Finally, there is a gameplay trailer for the MMORPG Horizon Steel Frontiers from NCsoft. MeinMMO author Sophia Weiss loves the games with Aloy and is very much looking forward to the multiplayer adaptation. However, there is unfortunately a heavy downside.
Horizon: Zero Dawn was the second game I bought for my PS4 after The Witcher 3. And it is one of the few major open-world games that I actually completed. At the moment, I am facing the final quest and grinding through the side missions of the sequel Horizon: Forbidden West.
I love this universe. Aloy is one of my favorite protagonists. Accordingly, I am very excited about the upcoming MMORPG from NCsoft based on this game series. Clearing out hostile machines as a Carja trapper, fighting full-contact as a heavily armored Oseram, or going stealth as a Nora hunter.
The gameplay the trailer is already showing fun gameplay and I would love to get my hands on it immediately. But there is unfortunately also a downside.
What is Horizon? [Light Spoilers]
Horizon: Zero Dawn and Horizon: Forbidden West are action RPGs set in a post-apocalyptic future of Earth, thousands of years after the downfall of our civilization. Humanity lives in tribes with a stone-age level of technology. In contrast, high-tech machines roam the world. The story centers around Aloy, who lives ostracized from her tribe and wants to know who her mother is. In search of answers, she leaves her home and uncovers not only the secret of her birth, but also why humanity once fell.
Gameplay just like the original, but make it multiplayer
The first impression the trailer gives me fills me with hope for a very cool game: The gameplay looks very much like the action combat system from Horizon: Forbidden West, with adjustments in the right places. The character within the trailer uses a sword instead of Aloy’s spear (which belongs to her and only her) and moves through the world with the pullcaster, a grappling hook.
However, not just to edges and corners like in Forbidden West, but also directly onto the back of an Apex Ravager, one of the more powerful machines. There, the player character delivers a heavy hit to the beast with the melee weapon. While the Pullcaster already worked as a gap-closer to machines in Forbidden West, I have not discovered that yet, and I need to try it immediately. That looks like fun!
Apparently, Aloy is no longer the only one in her world who can override machines and make them work
for her. It seems the player character in the MMORPG can do this as well – I’m curious about the lore explanation. And yes, I am aware of the select few within Forbidden west, who can do similarly as Aloy does.
This leads to a scene in the trailer where players jump off a tame Broadhead via Pullcaster, shoot an arrow between the components of a Bristleback, and pull themselves in again for close combat action with the grappling hook.
For me, as a tab-targeting veteran, this all looks like an incredible amount of fun. And the absolute potential for chaos.
The world seems to have been almost completely taken from Horizon: Forbidden West. At the beginning of the trailer, we walk through a village of the peaceful Utaru. Then we continue through the plains of the Forbidden West. Many of the machine designs known from the single-player games are also shown, whose components can be broken off and used in the MMORPG.
All in all, Horizon Steel Frontiers gives the impression in the trailer that it could be just the right game for all Horizon fans who have always wanted to fight their way through the post-apocalypse with friends. However, the character editor on the website has caught my eye. And it brings me little joy.
Not my Aloy
Horizon Steel Frontiers is being developed by NCsoft in South Korea. The world, machines, and battles have seemingly been taken almost 1:1 from the last part of the series. However, the character designs they are currently showing on the MMORPG’s website deviate significantly from the originals.
At the beginning, you see a man in a battle outfit of the wild Tenakth, so far, so good. Then the video progresses to a woman in a Carja outfit. But all subsequent characters look like many female characters in Asia MMORPGs: ultra-detailed hair and faces with button noses and big eyes, hourglass body shapes, and elegant model poses.
Of course, the girls all look very cute and pretty. But this is not the Horizon universe as I know it. The women and girls in the games so far had bodies and faces that I could see in the supermarket around the corner. Exaggerated, hyper-cute models are nowhere to be found. They all always look somewhat weathered as if they were cave dwellers on the run from machines with laser cannons.
You might remember: At the release of Horizon: Forbidden West, there was a discussion on social media that Aloy as a protagonist was not female enough
. A user subsequently posted a heavily edited screenshot of her with makeup and teeth like fresh from the orthodontist:
The female player characters, as presented here now, unfortunately remind me more of the Photoshop version than of Aloy and the other women from the original games. Thus, they stand out significantly from the otherwise consistently designed world and character design.
With Aloy, as she has been portrayed in the games so far, I feel much more comfortable as a woman than with the perfect ladies as shown now at Horizon Steel Frontiers. Aloy’s physique is not unreachable with enough training and discipline. And the rest of the female cast also reminds me more of the real people in my surroundings than the ladies from this new Horizon spin-off.
I am, of course, very much aware that Steel Frontiers’ character design is absolutely in line with the trend of Asia MMORPGs. Throne and Liberty, the announced Aion 2, or Sword of Destiny are just three examples that many MMORPGs produced in Asia use similar character designs. However, this makes the women in Steel Frontiers completely interchangeable as well.
In itself, that is not wrong. I find all the women to be very pretty. However, I am simply used to entirely different designs in the Horizon universe, and thus it frustrates me quite a bit. Especially in stark contrast with the otherwise perfectly adopted move sets, environments, and machines.
I also know that I probably won’t see my character often under the armor. So the gameplay itself won’t be ruined for me. Still, this downside remains: You have adapted everything as well as possible – partially 1:1. Why deviate when it comes to female characters, if you adapt everything else faithfully. Why not give us almost realistic stoneage women as well.
However, as already emphasized: Overall, the game makes a very good first impression on me, and I am very curious to see how it will progress. By the way, we have also gathered the community’s opinions on the new trailer for you. And they are as enthusiastic about the gameplay as I am: First gameplay of the Horizon MMORPG excites: “It looks like a Monster Hunter, I’m excited”
