Ever since I finished Horizon Zero Dawn’s main campaign and the majority of side quests and missions available, I’ve been begging for a good reason to return to the world overrun by robots and vicious machines, taking control of the year’s greatest new hero, Aloy. Sure; there were a few other minor things I could have come back to do, trophy hunting and picking up achievements, but nothing too meaty to sink my teeth into. Then came along the game’s new DLC pack: The Frozen Wilds.
Tuned for those who have explored and raised their level to at least 30, The Frozen Wilds opens a whole new section of the map which can be accessed as soon as a player has completed the main game’s mission A Seeker At The Gates.
Kicking off your journey, you’ll immediately be confronted with a harsher landscape than most of what you’ve come across in the past, visiting the borderlands of the Banuk tribe, beyond the northern mountains, and navigating a dangerous area known as The Cut. Quests both big and small are scattered throughout the land, allowing Aloy to meet a whole host of compelling and infectious new characters who have their own stories to tell.
Though the storyline isn’t quite as compelling as the main one (how could you really get as personal as Aloy’s search for answers as to who she really is?), it’s still something that any fan of the franchise should experience as soon as possible. Over 16-20 hours depending on your style of play, you’ll come across new machines to override, and old ones that you’ll have to stealth around or take down completely, without the option to lure them over to your ranks.
There’s also the addition of an entirely new skill branch in Aloy’s talent tree called Traveller, allowing the player to stay mounted on overridden machines when killing enemies and collecting their loot, and even providing them with the opportunity to forage materials all whilst sat on the back of a machine. Other abilities include leaping from a mount to unleash a critical attack on an enemy; increasing the amount of room in your inventory; increasing the chances of getting rarer loot; and deconstructing items without having to find a vendor to make space in your inventory. It’s a worthy entry into the game and the foraging whilst on a mount ability is something that players have been asking for ever since they started running around on Striders, Broadheads and Chargers.
What developers have managed to do with this DLC is deliver more of the same content that made the original game such a success, without it delving into ‘boring’ territory or feeling like you’re rehashing much of what you’ve already done. Frozen Wilds allows the exploration of a territory that feels on the whole familiar and approachable, but still somewhere that’s completely new to the player, with surprises around each corner.
The challenge of becoming a part of this unique landscape is one that’s immediately thrust upon the player; it may be worth fighting some machines you’ve already come across to get some practice in and your mind back around how the controls and flow of gameplay works. If you’re a little rusty, it wouldn’t serve you well to go jumping straight through The Cut and face off against the new adversaries that await. Take 30 minutes out to get back into the swing of things and you’ll be ready to go.
Overall, The Frozen Wilds ticks all of the boxes that you’ll be looking for when it comes to substantial DLC. Guerilla Games could have gone with the option to release this as a whole other game, as Naughty Dog did with Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, but at this price and provided as a seamless expansion to the main game and map, they’ve chosen players over profit. In the long run, we imagine it’ll serve them very well.
Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds is available now on PlayStation 4. A copy of Horizon Zero Dawn is required to play through the DLC. Female First was provided with a review copy of the game free of charge from Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe.