Horizon: Call of the Mountain has a pretty tough job of following the amazing Horizon Forbidden West, which got an insane amount of popularity. The game is designed to help launch Sony’s new Playstation VR 2 into the world of virtual reality gaming.

This new Horizon game puts less of a focus on the expansive storyline that Forbidden West had and puts more of their energy into all the sights that you’ll be able to enjoy, whilst you’re playing the game. Thanks to how remarkable this game is technically it just allows you to enjoy the amazing amount of excitement that you get during the exhilarating combat.

Once you get a taste for the combat in this game you will be thirsting for more and will be sad that the rest of the game is more of a relaxed pace. However, the good thing about it being so relaxed is that you will get even more time to take in the beautiful world that you are set in. so while you’re playing the game you’ll be able to enjoy everything all the time. 

Once you lay your eyes on your first creature in this game you will be absolutely star struck by some of the creatures, not only are they truly beautiful but in the first-person perspective their size will be huge and emphasise their true size. Not only does the first-person perspective make the creatures look very life-like but thanks to the haptic feedback that the controllers and the headsets send to you, you actually feel like you are in this world and are able to feel every step of massive machines that pass by. This game puts the PS VR2 in a great light and shows off exactly what this headset is capable of, down to all the small details. 

As you work through this game’s 6 hour campaign, you’ll get to experience the original Horzion’s gameplay boiled down to an overall much more manageable set of tools so that you are able to handle it in VR. In this game you’ll get to experience everything from puzzles, needing to be solved, to taking down hostile machines, in some exciting combat. The main difference that you’ll notice with this game is that the experience is very linear  in comparison to the Zero Dawn and Forbidden West games, which are a vast open world game. 

Story

The story is okay but definitely not on the same level as the previous two Horizon games, this is partly thanks to the fact that they are more focused on fun cameos rather than having a layered tale. In this campaign you play as a character named Ryas, rather than playing as Aloy. Ryas is a rebel, part of the Shadow Carja, and you’ll have the chance to join him on a series of tasks that he has to do in order to atone for all of his crimes.

All the internal monologues that he has are smartly limited so that all the voices in your head don’t become too much for you and start to distract you from experiencing the beautiful world that you are in. Then of course as you get deeper into the story of this fame it becomes more and more engaging, thanks to the action increasing not only in quantity but in quality as well, as you’ll have to think of smarter ways to fight your more powerful opponents. 

Then when you aren’t playing the main story you will have the opportunity to explore at your free will, whether that be your home base, to take a closer look at all the artefacts that you have collected during your adventures or just chat with people that you have befriended. There is also a mode that you can play, called the safari mode, where you get to embark on a boat cruise where Horizon will show off some of their bestiary in their natural habitats. 

The VR experience

There are two different types of movement options that you will be able to play with in this game, the first one being a “gesture”-based system, which basically means that when you want to move around you will just have to hold two buttons and walk in place with your arms, and the second option is the more common analog stick-based system.

Although both of these different types of movement options do come with pros as well as cons, the gesture-based system does tend to be the preferred one, amongst the players. For new players that haven’t really tried out this gesture-based system before, it will take a bit of time to actually get used to it but once you do get the hang of it it becomes very fun and will make you feel a lot less nauseous after playing for extended periods of time. 

Gameplay

A lot of the gameplay that you’ll be doing in the beginning of the game will be climbing, especially in the early stages of the game. Even though the climbing isn’t too challenging it does tend to get pretty boring, reaching for handhold after handhold. So you should be expecting this type of gameplay to be pretty beginning, at least in the beginning before you acquire cool tools to help you climb, such as the grappling Grabcaster. Using this new piece of equipment immerses you into the climbing experience a lot more, with all the wind swirling around your ears and music swelling as you reach the peak. 

Definitely the most enjoyable gameplay moment for most players is getting to battle against machines in mini arenas in a sort of gladiatorial battle style. This is the type of gameplay where you are most likely to lose yourself the most in and for a moment even forget which era of Earth you are actually living in. 

The combat

As you are fighting against the unfriendly machines, with the famous Horizon bow and arrow, it will really show off the PS VR2’s amazing eyeball tracking tech, which you will definitely be using to try and hit your enemies weak points. It isn’t just the attacking that makes up the immersive combat in this game, but you will have to dodge any melee attacks and projectiles that may be coming your way, meaning that you will have to be on your toes at all times. 

As you progress in the game and find yourself going up against stronger foes, naturally your arsenal will expand as you will need more firepower to take these colossal machines down. As you gradually become more experienced and get better gear, the battles will also become even more exciting, the huge Thunderjaw, for example, is a battle highlight for many players.

The combat aspect of this game goes even deeper than just the battle itself, as the machines get more dangerous you will have to even prepare for your battles. One way that you can prepare for a battle is by using the crafting system to craft different types of elemental arrows by attaching things like various arrowheads or explosives. 

Final Thoughts

The Horizon Call of the Mountain is a great first blockbuster-scale entry into the new PS VR2 library, and showcases all the amazing features that this new headset has through the monotonous climbing mechanics. This game is a step in the right direction for Horizon stepping into the virtual reality world and is one that is packed with loads of excitement and adventures. So if you are someone that enjoyed the previous two Horizon stories, this one is definitely an essential chapter of the Horizon story that you shouldn’t miss.