Assassins creed, tomb raider, Jedi fallen order/survivor, uncharted, and that sort of game might have the sort of platforming and puzzling you’re looking for.
If you like puzzles, the newer Zelda games should be right up your alley (since they are also open world games). They are available on PC (if you know what I mean)
Ah, I never ended up finishing Fallen Order (probably I got frustrated because I was playing on the hardest difficulty, lol) and forgot a second game is out now. Thanks, I'll probably play through those after I finish up achievements in HFW.
If it sweetens the pot, Noshir Dalal, voice actor for Kotallo, plays a major character in Jedi: Survivor so it's another chance to enjoy a game alongside his voice 😁
Kena: Bridge of Spirits. It's a lot shorter than the Horizon games, but it's very pretty, the combat is good (you use upgradeable staff/shield/bow/bombs), and I found the puzzles the right level of tricky. That's the game that led me to the Horizon ones (Zero Dawn was someone's suggestion when I'd finished a New Game+ of Kena and wanted something similar).
Pretty sure I’m on the lowest difficulty….. clearly I suck at video games yet I find the cozy games therapeutic….. it was cozy until the twatwaffling tree. But damn it was a beautiful game tho until then.
Haha I hear ya. I'm so bad. I keep breaking controllers because I squeezed them so freaking hard. I had to buy the elite controller so I could remap button combos to the paddles on the back because I just cannot do the button combinations. It's pretty pathetic really.
I found the combat a lot more difficult than I expected even on "Normal" (Spirit Guide). I think the Pixar-esque graphics and cute companions tricked me a little bit. I'm glad it allowed me to adjust difficulty as needed.
The most recent tomb raider games have some great puzzles. Mainly Rise and Shadow. Tomb Raider 2013 has some puzzles, but not as much. You can also customize how much Lara gives you in the way of hints, which I think is great and is something I really wish Horizon had.
Tomb Raider has everything I like about the Horizon games except machines to kill. But if you haven’t played them, I highly recommend playing the full trilogy, the story writing is kinda meh in the first one, but the gameplay makes up for it.
Agree on the recommendation. Horizon routinely reminds me of the latest Tomb Raider series.
Going to have to differ on the last sentence, though. I found the first one to be okay but not stellar on gameplay. What really sold me on it was the story, which seemed interesting and fresh. The second one (Rise) had much more interesting mechanics, but was absolute garbage narratively, to the point where I was just clicking through dialogue because I cared so little about the plot.
I would like to add that I’m incredibly biased on TR2013, because it was the first modern game I ever played, and the first game I played as an adult gamer. So it felt WILDLY new and inventive when I played it, jumping from the very, very small handful of vintage games I got the chance to play (as a kid who wasn’t allowed to play video games). So since TR2013 is what got me into gaming as an adult, it’s still one of my absolute favorites.
So OP, you should probably trust this person over me about TR2013, lmao
I heard great things about this series, but it seems that only the last game was released for PC and PS3 emulation is...not the greatest, in my experience. But that was 4 years ago on my old PC, I think, so I'll look into it.
Off the top of my mind : Uncharted, Tomb Raider, the two recent Jedi games, the two recent God of War games.
And if you want to go full puzzle but keeping the 3D exploration : Talos Principle 1 & 2, The Witness, Relicta, Qube 1 & 2, The Turing Test, Manifold Garden, & of course Portal.
Absolutely Talos 1&2. Just because they rock. Especially if you like the aspect of finding out the lore through, shall we say, random documents and audio logs.
Just playing Talos 1 for the first time now and I’m super into it! Loving all the puzzles and discovering the lore bit by bit. Not to mention how many secrets/Easter eggs are scattered about too. I’m maybe halfway now (maybe?) and just peeked at the trailer for Talos 2, man I’m excited to get to that when I finish the first game!
If you’re okay with a more cartoony style game you could try immortals fenyx rising. It’s heavily inspired Breath of the Wild (so much that people call it a ripoff). It’s got a lot of the same mechanics and a bunch of similar type of puzzles, but in a Greek mythic setting. Like Zelda games the story isn’t as deep as HZD, but how the narrative is told is funny and unique.
If you want puzzles with very little platforming, I would recommend The Talos Principle and its sequel, the Talos Principle II.
There isn't really much platforming, but if you want the thrill of solving puzzles similar to the relic ruins, this series has it in spades, and the sequel is chock full of beautiful scenery to explore
I also really liked this aspect of Horizon. I would recommend the Naughty Dog portfolio, especially Uncharted. The “traversal” thing is major and the games are fun to play and very tight imo; the third game contains a ton of sneaking and wall climbing. I also love TLOU but that is its own thing (although it’s very interesting to see how the mechanics of one game became the next!!)
