Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores Review: Gameplay Impressions and Videos

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is the first major expansion to the 2022 smash hit from developer Guerrilla Games.

That game established the Horizon series as an industry standard in presentation and storytelling atop distinct, bold combat systems to stunning results.

A little more than a year later, Burning Shores aims to do the same thing.

While many years of lackluster or skippable DLCs have conditioned gamers to turn a skeptical eye on paid post-launch content, Burning Shores' insistence on improving the experience and driving the narrative forward in must-see-fashion means it is not a run-of-the-mill DLC offering.

Graphics and Gameplay

Forbidden West was easily one of the best-looking experiences ever in the medium. The line between cutscene and gameplay was often fully blurred, be it during gameplay or cutscenes with impressively realistic characters and emotions or in the world that offered a noticeable contrast between the lush foliage of a post-apocalypse life and the technological beasts that roamed it.

Burning Shores manages to look even better. The contrast this time is one between not just nature and technology, but of a beautiful island-nature blend sliced up by the magma-riddled aftermath of volcanic activity.

It's been said before, but there is nothing in gaming like Horizon's setting and Burning Shores is no exception. Human encampments have been relegated to a mostly prehistoric state, while running off into the wildlife Aloy will encounter all manner of robotic beats with flashing lights reflecting off the brown mud like the RGB displays of a custom-built PC.

The physics continue to stun, too, be it the oddly realistic sway of hair and cloth or in the way humans carry their momentum, stop and start and even recover from a fall.

The photorealistic nature of it all, including faces that somehow look even better, means the DLC is blatantly exclusive to a next-generation console on the PlayStation 5. Again, the production values of "cutscenes" are off the charts, as the camera pans away to capture a whole scene, letting the characters walk around and emote naturally and interact with the environment while they talk.

The broken-up archipelago of Los Angeles is very similar to the San Francisco portion of the base game's map, both visually and in terms of size.

Fittingly, on multiple levels—that was arguably the most memorable location from the base game, so taking that vibe, adding a splash of lava to fit the burning moniker and keeping the same stunning graphical detail and fidelity was a no-brainer for add-on content.

Aloy will again use the environment against the largest of machine enemies, this time even collapsing entire ruins atop foes in a chaotic, dusty display of graphical horsepower, equipped with the engrossing sound feedback to boot.

Like the base game, the sound design has few equals in the industry. The voice acting is the best out there and the ambiance of nature, feedback of various weapons and the sheer ground-shaking chaos of fighting metallic behemoths—complete with creative feedback from the PS5 controller—is as immersive as it gets.

Players will also use the environment for traversal in refreshing new ways, like riding the massive wave of a geyser for air time. This area is designed incredibly well vertically with flying in mind, given players don't unlock flight until late in the base game. Going from as high up as possible to seamlessly diving to the depths of the ocean makes exploration addicting in a good way, to say the least.

Enemy design, perhaps the most unique aspect of the series amid the open-world-isms found within, again travels along the nature-based path. This time, there is even a giant robotic toad (technically called a Bilegut, which is hilariously fitting) that spits acid at the player while hopping about the scene of battle.

Combat, which is again a brilliant layering-on of systems that boils down to finding a beast's weak point with a massive list of creative weapons, is again a blast.

Like the base game, open-world gameplay elements include collectibles, puzzles and a few other things that remain fun to tackle, largely while checking off must-see items like the Hollywood sign.

One very impressive aspect of Burning Shores that might not get as much attention is the superb A.I. work of Aloy's companion. She's very helpful in combat and many of the puzzles and game design elements task her with executing her half of the task and she always does so well. It's almost as if the DLC is laying the groundwork for Horizon 3 to be a full-blown co-op experience—and this is very much a fantastic first test run.

If there's a minor gameplay critique worth raising, it's that players who took a break from Forbidden West and returning now don't get much of an onboarding process. Hopping back into a 60-plus hour save file in some cases after all that time learning the systems and combat isn't simple.

But even that is a minor gripe on what is, like the base installment, one of the best-playing and immersive experiences in gaming today.

Story and More

To keep things spoiler-free, the DLC finds Aloy summoned to L.A. in the aftermath of the main campaign in search of things to help sort out the base game's conclusion.

The real star of this expansion is Aloy's new companion, Seyka. She's a nice complement to Aloy in that almost abrasive loner role, though they both organically open up more toward each other as their journey continues. Fitting, considering much of the base game's story was Aloy learning repeated lessons in leaning on others instead of doing everything herself.

Seyka hails from the Quen tribe, one of the most interesting narrative points from the base game. There, Aloy meets the shipwrecked expeditioners in San Francisco and finds out they seek answers to catastrophes such as flooding and drought. Here, Aloy meets another expedition in Los Angeles and players learn why Seyka feels like a bit of a loner and how her goals mesh or conflict with Aloy's mission.

This being a DLC, the story does feel like it goes by too fast, almost as if Aloy's continued character development was slated for a full-length sequel before being squashed into this bite-sized offering. A similar narrative gripe exists for the antagonist, Walter Londra. He steals the show when on screen and hints at being an amazing foil, but he's there far too little time to invest in it.

The DLC does add some legs to what it offers via open-world items again.

Pursuits like Relic Ruins, Cauldron and more command time in a way that is rewarding, both in terms of completion bonuses and simply spending more time in the stunning, unique world. It's a joy to uncover the little communities that have popped up in this part of the re-birthed world too, to see how they're getting by and to even stumble upon some very recognizable real-world landmarks lost to time—and even some new ones (like the giant Dinosaur park) that have since been created.

Aloy's abilities have evolved too thanks to new additions to the base skill tree. Some of these fit nicely into the world while also serving as must-have gap-fillers, like the grapple execution skill that finally lets players close the gap on downed enemies quickly.

There's a nice balance established, considering players who reach the DLC have spent a long, long time investing in the six different skill trees. Where new skills tacked on to these could feel redundant as a result, they're creative enough to stand out as necessary expenditures.

Burning Shores also adds new currencies, crafting items and outfits, a checklist sort of note that hits all the right DLC boxes.

As a strictly next-generation effort, 99 percent of the time the game runs perfectly. It's refreshing at a time when other games have struggled to find that balance between a 60 frames-per-second goal and next-gen graphics. Burning Shores somehow manages to sprint across that tightrope without nay an off-kilter moment to either side.

In this way and others mentioned, the DLC seems ahead of its time, both as an example of what next-gen gaming hardware can achieve and as a standard for what DLCs should be.

Conclusion

Some DLCs feel optional. Burning Shores is not one of them. The locale might be the best we've seen in a Horizon game to date, a line of thought that also applies to the final setpiece.

Similar vibe for Aloy's character development and the quick narrative. This isn't a side story—more of a bridge to the inevitable sequel.

Along the way, Burning Shores sets the bar high for DLCs throughout the industry while further raising it for what next-generation games can be. The open-world checklist items won't re-win-over fatigued players on that front, but even just sticking to the narrative is a must-do for fans of the series and likely many newcomers alike.

If there's a complaint, it's that Burning Shores is too short. Given the quality though, it's almost a good problem for the game to have. Tack the experience on to the end of its classic base game and the entry cements itself as one of the best releases of the last decade-plus.