Horizon Forbidden West: Language and Representation blog tasks

Language

Introduction

Read this review of Horizon Forbidden West in the Financial Times (should be non-paywalled but you can read the text of article here if needed). Answer the following questions:

1) Why does Guerrilla Games have 'a serious case of bad timing'? 

You’ve got to feel for Guerrilla Games. No sooner had it released its fantastic 2017 open-world role-playing game Horizon Zero Dawn than it was overshadowed by Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which launched a week later and turned out to be an all-time gaming great. Now just as it delivers an excellent sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, another phenomenon arrives on its heels to suck away all the oxygen, Elden Ring. Poor Guerrilla, a team of superb developers with a serious case of bad timing.

They released both of their games at the same time as two much better games released and was overshadowed. 

2) What is the narrative for the original game Horizon Zero Dawn? 

The games take place a thousand years after rampaging machines have wiped out most of humanity. Survivors have clustered into tribal communities who view relics of technology as objects of either suspicion or religious reverence. The dramas of warring clans are narrated alongside the tale of how our world came to ruin. 

3) How is the central character Aloy described? 

Guerrilla struck gold with flame-haired heroine Aloy, who balances grit and tenderness as one of the most memorable new characters of its console generation.

4) What is the narrative and setting for sequel Horizon Forbidden West?

Besides the extensive main story, there are underwater caves to plumb, salvage contracts to fulfil, towering giraffe-bots to scale, even an entire board game to master. While some open-world games feel as if they drown players in pointless busywork, Guerrilla’s smart design and writing ensure that most activities feel consequential. Forbidden West isn’t bloated, it’s just massive. While the quality rarely drops, I admit to occasionally feeling exhausted at how much there was to do in the game, at how long I still had to go. The question for those wondering whether to play this shouldn’t be “Is it good?” It definitely is. Rather, ask yourself: how much game do you really want?

5) What does the review say about animation and graphics?

Forbidden West is the first truly eye-popping flex of the PS5’s muscles, with graphics so beautiful that I have often found myself halting the adventure just to gawp at the landscape, whether dust clouds careening across the desert or forest leaves quivering in the breeze. The robot enemies are ingenious works of biomechanical clockwork, shaped like snakes, hippos, ferrets, rams and pterodactyls, with electric cables for sinew and gleaming steel for ligaments. Most impressive are the character models. Aloy’s complex hairstyle is a marvel in its own right, and the animation of facial expressions achieves an unprecedented realism — never before have I seen a game character communicate subtext so convincingly by tightening their jaw or subtly shifting their gaze.

6) What do we learn about the gameplay and activities in Horizon Forbidden West? 

Forbidden West’s gameplay offers robust, satisfying combat beneath its good looks. Aloy’s movement feels ultra-fluid as she deftly transitions between sliding, climbing and making use of new tools such as a grappling hook and paraglider. Each fight with a robot enemy is tense and exciting, demanding that players think like a hunter by analysing opponents’ behaviours, deploying traps and elemental attacks to gain the upper hand. Minor irritations from Zero Dawn have been resolved, allowing you to make better use of stealth and melee weapons or manage resources more easily.

Close textual analysis

Watch the trailer for Horizon Forbidden West:

Answer the following questions:

1) How is narrative, character and setting introduced in the trailer?

The narrative is introduced in the game through the voice over and that. The main character is a female protagonist who is up against robots who are taking over the world. There are many locations in the game. The post-apocalyptic time period of the game is further reinforced through the jungle.

2) How is the game's open world / sandbox genre shown in the trailer? 

Through many different locations which are fully explorable.

3) What representations can you find in the trailer? 

Empowerment of woman.

AQA recommends watching the following gameplay trailer in their CSP booklet:

Watch the gameplay video and answer the following questions:

1) How does the game use media language to communicate ideas about narrative and genre?

Alloy is the main protagonist, a hero(propps character types). She is there to bring peace to the cursed world(new equilibrium).

2) What representations of people, places or groups can you find in the gameplay video?

Indigenous people, female main character.

3) What audience pleasures are suggested by this gameplay trailer?

Diversion- immerse  yourself in a mysterious world

Narrative and genre

Read this excellent Den of Geek article that addresses elements of narrative and genre. You can find the article text here if the link is blocked. Answer the following questions: 

1) Read the opening to the article. How can we apply Steve Neale's genre theory to Horizon Forbidden West?

2) How many copies did the Horizon Zero Dawn sell and why did this influence the design of the sequel?

