I have lost weekends to Horizon Zero Dawn. I’d start playing in the afternoon after my chores were done (like I’m sixteen again), and the next thing I’d know, my husband is asking what I want to do about dinner. Then after dinner I’d resume play, only to realize I’m exhausted. What time is it? I just started an hour ago. Oh, it’s midnight. Where did that time go?
Well, I’ll tell you.
I took it upon myself to do virtually all of the overworld stuff before getting too far into the story missions. Basically, I’d see a story mission that’s oh-so-far away, so I killed time (and plenty of machines) along the way. Cleared out bandit camps. Explored cauldrons. Climbed Tallnecks. Crafted all the things. Cleared corrupted zones. And of course, completed every side quest (!) that popped up along the way.
Almost. Completed almost every side quest along the way. I hate the Hunting Grounds challenges with a passion, so I did enough to get into the Hunter’s Lodge and promptly shunned the rest. I realize this means I won’t get the Platinum trophy, but I hate them so much, it’s not worth it.
But because of all of this adventuring, I didn’t really progress the story at all until I was level 40. Now, all I have left are story missions, and I know I’m near the end of them. I have the ultimate override, I know what happened to the Old Ones, and it’s time to hunt down the Big Bad. While I’m extremely overpowered for the story missions at this point, I have to say that the side quests do not mess around. Even though I’m ten levels over the recommendation for the later corruption zones, the corrupted Rockbreakers are no joke.
Not to mention, that Hunter’s Lodge side quest to hunt down a Stormbird? Holy HELL. Thank God I was wearing the ultima armor, or I would have gone through all of my medicinal reserves. I’d rather fight two or three corrupted Thunderjaws alone than deal with another Stormbird. It didn’t matter how many ropes I used to tie him down. The fucker always found a way to break free and stay on my back. I’ve yelled, “Get off me!” less when fighting Sawtooths.
I should finish this weekend. I plan to pull the Mother’s Day weekend card to get solo time to play and finish it. After that, I need to find a non-open world game to play before I move on to NieR:Automata. Which, after looking at my unplayed library, points to Mortal Kombat 11 as practically my only option.
[…] gameplay was just as enjoyable as the story. I spent countless hours hunting machines, completing side quests, gathering collectibles, and crafting everything. The […]