Horizon Forbidden West is here. The long-awaited follow-up to Zero Dawn that puts us back in the shoes of the heroic Aloy as she embarks on a treacherous journey to uncover the truth about another threat poised to destroy her homeland... and the world.

The game has enjoyed a largely positive reception; the VG247 review gave the title a 4/5, and critical consensus seemed to land around the same number once all the varying viewpoints were accounted for.

The game, generally, is pretty easy. But there are few key tricks and tips that you should know before you rush head-first into battle with a giant Thunderjaw or something and get your arse squarely handed to you. As an open world game, Forbidden West gives you a lot of choice about how you approach various tasks, so you can quite easily find yourself overpowered and batting off machines without pause if you do a few simple things towards the start of the whole experience.

With that in mind, please find a list of 15 things I wish I knew about Horizon Forbidden West below – and if there's anything I've missed, or you know of any neat little tricks to make the game a little bit easier yourself, don't forget to drop your advice in the comments.

• Don't autosell at vendors: This one is pretty simple; when you meet a merchant in the world, you will have a 'Sell All' prompt in a portion of your item bag that's supposedly marked as 'safe to sell'. It is not; items like Processed Metal Blocks, various Machine Hearts, and animal components all have other uses outside of selling for cash. You're better selling items manually; anything with the word 'Ancient' or 'Ingot' is fair game, but other items typically have other uses beyond the small amount of cash you get for selling them.
• Always start encounters from stealth: Except in very specific circumstances, you’re going to be able to start most fights from a vantage point, or when hidden in those wavy red plants that Guerrilla loves so much. Make use of this; set up traps, line up powerful (but slow) precision shots with your Sharpshooter bow and target machine weak points before combat begins proper. You can usually thin out the herd and most encounters easier for yourself this way. Don't charge in head-first; stealth makes things quicker in the long run.
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• Know when to run away from a fight:As you progress into the second part of the game, you’re going to start coming across machines that are far more powerful than you are in the open world. Know when to run, and don’t be ashamed of hightailing it from an Apex Shellsnapper when you’re only level 23, or something. No-one will judge you, and you're not going to die a miserable death and lose progression. Even if you do take down something much higher level than you (which you can check by examining a machine with a long press of R3), you likely won't need their parts for a while. Play it safe, come back when you've got better gear or are stronger.
• You don’t have to plan your fights in real-time: If you're tired of trying to digest information in a battle and getting hit by projectiles, don't fear; when you're scanning, simply hit the touch-pad, then use the menus to browse enemy weak-spots and see what items you can get for detaching certain parts without destroying them. Use this to take stock, examine which elemental effects will work best per encounter, and research what parts can break if you go in too gung-ho. What’s the point in seeking out and taking down a Thunderjaw if you kill it without taking off its tail first, eh?

• Don't neglect traps: Earlier on in the game, you're going to find some weapons just aren't up to snuff for taking down machines – especially aerial ones like the Sunwing or Thunderbird. Around this point, you'll start getting 'vertical' traps; planting these and using them to knock aerial enemies out the sky makes these early encounters much easier. Plant traps and lead bigger machines into them, and you'll have a much easier time overall.
• Never stop tracking and killing animals: As well as big machines, Forbidden West has loads of actual animals in the game, too. Make a point of holding R3 when you enter a new area to scan, and look for glowing orange animals – shooting them with a weak arrow will ususally kill them, and from there you can harvest parts you'll need for many, many pouch upgrades. The more ammo you can carry later in the game, the better a hunter you're going to be. And you'll need to kill lots of animals for that. Make a habit of scanning/harvesting parts every time you enter a new biome.
• Don’t be precious about your weapons: Until later in the game, you're not going to have a solid set of weapons that will work for every encounter. Instead, you'll have an array of arms, each with their own elemental proficiency. You can swap these out in battle, no effort. So if a battle with a Widemaw isn't going your way, maybe swap out that Fire Blastslinger for a Thunder Warrior Bow, and see if you have a better time.
• It's worth going through your coils: Yes, the inventory system in Horizon Forbidden West is a bit of a mess. But it's worth browsing your coils and armour weaves regularly to see if there's anything that can help confer more damage per shot, or soak up elemental damage if you keep getting covered in acid. Generally speaking, the best weapon coils are ones that increase overall damage, overdraw damage, allow quicker shots, or do more damage from stealth.

• Do side missions as they come up: It may seem obvious, but hoovering up side missions as they come up – especially earlier on in the game – is a surefire way to get overlevelled and set up with a surplus of skill points. The missions are usually quick-and-easy go-here-do-this type affairs, and you get more cash in the process. This becomes less recommended later on as the world opens up, but in the first two main areas, you should absolutely do everything you can.
• Don’t overlook Valor Surges: Valor Surges are a new mechanic in Forbidden West that are basically temporary buffs that can be activated once you've done enough cool shit to power them up (hitting things, killing things, getting hit by things, and so on). Don't overlook these; being able to perform one killer shot, or giving yourself health regen, or knowing your next shot will take off a machine's weapon is an essential bit of your survival skillset. Get to know your Surges, and plan accordingly.
• Specialise in one skill tree early, diversify later: Skill points aren't exactly at a premium in Forbidden West, but even so, it helps to really double down on one skill tree early and then spread your wings later. I opted for melee and ranged specialties early-game, which gave me the upper hand in most battles from then on – as I started powering up stealth and survivalism elements to make my sneaking and healing more effective. This will be different for everyone, but later skill tree Valor Surges and skills are pretty good, so you're going to want to get them as soon as possible.
• Explosive spikes are your best friend: Early in the game, at Barren Light, you'll have the option to help some sisters that want to make an explosive javelin thrower. Do it. Right away. Once you have this weapon, it can blast off machine armour, provide a lot of knockdown power, and deal massive damage all in one go. Later, you can get an upgraded version of this weapon for completing Hunting Ground missions. It never left my weapon wheel. Not once. Just be aware using explosives can destroy key machine parts you may need for upgrades.

• Seek out melee pits, learn to fight: There are some fairly advanced melee techniques you can pick up in the left-most skill tree in Forbidden West, but they're not always the most well-explained unlocks. Seek out melee pits (there are four overall). Here, you'll learn how to actually use melee properly in Forbidden West. You can pretty much finish the game without even using it once, but it's handy to have the toolset if things get dicey. Plus, doing all of them and one bonus mission at the end gives you a permanent melee damage boost, too.

• Ignore metal flowers and walls with red bloom on them: Story-related things will happen – quite late! – that give you access to various locations locked away with either metal flowers or Firegleam. The game is happy to very often plonk progression-halting things in your way. Don't worry, you'll be able to come back and deal with this stuff later. If you see something like that in your way before you've uncovered basically the whole map, you probably need to go in another direction.

• Make use of potions and food: A fairly cumbersome Monster Hunter-like item menu on the left of the UI will hide a variety of items: make use of it. Whether it's food you can get from chefs in settlements or potions you can craft and pick up pretty much across the whole map, these items can either over-heal you and give you more HP, or confer other buffs that make it easier to break off parts or resist elemental blight.

For even more guidance on Aloy's new mission, check out our full Horizon Forbidden West guide.

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