Horizon 3 Still Has an Ace Up Its Sleeve to Revolutionize…

Over the course of Horizon’s eight-year-long existence, the post-apocalyptic franchise has evolved and expanded in a variety of ways. While Horizon started as a single-player, third-person, open-world, action-adventure game, the franchise has expanded to other gameplay formats and genres in recent years, via the virtual reality Horizon Call of the Mountain and the co-op, isometric LEGO Horizon Adventures. Meanwhile, 2022’s Horizon Forbidden West built off of the engaging gameplay of Horizon Zero Dawn in several ways, adding new animalistic machines, improved puzzles, the Shieldwing glider, and the grappling hook-like Pullcaster. However, there’s still one area of gameplay Guerrilla Games could improve upon in a follow-up to Forbidden West: melee combat.

Horizon’s Melee Combat, Explained

aloy spear night horizon zero dawn — horizon zero dawn aloy spear

Horizon Zero Dawn’s melee combat system is fairly basic, especially when compared to the wide variety of ranged weaponry Aloy can use to dispose of violent tribal soldiers and rogue animalistic and ancient war machines. Essentially, the game's melee combat centers around simply jabbing and smacking enemies with Aloy’s spear or using the spear to perform silent strikes. While it can be briefly switched for Sylen’s Lance towards the end of the main questline, adding a bit of Shock damage to melee attacks, the spear in Zero Dawn doesn’t offer any complex melee combos and cannot be replaced with any other melee weapon. This is despite numerous characters and NPCs in Zero Dawn being seen wielding axes, batons, swords, and warhammers.

While most of Horizon’s combat is focused on ranged attacks against gigantic animalistic machines, Guerrilla sought to improve upon Zero Dawn’s melee combat in Horizon Forbidden West. In this sequel, Aloy is still restricted to only using a spear in melee scenarios, but her spear abilities are greatly expanded upon thanks to new melee attack combos and a redesigned skill tree. For example, players can unlock an active skill called Elemental Spear, which will cause Aloy’s spear to deal elemental damage by attaching elemental capsules from the Hunter's Kit. Forbidden West additionally introduced Valor Surges that, after performing a certain number of consecutive attacks, can be used to activate powerful abilities such as Melee Might, which temporarily boosts melee damage from Aloy’s spear.

Horizon 3’s Potential Melee Expansion

horizon forbidden west valor surge cinematic — horizon forbidden west aloy valor surge cinematic

Horizon Forbidden West’s Warrior skill tree and Valor Surges were solid steps towards finding a better balance between Horizon’s melee combat and its ranged combat, but there’s more Guerrilla can do to improve melee scenarios in Horizon 3. One potential way Guerrilla could expand melee combat in Horizon is by allowing Aloy to use other melee weapons besides her spear. The spear is Aloy’s signature weapon, akin to Master Chief and his Assault Rifle or Marcus Fenix and his Mark 2 Lancer Assault Rifle, but there are endless gameplay and narrative opportunities for Aloy to use other weapons.

For instance, an event could take place in Horizon 3 wherein Aloy’s trusty spear is destroyed beyond repair, but Erend could be nearby and provide her with an Oseram warhammer to help her in battle. Aloy could simply attach the override module to the base of the warhammer and begin attacking enemies with heavy warhammer attacks similar to those seen in LEGO Horizon Adventures. By allowing Aloy to use other melee weapons, Guerrilla could greatly expand Horizon 3’s skill trees and better diversify gameplay scenarios and player customization. A warhammer may allow players to deal more damage to machines and humans, but it could restrict them from performing certain stealth attacks that a spear may be better used for.

Horizon 3’s Alternate Melee Weapons

Similarly, the third mainline Horizon game could allow Aloy to use axes, daggers, swords, sickles, and more, each of which could have unique weaknesses and strengths. For example, a sword may be extremely deadly against humans in head-to-head combat but be somewhat ineffective against large machines with tough armor. An axe could be temporarily thrown like the Leviathan Axe from God of War but be slower to use, akin to a warhammer. Daggers could be the best weapon to use in stealth scenarios against humans, similar to Assassin’s Creed’s Hidden Blade, but be essentially useless against machines. All of these weapons could grant players more control over how they want to play through Horizon 3 and increase the game's replayability.

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