Horizon Zero Dawn Forbidden West and DLC SPOILERS Thread

Haha. Here is my encounter with a buggy Tideripper, I even slowed down the GIF speed.  I'm hiding behind a wall, and I see the Tideripper's head appear over the top, frantically looking back and worth like a mother that's lost its young. I started laughing in the middle of the fight, it must've really wanted Aloy dead. LOL.

I only got to "play" for an hour today, and even that was spread across two hours by constant interruptions. Ugh. It's frustrating, given that I'm at the very end of the game.

So, it looks like I'll begin tomorrow by launching the final story quest.


My PS4 PRO just shut down last night while I was saving. Fortunately, everything seems okay today. The console attributed the shutdown to a software error. Usually, the intrinsic software is called firmware, so I'm not sure if it means a PS4 issue or a HFW issue. I hope it's the last time that happens. I was concerned that my PS4 had just died. I'm ready to get a PS5, but they're still nearly impossible to get. Moreover, I'd hate to potentially lose all my save data for my many games.

EDIT: A quick Google search revealed that this crash isn't unique with HFW. It's happened to enough people that I found some thorough troubleshooting on a tech site.

I've definitely experienced some bugs with this game, but most have been the typical stuff one encounters in a vast open world. I hope I don't experience the crash again. It's a hard shutdown.

I completed the game a couple of hours ago. It was good. I enjoyed it beginning to end.

I still have stuff to complete. I'm only 80% on trophies. In addition to the Pits, Hunting Grounds, and Strike, I also have the "kill all combat machines" left to achieve. I can only guess that one must kill every variant and/or an Apex version of each since I've definitely destroyed multiple units of each combat machine.

Rather than chasing that trophy right away, I'll finish the Arena challenges, of which I have two more tiers, and then hunt for materials for upgrades. If any machine variants remain at that point, I'll be a bit surprised.

I'm looking forward to continuing my gameplay. I still have a few aquatic areas to go back and explore, in addition to all the stuff above. I also have two Kratos idols to recover to get that face paint.

I only fully upgraded my green/common gear, as they're super cheap and easy. I never upgraded any blue/rare beyond one level. I did the same for purples/very rares, nothing past one upgrade. I will upgrade some Very Rares at some point since the Legendaries alone don't cover every need.

For my Legendaries, I have one level on my Thunder Warrior Armor and three on my Death-Seeker's Shadow hunter bow. I have a very long way to go. 😆 I imagine that upgrading gear will stretch across a lot of play and even into NG+.

The Oseram Artificer armor is a melee beast. We still have to beware the crazy close-range attacks that most big machines have, but we can definitely bring good melee damage with that armor.


Bad news for me on trophies. I checked my progress, and I definitely defeated every combat machine in the game no less than three times, and dozens of times in some cases. The only such machines not listed in my progress chart are the three "secret" machines. Obviously, I definitely defeated those as well.

So, it looks like I got victimized by a bug on that trophy. I probably won't be getting it on this playthrough. That sort of diminished my urgency to wrap up the other stuff to get my Platinum. I am still eager to do the races and pit fights, but not particularly interested in Strike.

Also, if you scan a machine and then die, you have to scan it again. I'm pretty sure I made that mistake with the first Grimhorn encounter.

I'm now replaying Horizon Zero Dawn and got to a quest involving a Tenakth warrior. I had forgotten the tribe was already introduced in the first game, even if it's just a single member.

For those interested, this video helped me raise my completion percentage. I raised my percentage from 95.78 to 98.32


Someone completed the game under 2.5 hours. Very impressive.

Did you beat all the Machine Strike players as well?

Kappa Neko, I'd not stress getting any non-Legendary gear upgraded. Save your time and resources. Even upgrading your Legendary gear will extend into the post-game. They're powerful enough that they're by far the best items in the game, even with no upgrades.

There are 9 Legendary weapons:
4 from the Arena
1 for completing all races
1 for mastering all hunting grounds
1 for completing a very late game quest in SF
1 for turning in all the Ornaments
1 for completing all rebel camps

There are 3 Legendary armors at the Arena; others can be bought in Thornmarsh, and the Oseram Artificer can be gotten by completing all Salvage Contracts.


My initial playstyle is always ranged, and the best Legendary Hunter armor is the Nora Thunder Warrior. You can get it pretty quickly from the Arena.

The three bows at the Arena will make the game suddenly feel easy. They do way more damage. The superior ammo can more or less instantly apply elemental effects. I sniped an Apex Fireclaw in one-shot earlier, and an Apex Slitherfang in three shots. (More on these later.) I'd strongly recommend getting the two hunter bows and the Sharpshot bow ASAP.


I Platinumed the game today. Killing the secret machines in the Arena made the "killed all combat machines" pop.

I completed the Arena and bought all the stock. I got Full Stripes at all of the Hunting Grounds. I defeated The Enduring. (The guy in Thornmarsh was tougher, in my opinion.) I won all races and was doubly, maybe even triply pleased!

I have purchased nearly every obtainable armor. If there's ever transmog, I'm covered. More importantly, I've begun upgrading particular gear to unlock their weaves for universal use.

I read over my skills and gear with the goal of nailing down a tactic that might make my big game hunting go faster. I came up with the following:

Tenakth Recon Armor (purple, buy in Thornmarsh)
* this gives a damage bonus for mounted archer

Stalker Stealth Valor Surge (can't recall the actual name)
* gives a 200% damage bonus for being hidden

Forgefall Sharpshot Bow (from the Arena)
* this thing does a ton of damage
* coils for long range damage

I triggered my Valor Surge, hopped onto my Clawstrider, and shot the tailend of an Apex Scorcher for 5800+ damage. One-shot kill.

I tried the same on a Slitherfang but must've missed the weak point. It still did around 1800 damage. Two more shots dropped it.

I had to load an earlier save after the Slitherfang, though. My 35000 shards had suddenly dropped to zero! WTF?!? I loaded a save from about 15 minutes earlier and fortunately avoided what would've been a save-destroying bug for me.

I've completed every quest in the game and still lack 10 skill points. I know playing more Strike could get me more. It sounds like replaying some Arena challeges would get me there pretty quickly, and I'd prefer the latter.

Really QTE's in this day and age, that's enough to make me not play that whole part of the game when it comes out on PC and Arenas in general I hate. Odyssey was OK once you'd finished the game and had good gear and abilities but sounds like there are good weapons you'd want to get early on.

I'll also add to the above posts by saying how easy the Hunting Grounds are in Forbidden West.

In Zero Dawn, there were some challenges that required perfect execution in order to get a Blazing Sun. In FW, getting Full Stripes (the best rating) was pretty easy for every single challenge.

I rarely attempt every challenge upon first discovering each Hunting Ground. I do any easy ones and then return to mop up the others once my gear and/or health bar is improved.

There were a lot of very easy Full Stripes in FW. The "sneaky/stealthy" trials near Plainsong, for instance, could have easily been done by Aloy in the Daunt (the starting zone). Those are easy medals that can be turned in at the Arena for some decent mid-game gear.

Conversely, I didn't even bother with one of the challenges in the Daunt until much later. I thought, "I'll get gear later that will make this trivially easy." Sure enough, I eventually had a bow that could one-shot electrocute machines. I pick my battles, balancing gains versus annoyance. Eventually, everything will be easy.