COLD CUT, WARM DAEMON
The first and only DLC for Horizon Zero Dawn, titled The Frozen Wilds, is a solid, ambitious offering from Guerrilla Games. We once again get to walk a mile in the shoes of the flame-haired, crafty heroine Aloy (voiced by Ashly Burch), as she learns of some trouble brewing in a new, previously sealed-off part of her robot-infested open world.
The new content opens up the northeastern section of the map, introducing the player to The Cut, the snowy, mountainous homelands of the Banuk tribes. Used to living under harsh conditions, they take pride in testing their mettle against the forces of the land. And while not ignorant of the dangers it poses, they fear the consequences of not building up their strength and resolve even more.
Their lands are only as beautiful as they are dangerous, with freezing cold, near pitch-black nights and treacherous mountain paths skimming the edges of crags and glaciers. A few deadly, new machines guard certain areas, controlled by a malignant force called "The Daemon". As you arrive, one of the Banuk tribes are counting their losses after a bad encounter with said daemon. It's up to Aloy to find a way to stop it. Relucantly, the tribe accepts your assistance.
Although a fine, well-made DLC, The Frozen Wilds cannot quite escape the inherent pitfalls of any expansion that gets stuffed into the main campaign - namely the question of when the heck you're supposed to tackle it in the timeline.
It becomes available halfway through the main story, but if you go there straight away, it raises the combat difficulty by leaps and bounds. But going there when you are at an appropriate level, at the end of the game, ruins the urgency of the final assault. This is always the dilemma of cramming too much new stuff into a pre-existing story. No matter where you put it, that section gets overloaded.
Apart from the expanded map, new story missions and tougher enemies, you get a few new bows and armor sets, which are almost required to take on the new threat. Combat in The Frozen Wilds is more steered towards status effects like burning and freezing than previously, making a lot of your old equipment useless. This is a shame. Traps and tripwires hardly affect the daemonic beasts, nor does backstabbing and critical melee strikes. And Daemon incorruptibility means you can no longer reprogram machines to fight for you. This removes a lot of optional strategies, and some of the fun.
The final boss fight of Frozen Wilds is crazy long, intense and difficult. I got "lucky" enough that the creature glitched out halfway through, somehow becoming frozen (pun not intended) in place as I peppered it with arrows and bombs. Since I hadn't saved in a long time, and didn't want to risk losing a lot of progress by reloading, I let it slide. "Luckily", a handful of specimens got added onto the world map afterwards, giving me a few shots to beat them fair and square later.
To help along the way, your level cap is raised, and with it comes a couple of new skill trees. But I'm somewhat skeptical of their usefulness, at least within this new region. How about some new horseback abilities in a land not suitable for steeds? You've got it. Want an ability to repair damaged, friendly machines in a land where you can't even make them friendly? You've got it. The only good new skills expand your carrying capacity, a welcome but lacklustre improvement.
If the Frozen Wilds gameplay feels like a slight let-down, the exploration and storytelling is every bit as good as the main game. The touching main quest introduces a couple of great Banuk characters with a compelling, heartfelt rivalry. It tells a short story about a chief and a shaman quarrelling over how to best deal with the daemonic threat, and which one of them that's earned the right to face it.
And the new sidequests are fascinating insights into a culture that we originally only got to know in passing. We get tidbits of ancient world lore that expands on the crisis of the main game. And there's some additional info - not much, but sufficient - on Sylens, the mysterious fellow assisting Aloy throughout the main campaign.
The already stellar visuals have also received a facelift. I like Aloy's new animation of plunging through knee-deep layers of snow, and the in-dialogue facial animations are slightly improved. But I disagree with how underdressed people in popular fiction tend to be in cold climates. Short sleeves in freezing temperatures? Bare skin? A bandana for headgear? In a game partly claiming to be about survival, that is bonkers. Maybe the bluegleam stitched into the Banuk's skin protects them. As for Aloy, she shouldn't get away with flexing her toned muscles this way.
Apart from that, The Frozen Wilds does a great job of depicting the climes of the north. The lands might be inhospitable, but the snow and the aurora borealis gleams comforting in the dead of night. It's easy to understand why the Banuk cling to their philosophies to find reasons to stay. The haunting audio design occasionally echoes of the Banuk spirituality, for instance as you enter their domains and a sharp warning from their horns informs you to be on your best behavior.
If the main game made spiritual belief seem reactionary, simple-minded or even evil, The Frozen Wilds provides a welcome, more reasonable insight on such a worldview. The Banuk are proud, but not dead-set in their ways, and mainly use their philosophies as a means to survive. Once Aloy proves her worth, they'll listen to reason, and they'll listen well.
The DLC is a mysterious venture into a new territory, connecting neatly with the themes of the main game and filling some of the gaps in the established lore. If you can squeeze the 10-15 hours needed to complete it in there, I think you'll find it a rewarding offshoot. And in the end, you might find the Banuk a formidable new ally to combat the encroaching threat of the main campaign's villains.
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