Horizon Forbidden West beginner guide: everything a new player needs to know

• Playing the original Horizon Zero Dawn first is strongly recommended. Forbidden West assumes you remember who Aloy is, who Sylens is, and what happened to the old world, and the opening hours spend little time re-explaining it.
• Elemental damage is the whole combat system. Every machine has a listed weakness, and matching an arrow's element to that weakness turns a ten-minute fight into a thirty-second one.
• Override a machine before you fight it whenever possible. A friendly Charger or Clawstrider does more damage than most of Aloy's early weapons.
• The skill trees are generous, not exclusive. Aloy can eventually unlock almost everything, so early points should go toward survival and Valor Surges rather than a narrow build.
• Cauldrons are the game's best override upgrades and its best combat-arena dungeons. There are six of them, and skipping them makes every later fight harder than it needs to be.
• The Complete Edition bundles the base game with the Burning Shores expansion; buying the base game alone on PC or PS4 does not include it.
• Burning Shores is a PlayStation 5 exclusive expansion. It never released for PS4, and it requires finishing the main story of Forbidden West first.

Do you need to play Horizon Zero Dawn first?#

Not mechanically. Forbidden West opens with enough context that a player who has never touched the series can follow the plot beat by beat. But the honest answer is that you should play Zero Dawn first if you can, because Forbidden West is a direct sequel that builds its entire second half on relationships and revelations from the first game. Aloy's history with Rost, her falling-out with Sylens, the fate of GAIA and the Zero Dawn project, and the identity of the returning antagonist all land with far more weight if you already know the original story. Skipping it does not lock you out of anything, but it flattens some of the best character writing in the game into exposition you have to take on faith.

If time is the obstacle rather than interest, the Zero Dawn recap built into Forbidden West's early hours and its lore collectibles cover the plot mechanically. What they cannot replicate is the feeling of having earned those relationships over forty hours instead of being told about them in a paragraph. If you own Zero Dawn or its Complete Edition on PC, PS4 or PS5, it is worth the twenty-five to thirty hours it takes to finish the main story before starting Forbidden West.

Aloy, her tools and the Focus#

Aloy is once again the only playable character, a hunter of the Nora tribe raised as an outcast and trained by the exiled warrior Rost. Forbidden West picks up shortly after Zero Dawn's ending, with a new, world-ending threat called the Blight spreading across the land alongside the returning danger of HADES. None of that needs memorising before you start; it becomes clear during the opening missions.

The Focus, the small earpiece device Aloy wears, is the single most important tool in the game and the one new players under-use the most. Holding down the Focus button scans the environment for loot, climbable surfaces, quest objectives and, critically, machines: a scanned machine shows its name, its level, its elemental weaknesses, and glowing weak points on its body that take extra damage. Scanning before every unfamiliar fight is not optional flavour, it is the fastest way to know what weapon to pull out.

Two traversal tools unlock early and change how the map feels. The Pullcaster is a mechanical grapple used on specific yellow-marked anchor points to climb structures, pull down barriers, and solve environmental puzzles; it recharges instantly and has no cooldown to worry about. The Shieldwing is a foldable glider salvaged from a Redmaw Thunderjaw fight in the opening hours, deployed from high points to cover distance quickly or survive a fall that would otherwise kill Aloy. A diving mask acquired slightly later removes the time limit on underwater sections, which unlocks several optional areas and even a couple of side quests that are otherwise inaccessible.

Combat basics: stealth, Concentration and dodging#

Before the skill trees and the weapons, three underlying mechanics decide whether a fight goes well, and none of them are explained in much depth by the tutorial missions.

Stealth works on a detection system: tall grass and specific foliage marked with a slightly different shade let Aloy crouch and move without being seen, and a stealth indicator on the HUD shows how visible she currently is. A stealth attack on an unaware human enemy or a smaller machine does drastically more damage than the same attack in the open, often enough to remove a target in one hit. Machines patrol in set routes and have a visible awareness meter that fills as they notice something is wrong, so breaking line of sight resets the search rather than escalating it into a full alert.