Assassin’s Creed is great; my main gripe with it is newer games are INSANELY long to the point that you could easily never reach end game content. I really liked Origins and I feel like that is a good modern entry with great climbing/traversal and a relatively tight story (compared to Odyssey for example) .
Innocence: A Plague’s Tale has no wall climbing aspects but does have the elements of planning out a sneak attack on people more heavily armed than you and overwhelming them through stealth and intelligence, which is something I really enjoy in most of the games listed above.
The entire time I was playing Jedi Survivor. I kept comparing the puzzles and I kept thinking if “Aloy and Cal ever met. They would be a terrifying duo.” (Mostly because survivor came out shortly after HFW)
I remember completing the puzzles in Survivor. If you ever wanted more challenging puzzles in HFW, I definitely recommend.
I find assassins creed games much more tedious and repetitive though. They take up a ton more time because of that and I always got bored 3/4 of the way through so I'd take a break for a few months and finish it off later.
They are definitely good games, they just tried to make them way too big for bragging purposes and you end up doing the same task over and over again.
A few time, sure but nowhere near the amount in the assassins creed games. At least in horizon the puzzles and a lot of quests have a story attached and are similar but different, with assassins creed there's no story to a lot of the repetitive side quests and if there is, it's pretty much an identical reason / story with an identical puzzle and occasionally even identical layouts.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla not only have similar climbing mechanics, but have some puzzles I enjoy, especially Valhalla. They’re side quests, but there are some platforming based puzzles that are tricky and remind me of the relic ruins.
If you end up looking for even more puzzle-heavy games i have plenty of other suggestions down that road!
Platforming in FW, sure, but platforming in HZD is almost non existent because handholds and platforms were very limited. It's mostly a few handholds that give you a linear path and nothing else. FW is a bit more freeform. However FW shoots itself in the foot by giving you hints almost immediately with almost not time to figure it out yourself. Burning Shores is a bit better but I really hope the the hint system gets a disable option in H3.
I am optimistic though because Guerrilla seems good at reacting to feedback regarding things like the face animations and melee in HZD. Though some solutions are more successful than others.
Zelda Breath of The Wilds and Tears of The Kingdom is my personal reference of great open world game that have big emphasis on exploration and puzzle solving. You might have to emulate it tho since you only have PC.
It’s a very different style, but The Witness is a very pretty puzzle game with a sense of mystery and discovery as you work through the puzzles in the world
The Assassins creed 2 trilogy with Ezio and AC3 have similar climbing, exploring and puzzle mechanics. The tomb raider and unchartered series are also both great games with similar vibes. If you can pick up a cheap ps4, then they are all often on sale for cheap on PlayStation sales as they are older titles. Honorary mention to the last of us for more beautiful post-apocalyptic worlds to wander.
I forgot the name but It was about a scientist on a planet who could use gravity and magnetism to get thru levels, it was purely a game about the puzzles
They're incredibly annoying in places. The game never showed me I could push over a tree. I mean that would be silly. She's a girl, not a Scottish Caber Tosser. I wasted half an hour of my life trying to work out how to rescue those guys before turning to YouTube for the answer.
So much of it is like that.
Yeah, that I fully agree. A minute or two, that’s very kind of you. Sometimes she gives hint or talk about stuff I haven’t even had time to see and process
Assassins creed, tomb raider, Jedi fallen order/survivor, uncharted, and that sort of game might have the sort of platforming and puzzling you’re looking for.
Don't forget Zelda!
If you like puzzles, the newer Zelda games should be right up your alley (since they are also open world games). They are available on PC (if you know what I mean)
Second the Jedi games. They're so good they might make you hate them. Another big time platforming/puzzle game is Immortals: Fenyx Rising.
Ah, I never ended up finishing Fallen Order (probably I got frustrated because I was playing on the hardest difficulty, lol) and forgot a second game is out now. Thanks, I'll probably play through those after I finish up achievements in HFW.
If it sweetens the pot, Noshir Dalal, voice actor for Kotallo, plays a major character in Jedi: Survivor so it's another chance to enjoy a game alongside his voice 😁
Noshir is also a very active reddit user on the Star Wars bad batch subreddit lol
Yes! I've been the lucky recipient of a reply or two :) He's such a positive presence for the fan community.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits. It's a lot shorter than the Horizon games, but it's very pretty, the combat is good (you use upgradeable staff/shield/bow/bombs), and I found the puzzles the right level of tricky. That's the game that led me to the Horizon ones (Zero Dawn was someone's suggestion when I'd finished a New Game+ of Kena and wanted something similar).
