Horizon: Zero Dawn and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild both have big audiences, much anticipated upcoming sequels, and are big open-world games.
But these two games have something else in common too; it’s a feature that was complained about in both games that should be updated for their second parts: the weather.
One of the biggest complaints in Breath of the Wild was the rain. Most fans of the game felt the rain made traveling nearly impossible, keeping players from climbing anything or even lighting fires to wait it out. There were even massive lightning bolts that would damage anyone wearing any metal weaponry or shields. The only thing the rain was good for in BotW was killing fire enemies and taking in-game screenshots.
While players could wait out the rain in one of the many stable locations in Breath of the Wild, there never seemed to be one close by wherever Link was exploring. It made for a lot of frustrated fans and a ton of memes about the weather, while it was a pretty universal downside to even those who loved the game.
In Horizon: Zero Dawn, the weather was a little less of problem, but it was still difficult for some players to get through, difficult enough that some players are hoping for changes in Horizon: Forbidden West. While it didn’t influence Aloy’s ability to climb, it did affect the world visually. It made ranged battles more difficult by cutting player’s visibility down, especially on older TVs. Fog, rain, and even snow could block visuals for combat and make the white climbable markers harder to see. The problem was exacerbated at night, making some visuals nearly impossible to see at all.
Strangely enough, Horizon: Zero Dawn‘s weather was almost even more difficult. There’s been talk of lightning that just randomly damages players and goes alike, while robots were once even harder to identify and see. This was obviously balanced somewhat but considering lightning, snow, rain, and night, it’s still out there. While there are some in-game skills that can make taking down Aloy’s enemies easier, the weather can be a significant barrier to accurate shots and saving ammo, even in its current state.
There are games out there that have used weather in new and interesting ways without making it more difficult for its players. Ghost of Tsushima, for example, has dynamic weather that reflects the turmoil inside of Jin, the main character. The less honorable the kills Jin makes during his journey, the more underhanded and non-Samurai things he does, the stormier the weather gets. However, the rain, fog, and snow don’t keep the player from climbing, interacting with, or seeing their environment.
Even Animal Crossing: New Horizons has many variations in weather. Rain brings new flowers and allows players to wear rain gear and use umbrellas. It also stops players from being able to see meteor showers and collect star fragments the next day, but the overall impact of the weather is not going to get the player killed or ruin their experience, although there even is a data miner who released an app that can predict weather on Animal Crossing: New Horizons islands.
If the weather problem is fixed in Horizon: Forbidden West and BotW2, it wouldn’t ruin either game. Breath of the Wild wouldn’t lose anything except maybe some realism and one thing that BotW fans hated about the game. Many players remember the frustration of trying to get to the top of some cliff somewhere only to have it begin to drizzle and ruin Link’s assent. The stamina system was designed to help keep players from climbing into places they aren’t quite ready for; the addition of the rain doesn’t do this, instead just adding unnecessary difficulty.
Some weather troubles in BotW can be removed by putting on upgraded armor, like the electricity-proof rubber armor that saves Link from lightning strikes. But there is no armor in the game that helps Link to climb better in the rain. Although the climbing armor will make Link climb faster in Breath of the Wild, it doesn’t make rain any easier for our hero to get through.
The same is true in Horizon: Zero Dawn. There just aren’t any upgrades that help with the weather problems that many players had. Perhaps some sort of vision upgrade that helps outline foes in the dark or platforms that glitter would help to improve these visual issues, but while the weather may be a smaller problem for Aloy than it was for Link, it may be one of the many changes that players want to see in Horizon: Forbidden West.
In both games, in-game time passes far faster than real time, making storms, weather changes, and night-to-day transitions move in fast. With weather heavily reliant on both location and time of day, these sometimes jarring transitions made moving through the world difficult for many players. While there currently doesn’t appear to be any rumors or crazy fan theories for BotW2 or Horizon 2‘s weather changes, there are many players out there who are hoping weather tweaks are in the forecast for both.
Horizon: Forbidden West will be released for PS5 in 2021. Breath of the Wild 2 doesn’t have a release date, but will be for the Nintendo Switch.
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