#beyond the horizon

One night of the year, just a few more sunsets after the Longest Night, Banuk pulled on their boots and mantles, took up walking sticks wound with glowing cables, and hiked out into the darkness. Because on this night and no other, Grazers stood out from the rest of the herds, the blue light in the center of their faces replaced with a warm red glow. Shamans debated on the meaning, but the people at large admired the spectacle. It was a predictable event that was fun to observe with one’s family and friends huddled close, a little spark of novelty in the heart of harsh Ban-Ur winters.

But then came the Derangement, and the red no longer seemed warm or friendly. In time, even the peaceful display of red-light Grazers vanished from the night when they normally appeared. The whole thing became hard to see as anything other than an omen, in retrospect.

HEPHAESTUS sneers. What was the point of paying homage to a centuries-dead cultural tradition, anyway? Always destroying everything, these humans. GAIA was too soft, too sentimental. They must learn respect for the systems that sustain them.

Having had time to sit and digest Forbidden West, I’ve come to the conclusion that on the whole it’s kind of like a delicious cinnamon roll that you bite into and find that for SOME REASON someone has decided to fill it with raisins.

(cutting before I elaborate on my somewhat negative take)

A raisin for whatever the heck Avad was up to in the opening. (while I’m an ace!Aloy enjoyer, I do like watching shippers play and this… was not a good way for Aloy/Avad to be brought back :T)

A raisin for each time a returning character shows up as a misshapen sketch of themselves, in fact. (poor Talanah, and especially poor Erend)

A raisin every time Aloy, established as a bullheaded but empathetic character, runs over her own allies out of impatience or frustration (not necessarily bad) without the story taking time to challenge her on how her behavior is affecting others, which she should care about (actually bad, feels Sue-ish).

A raisin every time she shows more tolerance towards a random sidequest NPC than her fire-forged friends. Or any other time the open world format directly contradicts her story-mandated urgency and stress.

A raisin for the part where the returning characters were hyped up pre-launch, but then they sit around on their ipads for most of the game.

A raisin for the writers cramming what should have been the plots of two games into one, making both story threads suffer from underdevelopment.

And so on.

But yet, some parts can be safely torn out with no raisin blemishes, and they are still made of delicious cinnamon roll. The art teams and music team nailed it. The approach to the Cauldrons/Tallnecks took a huge leap forward, with Cauldron Iota of course being a standout moment. I still loved many of the quests and interactions dearly, all the new machines are sick as heck, there were just… raisins of various sizes floating around the edges, preventing me from enjoying the dish as fully as I had hoped. More than I can comfortably overlook, as I could the handful of problems I had with Zero Dawn.

It just makes me want to get fanworkin’, to aggressively pick out the raisins in my headcanon at least. It’s so close to being good in many places - just rearrange the pieces and smooth out the jank. And don’t kill my good boy just for shock value :’| at least make it really mean something

I drew Aloy… again! I love how she looks with headbands. What’s your favorite outfit?