I just don't understand the need for people to defend the game they are excited about so adamantly against people who remain skeptical of it. Before the game is out it is all based on faith in the developer and the preview footage you've seen,just like it always is. Even most of those "glowing" previews remain restrained, saying that if the game keeps the pace it has for the first four hours it could be really great, but once again they also have no idea if that is the case, for now.
It is obvious that this game borrows a lot from the Ubisoft open world template and there is nothing wrong about that in general. There is a reason why there have been so many of those games; it is a good template, a great template even, but it is also understandable why some people may be fed up with it. Climbing towers was a great feeling in the first two Assassin's creed games, because it was new, it was fun to climb those landmarks as a way to reveal a map, since you were both engaging with the "then-new" parkour system and the exploration of a historical setting which was at the time also relatively fresh and new. But once again I can see how people can be fed up with it all these games later, despite the fact that the tower is masked as a huge, moving dinosaur, even if I think it is a cool design and an idea.
There really is nothing in Horizon shown so far that indicates that it will shake up the open-world formula. To this day, the only game that even gave a hint of something like that is Shadow of Mordor with the Nemesis system, but until Monolith refines it and we see more of it, it remains to be seen if it is the big change the open world games need.
That doesn't mean that Horizon can't be a great, or an even amazing game, it just means it has to rely more on the talent and dedication of the dev team to make all the actions in that open world feel rewarding and satisfying to the player despite them being familiar or/and similar to other games. But, there is no way to know that until the game is actually out.
And there are some even more obvious reasons why some may be skeptical, even now I am still worried about the story and the world-building in this game, and even the "glowing" previews have shown concern about this aspect of the game.
"The Bildungsroman journey of Aloy from outcast, to tribal Brave, to wandering adventurer amidst a post-post-apocalyptic world – initially offers a tantalising sense of mystery. What is this place, what happened to it, and why did Aloy have to work her way back into the tribe in the first place? After, the first three missions, however, I feel pretty confident about exactly where the story's headed, not least because you're quite literally dropped into the ruins of the ”Metal World" in the opening section and bombarded with expositive audio logs."
So, yeah no need for anyone in this thread to be so hostile to people, if you are excited for it great, if you are skeptical about it, there are reasons to be skeptical and you can just wait until the game is out to decide whether it is worth your time and money.