Concentration is Aloy's aim-focus mode, triggered by aiming down sights and holding an extra button once unlocked through the Hunter tree. It briefly slows time to line up a called shot on a small or moving weak point, and it consumes a limited resource that recharges over a few seconds rather than being freely available. New players tend to save it for panic moments; the better habit is using it deliberately on the specific weak point or component that ends a fight fastest, such as a canister or a tail blade, rather than on the machine's main body.

Dodging is a directional roll rather than a single dodge-in-place button, and rolling through an attack rather than away from it is usually the safer read, especially against machines with sweeping charge or slam attacks that cover more ground moving forward than backward. Jumping clears low sweeps and shockwaves the same way a roll clears a swing, and combining a jump with an aimed shot mid-air is a legitimate way to land hits that a fully grounded fight would miss.

Weapons and gear you will actually use#

Aloy's arsenal is built around matching a weapon class to a job rather than finding one best weapon and using it for everything. Each weapon type also has multiple ammo variants, called coils, that change its elemental damage, so the same bow can carry Fire arrows for one fight and Frost arrows for the next without swapping weapons.

Armor and outfits work differently from most action games: each outfit has a base set of resistances and a number of weave slots that hold separately purchased or crafted Coils, which is how Aloy's actual defensive stats are built up over the game rather than through outfits alone. A strong early habit is picking one outfit that fits your playstyle, whether that is a stealth-focused set or a balanced one, and investing in Coils for it rather than switching outfits every time a new one appears in a shop.

Difficulty settings and how they change the game#

Horizon Forbidden West has five difficulty settings, selectable at the start of a save and changeable at any time from the pause menu: Story, Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard. Story mode reduces incoming damage drastically and is aimed at players who want the narrative with minimal combat friction; Very Hard increases machine damage and aggression substantially and is intended for a second playthrough or a player already comfortable with the elemental and override systems described above. Normal is the setting the main story and side content are balanced around, and it is the reasonable default for a first run. Changing difficulty mid-game does not reset progress or lock content, so a fight that feels unfair on Hard can simply be dropped to Normal without losing anything.

Skill trees explained#

Aloy earns skill points from levelling up and from Skill Points found in the world, and spends them across six skill trees, each themed around a different way of playing. Nothing here is a permanent choice: point allocation can be reset for free at any Meridian trader Skill Points respec option found in-game, and a fully levelled Aloy eventually clears every tree. The question for a new player is only where to spend points first.

Each tree also unlocks Valor Surges, powerful once-per-cooldown abilities tied to that tree's playstyle, and Weapon Techniques, alternate-fire modes for specific weapon classes that only activate once unlocked. A new player's most efficient early spending is a handful of points in Survivor for the health and potion bonuses, then Hunter or Warrior depending on whether you plan to fight at range or up close, with Machine Master picked up steadily throughout because overriding pays for itself in every subsequent fight.

Machine-hunting fundamentals#

The machines are Forbidden West's real puzzle, and they are built around the same three ideas throughout the game: elemental weakness, weak points, and components you can knock or shoot off before the machine dies.

Elemental damage comes from arrows, traps and thrown weapons in six flavours: Fire, Frost, Shock, Acid (called Purgewater on some machines), Plasma and Poison. Every machine has a Focus-scan readout that lists which elements hurt it more than plain damage does, and which ones it resists or is immune to. Frost weakens a limb until it can be shattered with a couple of precision hits; Shock stuns a machine and interrupts its charge attacks; Acid strips armour over time; Plasma overloads smaller, more electronic machines; Fire deals damage over time and panics grazing herds; Poison ticks damage while limiting a machine's stamina regeneration. Matching element to weakness is worth more than any amount of levelling.