Well, considering that Horizon Zero Dawn has reportedly now sold over 20 million copies, it’s not like this series really needed to change all that much to reach a significantly wider audience. Given the current shortage of next-gen consoles and development complications caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s also not like Guerrilla Games was in a position to make this a true PS5 exclusive built from the ground up to take advantage of that hardware. From a business standpoint, it makes all the sense in the world that Forbidden West sticks fairly close to its predecessor in terms of most of its basic design decisions. 

3) How does the article criticise the story in Horizon Forbidden West? 

Others hoped an eventual Zero Dawn sequel might break free of its checklist-based, Ubisoft-style open-world shackles and fully embrace some of the concepts that set it apart (such as its hunting systems, unique mythology, and wonderful characters).

4) What do we learn about the gameplay? 

Zero Dawn’s already compelling “hunting” combat system (which often tasked you with taking down massive robotic creatures while scavenging for invaluable supplies used to make traps, medicine, and other vital resources) is made that much better in Forbidden West thanks to the intelligent additions of an expanded “stash” system that eliminates so much of the frustration of needing to constantly gather and manage resources.

Meanwhile, Aloy’s new traps and significantly more useful spear skills mean that there are more times when you feel truly free to approach the game’s combat and hunting sequences the way you want to approach them. There’s often still a “best” way to do things, but that way isn’t always so obvious that it makes every other way to approach a situation feel pointless.

5) What is the article's overall summary of the game?

Games like Forbidden West and Ghost of Tsushima belong to this new breed of open-world titles that don’t necessarily revolutionize the genre but rather find ways to make the entire concept feel fresh again by using that genre’s conventions to support ambitious artistic ideas that would crumble under their own weight if they weren’t supported by such a tested structure. Forbidden West sometimes sticks to a beaten path, but it goes further than so many other games in this genre and manages to plant a new signpost that I can only hope Guerrilla Games and other developers aspire to reach and surpass in the future. 

Representations

Race representations in Horizon Forbidden West

Read this fascinating Polygon feature on why Horizon Forbidden West isn't post-racial and answer the following questions: 

1) How does Horizon Forbidden West use narrative to create a fully diverse cast of characters?

Humanity was destroyed by the robots but an AI rebuild life on earth so all races came back without the history of racism.

2) What is orientalism? 

Orientalism is a type of racism in which “the West” — generally understood as Europe and North America — projects savagery and beauty onto “the East,” or the Orient. This allows Western imagination to see “Eastern” cultures and people as both alluring and a threat to Western civilization. 

3) How does the article suggest orientalism applies to Horizon Forbidden West? 

Orientalism is embedded at the core of Forbidden West’s narrative of exploring exotic lands. Protagonist Aloy’s Orient is the “Forbidden West” itself: the present-day southwestern U.S. and California, filled as they are with foreign tribes, religions, and customs. In this morass, Aloy is both an explorer and a (white) savior. Only she understands what is at stake in the world, and she has to spend time in the petty politics of a bunch of tribes in order to convince them that the problems she’s facing are more severe than theirs.

4) Who is the player encouraged to identify with in the game and how does this influence how representations are constructed?  

When I played Horizon Forbidden West, the game asked me to identify with Aloy and support her mission to save the planet. But to progress in the game, I ended up role-playing different kinds of cultural violence, including Orientalism, which founds and fuels a lot of the racism I experience as an Asian American. Even though Aloy’s world is supposedly post-racial, its developers still repeat Orientalist tropes in their design choices, which paint Asian cultures, and therefore people, as perpetually foreign, mysterious, and threatening

5) Finally, what did the writer of the article (an Asian American) feel when playing the game?

But to progress in the game, I ended up role-playing different kinds of cultural violence, including Orientalism, which founds and fuels a lot of the racism I experience as an Asian American

Gender and videogames

Focusing on Aloy and the representation of women in videogames, read this Forbes feature on the topic. Answer the following questions:

1) What is the debate regarding Aloy in Horizon Forbidden West? 

A debate about is Aloy is good looking or not.

2) What examples are provided of other female characters and representations in videogames?

Ellie and TLOUS2's and how Aloy looks masculine. 

3) What are the issues facing the videogame industry in terms of gender?  

The industry has massive, massive problems with retaining women employees and treating them well within gamedev. And there have indeed been female characters created entirely within a male gaze. But the presentation here, that Aloy is the gold standard, both discounts decades of beloved women in games and simultaneously demonizes “attractiveness” in characters that everyone, even women (often especially women) love in their games. And this debate is not doing anything to solve the real issues these companies face (PlayStation itself is currently facing gender discrimination claims, which the article doesn’t mention).