It's easy to get lost in the gorgeous open world of "Horizon Forbidden West," the highly anticipated sequel to Guerrilla Games' 2017 post-apocalyptic RPG "Horizon Zero Dawn." Exploration is revamped with protagonist Aloy's new arsenal of gadgets, letting her glide across valleys and swim through sunken cities. The weapons, the map, the enemies -- everything feels scaled up. The writing and characters are captivating, particularly Aloy's new crew, a mix of new faces and allies from the first game. Though the plot goes a bit off the rails, leaning more into science fiction this time around, Guerrilla Games' masterful world-building comes together in an endearing tale of hope and human tenacity -- no easy feat in a series with such a bleak premise.

Things are finally starting to warm up for me in Sony's new PS4 open-world action game Horizon: Zero Dawn. After a long, tedious introduction to the game's post-apocalyptic world, which saw protagonist Aloy grow from a girl to a young woman through an extended assortment of tutorials, I'm finally free to go questing. Note: This is a first impressions post, not a full review. I reserve the right to change my opinion as I play further into the game. The game's early hours spend a great deal of time building up this brave new world of superstitious tribes, a distant empire, massive robot dinosaurs, and a mysterious high-tech past.

On the face of it, a lavish and original fantasy epic set in a wonderfully realised world sounds like a welcome escape from the very real horrors being played out across the nightly news bulletins. Then again, given that Horizon: Zero Dawn deals with the consequences of a megalomaniacal business mogul and sentient robots combining to bring about the near-annihilation of the human race, perhaps you'd be better off with an Enid Blyton book instead. At times Horizon: Zero Dawn, the latest title from Dutch studio Guerrilla Games, those behind the Killzone series, feels uncannily like prophecy rather than escapism. This is a world where technology has all but defeated the human race, where the most powerful inhabitants are robot monsters, and where the lead character is looking to discover exactly what happened to the grand civilisation of the past. It could be a particularly bleak New Scientist article about 2025.

Horizon Zero Dawn is Guerrilla Games' first original creation since releasing the original Killzone in 2004. Not only is it Guerrilla's first foray into a brand-new universe in 13 years, but it's a completely new genre for the studio: an open-world, action RPG. These are generally massive games with intricate narratives and winding sidequests, as opposed to the constrained, linear nature of most first-person shooters. In order to make sense of a story in Horizon's vast open world, Guerrilla brought on Fallout: New Vegas lead writer John Gonzalez. Gonzalez helped create Aloy, Horizon's protagonist, and the massive landscape that she inhabits -- robot dinosaurs and all. While giant mechanical beasts are cool, the heart of Horizon is Aloy's quest to uncover her true identity.