Weak points are the glowing components visible on a scanned machine: canisters, blaze sacs, tails, and specific armour plates that take bonus damage or trigger an explosion when destroyed. Shooting a canister off a Fire-elemental machine and igniting it with a follow-up shot is often the single biggest damage spike available in a fight.

Component looting matters because every machine part sold or salvaged, from the small Scrapper's gears to a Tremortusk's tusks, funds weapon and armour purchases at Meridian and outpost traders, and many crafting recipes for potions, ammo and coils require specific parts from specific machines. Precision shots that knock a part loose without destroying it, then a finishing blow, tend to preserve more of that part for looting than simply overkilling the machine with the first hit type available.

Overriding is unique to the series and central to Forbidden West's difficulty curve. Approaching an unaware machine from outside its detection radius, then holding the override prompt, hacks it to fight for Aloy for a limited time (permanently for some smaller machines, once the right override tool is unlocked). An overridden machine attacks nearby hostiles, can be ridden if it is a mount-capable type, and soaks up damage that would otherwise land on Aloy. New override codes for progressively larger and more dangerous machine types are unlocked almost exclusively by clearing Cauldrons, which is the biggest single reason not to skip them.

Cauldrons, the override dungeons#

Cauldrons are underground manufacturing facilities where machines are built, and they double as the game's dungeon-and-boss content. Each Cauldron is a linear gauntlet of platforming, environmental puzzles and a guardian machine fight, ending with Aloy overriding a Cauldron core that permanently unlocks the ability to override a new, more powerful class of machine everywhere in the world. There are six Cauldrons across the map, each themed around a different faction's territory and a different machine specialty.

They are entirely optional relative to the main story, and that is exactly why new players miss them. Skipping Cauldrons means fighting Thunderjaws, Tremortusks and other apex machines without the option to turn one of them to your side, which makes several late-game and side-quest fights considerably harder than intended. Doing even two or three Cauldrons before the midpoint of the story pays off in every fight afterward.

Each of the six Cauldrons is identified by a short codename rather than a place name, and each specializes in a particular category of machine: expect one geared toward flying machines, one toward heavily armored ground types, and others mixing both as the list of overridable machines grows. A new player does not need to memorize which Cauldron unlocks which machine ahead of time; the game marks each one on the map once its general location becomes known, and completing them roughly in the order you encounter them works fine.

Hunting Grounds and other easy-to-miss content#

Hunting Grounds are optional trial areas scattered around the map, each one a timed or scored gauntlet against a specific set of machines using a specific loadout restriction, rewarded with unique outfits, weapons and Skill Points on completion of bronze, silver and gold tiers. They are marked on the map once discovered but do not appear until Aloy gets close enough, which is why they are easy to walk past entirely on a story-focused playthrough.

Other content that a story-only run skips almost by default:

• Errands and side quests given by named NPCs in every settlement, several of which unlock unique weapons, armor sets or entire new areas rather than simple rewards.
• Relic Ruins, small platforming puzzle sites hidden across the map that reward crafting materials and Metal Flowers.
• Tallnecks, the giant machines Aloy climbs to reveal the surrounding map, which also unlock fast-travel points and often a nearby side objective.
• Rebel Camps, small fortified outposts that need clearing and typically hand out a piece of unique gear once cleared.
• The Arena questline, unlocked partway through the story, which offers combat challenges and unique rewards entirely separate from the main path.

None of this content is required to finish the story, but almost all of it exists specifically to make the machine fights, which are the core of the game, more interesting and more manageable.