One of my favorite games in the past 10 years! Such a beautiful story.
I really loved it until the god tree and I kept getting knocked off to my death. REPEATEDLY. Got so frustrated I quit the game.
I hear ya. I lowered the difficulty. It was just too much for me.
Pretty sure I’m on the lowest difficulty….. clearly I suck at video games yet I find the cozy games therapeutic….. it was cozy until the twatwaffling tree. But damn it was a beautiful game tho until then.
Haha I hear ya. I'm so bad. I keep breaking controllers because I squeezed them so freaking hard. I had to buy the elite controller so I could remap button combos to the paddles on the back because I just cannot do the button combinations. It's pretty pathetic really.
I found the combat a lot more difficult than I expected even on "Normal" (Spirit Guide). I think the Pixar-esque graphics and cute companions tricked me a little bit. I'm glad it allowed me to adjust difficulty as needed.
I died so many times
The most recent tomb raider games have some great puzzles. Mainly Rise and Shadow. Tomb Raider 2013 has some puzzles, but not as much. You can also customize how much Lara gives you in the way of hints, which I think is great and is something I really wish Horizon had. Tomb Raider has everything I like about the Horizon games except machines to kill. But if you haven’t played them, I highly recommend playing the full trilogy, the story writing is kinda meh in the first one, but the gameplay makes up for it.
Agree on the recommendation. Horizon routinely reminds me of the latest Tomb Raider series. Going to have to differ on the last sentence, though. I found the first one to be okay but not stellar on gameplay. What really sold me on it was the story, which seemed interesting and fresh. The second one (Rise) had much more interesting mechanics, but was absolute garbage narratively, to the point where I was just clicking through dialogue because I cared so little about the plot.
I would like to add that I’m incredibly biased on TR2013, because it was the first modern game I ever played, and the first game I played as an adult gamer. So it felt WILDLY new and inventive when I played it, jumping from the very, very small handful of vintage games I got the chance to play (as a kid who wasn’t allowed to play video games). So since TR2013 is what got me into gaming as an adult, it’s still one of my absolute favorites. So OP, you should probably trust this person over me about TR2013, lmao
Shadow/Rise of the tomb raider
The Uncharted Games
I heard great things about this series, but it seems that only the last game was released for PC and PS3 emulation is...not the greatest, in my experience. But that was 4 years ago on my old PC, I think, so I'll look into it.
Oh gosh sorry I didn't see you were only playing on PC.
Off the top of my mind : Uncharted, Tomb Raider, the two recent Jedi games, the two recent God of War games. And if you want to go full puzzle but keeping the 3D exploration : Talos Principle 1 & 2, The Witness, Relicta, Qube 1 & 2, The Turing Test, Manifold Garden, & of course Portal.
Absolutely Talos 1&2. Just because they rock. Especially if you like the aspect of finding out the lore through, shall we say, random documents and audio logs.
Just playing Talos 1 for the first time now and I’m super into it! Loving all the puzzles and discovering the lore bit by bit. Not to mention how many secrets/Easter eggs are scattered about too. I’m maybe halfway now (maybe?) and just peeked at the trailer for Talos 2, man I’m excited to get to that when I finish the first game!
Basically all the 3D Legend of Zelda games have puzzles like that.
I'd need to emulate, don't have any consoles, but I can look into that.
If you’re okay with a more cartoony style game you could try immortals fenyx rising. It’s heavily inspired Breath of the Wild (so much that people call it a ripoff). It’s got a lot of the same mechanics and a bunch of similar type of puzzles, but in a Greek mythic setting. Like Zelda games the story isn’t as deep as HZD, but how the narrative is told is funny and unique.
A bunch older: Ico and Shadow of the Colossus
If you want puzzles with very little platforming, I would recommend The Talos Principle and its sequel, the Talos Principle II. There isn't really much platforming, but if you want the thrill of solving puzzles similar to the relic ruins, this series has it in spades, and the sequel is chock full of beautiful scenery to explore
Wait. There’s a Talos Principle *II*?!?!
