This Is A Horizon Forbidden West Photo Mode Appreciation Post
- amisha
- Apr 10, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 9, 2022
Guerrilla Games, why did you include such a great photo mode in your beautiful, massive, detailed game? So many hours wasted trying to get the best shot of a machine killing Aloy, getting light to refract off water or the exact focal length to best capture the vast vistas in the game.
Skip to photos of:
Aloy
Apart from her beautiful and bold character design (that hair!), Aloy is a wonderful video game protagonist: strong, willful, funny and kind. Ashly Birch's performance is fantastic and Guerrilla have outdone themselves with the detailed facial expressions and variety of outfits and face paints.
Environments and landscapes
Just like the first game, Forbidden West has a stunning variety of landscapes: scorched deserts, lush rainforests, tropical underwater corals, icy mountains and green forests. It's almost impossible to capture how vast some of the vistas are in one photograph, but that didn't stop me from trying.
Water!
Also, the water in this game is AMAZING and I have to resist taking a photo every time I'm near it. The underwater exploration is a really fun addition for this game too.
Action shots & machines
Action shots are the trickiest type of capture to get right, but also the most rewarding. Forbidden West is so much more cinematic than the first game, and that also extends to the gameplay. Whether it's chasing a herd of Lancehorns or an unexpected David vs Goliath fight against Slitherfangs or Tremortusks, there are so many ways to encounter each fight, a brilliant variety in machine design... and so many pictures to take along the way! (RIP me trying to pause the game at exactly the right moment while being lasered, slammed, crushed and electrocuted).
Man, I feel this post in my bones. I’ve spent entire evenings just rotating the camera around a single Ravager, trying to catch that perfect lens flare off its cannon while Aloy’s hair does that wild physics thing. It’s almost embarrassing how many shots I have of water refraction. But here’s something practical I learned the hard way: if you ever want to bring those machines into the real world, you can find high quality 3d stl files for printing a Tremortusk or a Sunwing over at gambody as their model details actually match the in-game photo mode obsession. I printed a Slaughterspine last month, and painting it made me notice armor plates I’d never even seen while playing. So…
Photo mode in Horizon Forbidden West is truly next-level! The world is so stunning that it’s impossible not to stop and capture its beauty. Shoutout to Guerrilla Games for giving players the tools to turn gameplay into art. If you're into gaming and esports, check out Eerone.com – built by players, for players!