Common mistakes new players make#

• Ignoring Concentration and elemental matching. Fighting every machine with whatever arrow is loaded turns a manageable encounter into a long one. Scan first, switch coils, then engage.
• Fighting apex machines head-on in the open. Thunderjaws, Tremortusks and similar apex machines are built to be fought using terrain, traps and overridden allies, not a straight stand-and-shoot exchange.
• Not restocking ammo and potions before heading into a new region. Meridian and every outpost sell crafting materials and finished ammo; running dry mid-fight is avoidable.
• Skipping side content because it looks optional. Errands, Hunting Grounds and Cauldrons all feed back into the main game through gear, Skill Points and override tiers, so "optional" does not mean "unimportant."
• Overinvesting in one skill tree too early. Because respecs are free, spreading a few points into Survivor and Machine Master alongside a combat tree gives more flexibility than maxing one tree first.
• Forgetting the Pullcaster and Shieldwing exist mid-exploration. Both tools solve traversal puzzles that look like dead ends at first glance; a highlighted anchor point or a tall ledge is usually a hint, not a wall.

Platforms and performance#

Horizon Forbidden West originally launched only for PlayStation consoles, and the PS4 and PS5 versions differ meaningfully: the PS5 version supports higher resolutions, faster load times and a performance-focused display mode, while the PS4 version targets a lower resolution and frame rate throughout. The PC version, released with the Complete Edition in March 2024, added features the console versions do not have, including an unlocked frame rate, ultra-wide monitor support, and upscaling technologies from Nvidia, AMD and Intel to help lower-end PC hardware keep up with the game's demands. There is no cross-save between the PC version and the PlayStation versions: progress made on PS4 or PS5 does not carry over to a PC purchase, though linking a Steam account to a PlayStation Network account unlocks a couple of cosmetic bonus items rather than transferring an actual save file.

Complete Edition and the Burning Shores DLC#

Horizon Forbidden West released for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on 18 February 2022. The Complete Edition, which bundles the base game with the Burning Shores expansion and a set of bonus quests, outfits and weapons, followed on PlayStation and was later the version brought to PC, launching there on 21 March 2024. Buying the base PS4 or PS5 release on its own does not include Burning Shores; it has to be purchased separately or picked up through the Complete Edition.

Burning Shores is a PlayStation 5 exclusive: it launched on 19 April 2023 and was never released for PlayStation 4, reportedly because its visual scope and new machine types push past what the older console can run. It requires having completed the main story of Forbidden West before it can be started, since it follows on directly from the base game's ending and sends Aloy to the ruins of a Los Angeles overtaken by plant growth and unfamiliar machines. It is a shorter, more linear expansion than the main game, built around one contiguous new region rather than an addition to the open world.

Frequently asked questions#

Do I need to have played Horizon Zero Dawn? No, but it is strongly recommended. Forbidden West explains enough to follow the plot, but the emotional weight of several major story moments depends on relationships and events from the first game.

What should I spend my first skill points on? A few points in Survivor for safety, then Hunter or Warrior depending on your preferred fighting style, with Machine Master picked up steadily so that overriding becomes reliable early.

Is overriding better than just fighting machines directly? For most machine types, yes. An overridden machine fights on Aloy's side, can often be ridden, and absorbs damage. Cauldrons are the main way to unlock stronger override tiers.

What is the fastest way to win fights against tough machines? Scan first, match your weapon's element to the listed weakness, and target visible weak points and components rather than just shooting the body.

Should I buy the base game or the Complete Edition? The Complete Edition, wherever it is available, since it includes the Burning Shores expansion and bonus content for the same or a similar price to the base game alone.

Can I play Burning Shores on PS4 or on PC without the Complete Edition? No. Burning Shores is exclusive to PlayStation 5 and is not part of a standalone PC purchase of the base game; the Complete Edition is required on PC.

Are Cauldrons required to finish the story? No, but skipping all of them removes access to overriding the game's toughest machine types, which makes the late story and side content considerably harder than intended.

Can I change the difficulty later if a fight feels unfair? Yes. Difficulty can be changed at any time from the pause menu, including mid-mission, with no penalty and no loss of progress.

Does my PlayStation save carry over if I buy the PC version? No. There is no cross-save between platforms; a PC purchase starts fresh, though linking a PlayStation Network account to Steam does unlock a couple of bonus cosmetic items.