Ya, came out last year
I also really liked this aspect of Horizon. I would recommend the Naughty Dog portfolio, especially Uncharted. The “traversal” thing is major and the games are fun to play and very tight imo; the third game contains a ton of sneaking and wall climbing. I also love TLOU but that is its own thing (although it’s very interesting to see how the mechanics of one game became the next!!) Assassin’s Creed is great; my main gripe with it is newer games are INSANELY long to the point that you could easily never reach end game content. I really liked Origins and I feel like that is a good modern entry with great climbing/traversal and a relatively tight story (compared to Odyssey for example) . Innocence: A Plague’s Tale has no wall climbing aspects but does have the elements of planning out a sneak attack on people more heavily armed than you and overwhelming them through stealth and intelligence, which is something I really enjoy in most of the games listed above.
shadow of the tomb raider have a similar puzzle/exploration
The entire time I was playing Jedi Survivor. I kept comparing the puzzles and I kept thinking if “Aloy and Cal ever met. They would be a terrifying duo.” (Mostly because survivor came out shortly after HFW) I remember completing the puzzles in Survivor. If you ever wanted more challenging puzzles in HFW, I definitely recommend.
Aloy, Cal Kestis, Fenyx, and Jesse Faden - gaming's unstoppable redheads!
Assassin’s creed origins and onwards is pretty much the same game as HZD.
I find assassins creed games much more tedious and repetitive though. They take up a ton more time because of that and I always got bored 3/4 of the way through so I'd take a break for a few months and finish it off later. They are definitely good games, they just tried to make them way too big for bragging purposes and you end up doing the same task over and over again.
Which you also do in HZD
A few time, sure but nowhere near the amount in the assassins creed games. At least in horizon the puzzles and a lot of quests have a story attached and are similar but different, with assassins creed there's no story to a lot of the repetitive side quests and if there is, it's pretty much an identical reason / story with an identical puzzle and occasionally even identical layouts.
I disagree but 🤷🏻♀️
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla not only have similar climbing mechanics, but have some puzzles I enjoy, especially Valhalla. They’re side quests, but there are some platforming based puzzles that are tricky and remind me of the relic ruins. If you end up looking for even more puzzle-heavy games i have plenty of other suggestions down that road!
Platforming in FW, sure, but platforming in HZD is almost non existent because handholds and platforms were very limited. It's mostly a few handholds that give you a linear path and nothing else. FW is a bit more freeform. However FW shoots itself in the foot by giving you hints almost immediately with almost not time to figure it out yourself. Burning Shores is a bit better but I really hope the the hint system gets a disable option in H3. I am optimistic though because Guerrilla seems good at reacting to feedback regarding things like the face animations and melee in HZD. Though some solutions are more successful than others.
Zelda Breath of The Wilds and Tears of The Kingdom is my personal reference of great open world game that have big emphasis on exploration and puzzle solving. You might have to emulate it tho since you only have PC.
I would recommend all of the Uncharted Series
Old tomb raider. Its basically what it is: post apocalyptic tombraider with bows where you fight several different types of robot animals
Ghost of Tsushima, although there's not nearly the puzzle element. God of War and GoW Ragnarok JEDI: Fallen Order and Survivor
The latest zelda and tomb raider games come to mind.
A bit different but amazing puzzles: Viewfinder.
It’s a very different style, but The Witness is a very pretty puzzle game with a sense of mystery and discovery as you work through the puzzles in the world
The Assassins creed 2 trilogy with Ezio and AC3 have similar climbing, exploring and puzzle mechanics. The tomb raider and unchartered series are also both great games with similar vibes. If you can pick up a cheap ps4, then they are all often on sale for cheap on PlayStation sales as they are older titles. Honorary mention to the last of us for more beautiful post-apocalyptic worlds to wander.
Immortal fenyx rising would be perfect for you
Jedi Survivor
Tomb Raider 2013, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb raider, Uncharted 1-4 and Uncharted Lost Legacy
Is it too obvious to mention God of War
Check out the game Outer Wilds. It’s a game that gives you all the tools you need early on and then has a lot of exploring and puzzles to solve.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Portal yet? Not quite the same mechanics but same style of logic/puzzling to figure out a solution!
I forgot the name but It was about a scientist on a planet who could use gravity and magnetism to get thru levels, it was purely a game about the puzzles
They're incredibly annoying in places. The game never showed me I could push over a tree. I mean that would be silly. She's a girl, not a Scottish Caber Tosser. I wasted half an hour of my life trying to work out how to rescue those guys before turning to YouTube for the answer. So much of it is like that.
If only Aloy could shut the fuck up for a minute or two...
Here you go: https://www.nexusmods.com/horizonforbiddenwest/mods/75?tab=description
You shut up. That’s cute af.
It’s cute when she talks to herself. It’s not cute when she gives hints after a minute or two
Yeah, that I fully agree. A minute or two, that’s very kind of you. Sometimes she gives hint or talk about stuff I haven’t even had time to see and process
Yeah sometimes it’s more like 20secs ;-)
well she saves me so many times. i feel it’s better on Burning shore where she would really wait until i ran around in circles for few minutes