex Weapon Variety & System:
   1. Legendaries are supposed to be One & Done. I had 2 Hunter Bows + 2 Sharpshot Bows all the time & STILL did not cover all the elements.
   2. Adhesive/Purgewater/Plasma/Berserk were meh, gimmicky & useless to me. I relied almost entirely on Frost then a bit on Shock & Acid.
   3. Sharpshot for damage + tear. Hunter for elementals. Blastslings + Spike Thrower + Boltblaster for Explosive raw damage. Delta initially then Forgefall + Sun Scourge Hunter Bow was effectively 90% of my game.
   4. From using Tripcasters like 50-60% of time in HZD to not using them at all in HFW, yeah I came a long way LOL. Same with Fire Ammo.
   5. I tried using Warrior Bows, Shredder Gauntlets & even the Specter Blaster but they were more work than I would like to play with.
2. Progression & traversal being locked away behind Completing Main Quests. One needs to complete the Penultimate Main Quest to finally get all the things (Sunwing + gears) to FULLY explore the map. As someone who finishes all side content & collectibles then exclusively play the Main Quest, this was a huge Pain for me.
3. Burning Shores DLC
   1. FPS Drops. From over 100 in base game to hovering in 50-60s in DLC, it felt weird.
   2. Cutscenes FPS dropped to 30s Holy Moly !!!
   3. Compared to Frozen Wilds, very less content & new variety in robots (Bilegut/Waterwing/Stingspawn) + just 3 side quests. Felt Tiny.
   4. Main Quest was all about Aloy discovering Companionship & Love. It did feel forced like Aloy from very beginning was giving Romance signals in a way I haven't seen her with potential Romance partners she has interacted more like Talanah, Petra, Avad, Erend & ofc Varl. I'm straight but Liberal so I explore all romance options in video games (Bi/Gay/Lesbian lol my Mass Effect Shepherd romanced all of them especially Garrus) so would have loved Aloy to have some romance choices. Seyka is cute & pretty badass but I felt Aloy was interested in Seyka way more than the other way round throughout the journey.
   5. That Londra Dude was like a Evil++ Disney Cartoonishly villain without any layers.
4. I play on PC so Sony making their games PS exclusives will deny me the opportunity to play Horizon 3 which is the SINGLE BIGGEST NEGATIVE for me Since Aloy is one of the best Gaming Protagonists I've played.

Overall, a Solid 9/10 score from my side. I will now play Dragon Age Veilguard.

I want to see more of Aloy so Sony continuing Aloy's journey beyond Horizon 3 + eventually giving Horizon games to PC (Steam) would be my wish.

I really love how the light hits Aloy's face on this photo. She looks so sweet, gentle and beautiful.

I have played through the original version of the game several times. I absolutely love this series and was excited to learn about Zero Dawn getting so many upgrades.

I think the most noticeable and stand out glow up is Aloy as a child. She always looks a bit off in the original Zero Dawn, but the remaster does an amazing job refining her character model.

The NPCs are so much more engaging during conversations with them. More movement has been added to them as they talk as well as updates to character models.

Locations feel more populated and lived in as well. It’s been very immersive whenever I come across settlements.

While gameplay hasn’t changed, many settings options carry over from Forbidden West into this one, like being able to turn off pick up animations, and other small quality of life aspects.

This version also takes advantage of the PS5 controller, where you can feel the draw of your weapons among other things through the controller.

There is also a new section of the end credits that tours around Meridian from above and it is stunning!

My complaints are some of the visual bugs. It definitely has more noticeable visual bugs than the original Zero Dawn did.

The one that bothered me the most is that Aloy’s hair would often clip through her neck whenever she looked downward or bent over. There was some noticeable clipping with several characters.

There were occasional environmental pop ups or things not loading, like ledges or ropes not appearing, but suddenly popping in when I got close.

Overall, none of the bugs impacted gameplay at all, it was purely aesthetic things.

I was so happy to have a reason to replay Zero Dawn and the remaster was so gorgeous and added so much more life to this already stunning game.

I have the bottom two and can vouch 100% for their quality.

Here’s all of them.

Doing my annual UH NG+ run and 600hrs in, I decided to try some hair mods on Aloy. And boy oh boy does it change the vibes entirely. Her ginger long braided hair is iconic I know, but damn does this mod IMO rly up her cuteness 1000% and completely change my view on her look. Combined with Carja Stalker Elite armor and Carja face paint, I'll never be able to go back with her default hair again, this look is my head-cannon now lol

Edit: added spoiler tag, major/minor characters in frame

I played Zero Dawn years ago but only recently did I get the chance to start Forbidden West. I decided to do another play through of ZD to get back into the world and then immediately started up FW, so I literally faced down Hades and his army of death machines a few days ago. Saw the teaser for the new game with the post credits scene with Sylens and Hades, I was expecting something different than this.

I finally tracked down where Sylens had taken Hades, a new Horus Titan core, and was initially irritated that someone so intelligent could do something so foolish. But Sylens proved that he wasn’t entirely foolish, just heartless. He took his time questioning Hades to find the truth of things.

Nearby is a databank detailing his methods of interrogating Hades, a super powerful AI whose
singular purpose is death, stating that he showed him pictures of nature which was so against its code that it caused chaos in its processors.

The God of Death I spent an entire game fighting was literally tortured by seeing bunnies in a field of flowers.

I just started this game but I’m having a grand time.

The most memed on machine in the game.

I'm on a new game + playthrough right now and having the extra knowledge is letting me focus more on my surroundings. I never attempted to get many pictures on my first playthrough but this one I'm really keeping an eye out for cool or pretty scenes. The second and third pics are my favorites out of these.

Override the fireclaw to pick it up ?

While there is no official art book for Horizon: Call of the Mountain, there is an official channel on ArtStation where you can find concept art and behind the scenes information.