Horizon Forbidden West Guide Walkthrough Tips Tricks PS5 PS4 1
Image: Push Square

Horizon Forbidden West is the sequel to Guerrilla Games' smash hit sci-fi action RPG, Horizon Zero Dawn. We think it's a fantastic sequel that improves pretty much everything, awarding it a big fat 9/10 in our Horizon Forbidden West PS5 review. The game is available for PS5, PS4, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store. If you're still playing the first game before you start the sequel, we have a full Horizon Zero Dawn guide for you through the link.

In this Horizon Forbidden West guide, we're going to take you through everything the game has to offer. That includes a Horizon Forbidden West Walkthrough, detailing All Quests and side activities such as Relic Ruins, Cauldrons, and Hunting Grounds.

That's just the start — this guide also goes over where to find all collectables, including Vista Points, Ornaments, Survey Drones, Black Boxes, and Signal Lenses. We will also be giving you the lowdown on the game's best Skills and Outfits, all Trophies and how to get the Platinum, and how to reach all Tallnecks.

Finally, this guide is also where you'll find everything you need to know about Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, the game's DLC expansion. This includes additional Outfits, Weapons, Skills, Collectables, and plenty more. Burning Shores is available to buy separately on PS Store, and is included in the Complete Edition of the game on PS5 and PC. There is no PS4 version of the expansion.

While we have tried to keep spoilers to a minimum, please be aware you may find some light spoilers throughout the guide.

Horizon Forbidden West Guide: Walkthrough and Quest Guide

In this section of our Horizon Forbidden West guide, we have a breakdown of All Quests in the game. This includes Main Quests, Side Quests, Errands, and much more. Each page takes you through what to expect from each Quest, giving you information on what you'll be doing, what rewards you'll earn for completing them, and more. If you're looking for a Horizon Forbidden West Walkthrough, you've come to the right place:

Horizon Forbidden West Guide: Outfits, Skills, and Weapons

In this section of our Horizon Forbidden West guide, we will be going through the game's Outfits, Skills, and other character progression related topics. While playing, you will be able to equip Aloy with various armor sets, weapons, and skills, and they all have an effect on her stats and how you play.

Outfits

Outfits are mainly found by talking with Stitchers in the game's various settlements and towns. These merchants sell the majority of the game's Outfits, and each one has unique strengths, weaknesses, and perks that augment Aloy's abilities. Some Outfits are found in the open world or rewarded after completing certain Quests. For more information about Outfits, see our guide:

Skills

Skills are obtained within the Skills menu, found by pressing the touch pad and then L1. Across 6 Skill Trees, you can invest Skill Points into unlocking numerous Skills for Aloy, enhancing all her abilities and weaponry. For more information about Skills, see our guides:

Valor Surges

Valor Surges are also found within the aforementioned Skill Trees. These are special Skills that give Aloy powerful new moves that can save her skin in the heat of a battle. There are 12 Valor Surges in total, and each one can be upgraded twice after unlocking. You can only equip one Valor Surge at a time. For more information about Valor Surges, see our guide:

Weapons

There are many weapons to use in Horizon Forbidden West. In addition to Aloy's trusty Hunter Bow, there are several interesting weapon types that all fulfil different roles in combat. Hidden throughout the game are special Legendary-class weapons to find, too. For more information about weapon types and Legendary weapons, see our guides:

Horizon Forbidden West Guide: All Collectables

Horizon Forbidden West has 49 collectables in total to find throughout its open world. These are tracked in the game's menu. Push the touch pad and press R1 to tab over to Notebook, then select Collectables to view any you've gathered so far. In this part of our Horizon Forbidden West guide, you'll find guides on what all these collectables are and where to find them.

All Collectables Locations

Horizon Forbidden West Guide: Checklists, Trophies, Help, FAQs, and More

In this part of our Horizon Forbidden West guide, we have a selection of other pages covering further information about the game. This includes Trophies, collectables, common questions, and some general tips and tricks for new players.

Trophies

Below, we have a page outlining all the Horizon Forbidden West Trophies, telling you what they are and how to unlock them:

Machine Strike

Machine Strike is a strategic board game you can play in certain settlements throughout Horizon Forbidden West. For a full breakdown of this mini-game, as well as where to find all the playing pieces, see our guide:

Checklists

The following pages can be used to check your progress as you complete various Quests and activities in Horizon Forbidden West:

Help

Below, we have some guides that aim to help you out with miscellaneous topics:

FAQs

The following pages are here to answer common questions about Horizon Forbidden West:

Other

Below are any remaining guides that may be of interest to you as you play Horizon Forbidden West:

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores Guide: Walkthrough, Collectables, Outfits, and More

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is the paid DLC expansion for Horizon Forbidden West only on PS5. It takes you to a new map and introduces its own batch of Quests, Collectables, Outfits, and Weapons. It's an excellent expansion, and you can read more about it in our 8/10 review.

Below, we have a walkthrough of all the Main Quests and Side Quests in Burning Shores. On top of that, we've outlined all the expansion's Outfits, Weapons, and Collectables, as well as all its Trophies, and some other helpful pages to answer all your questions.

As with the main game, we've aimed to keep spoilers to a minimum, but there may some light spoilers on certain pages.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores: Walkthrough and Quest Guide

In this section of our Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores guide, we have a breakdown of All Quests in the expansion. This includes Main Quests, Side Quests, and more. Each page will explain what you need to do to complete each Quest, as well as outline all the rewards you'll earn for completing them.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores: Outfits, Skills, and Weapons

In this section of our Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores guide, we will be going over all the expansion's Outfits, Skills, and Weapons. All the additional armor sets can be found here, as well as extra Skills, Valor Surges, and Weapons introduced in this DLC.

Outfits

This page shows all the Outfits you can get in Burning Shores, going through all their stats, advantages, and showing you what they look like.

Skills

Burning Shores adds a selection of new Skills to each skill tree, giving Aloy even more abilities and options in combat. The following page goes over all of these.

Valor Surges

This page details all the Valor Surges added to the game with Burning Shores. Valor Surges are powerful abilities that give Aloy a leg up in combat.

Weapons

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores lets you use all your existing weapons from the main game, but it also adds a few more for you to use, including a unique special weapon only available in this DLC.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores: All Collectables

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores has many extra collectables to find in its open world map. In this part of our Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores guide, you'll find guides on what all these collectables are and where to find them.

All Collectables Locations

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores: All Trophies

In this part of our Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores guide, we have a page that outlines all the Trophies you can earn in Burning Shores, as well as how to unlock them all.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores: Help and FAQs

In this section of our Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores guide, we've created some miscellaneous pages that should answer any lingering questions about the expansion. This includes puzzle solutions as well as some more general FAQs you may have while playing.

Help

FAQs

Horizon Forbidden West: Tips and Tricks for Beginners

If you're just about to get started with the game, this section of our Horizon Forbidden West guide is for you. Below are some Horizon Forbidden West tips and tricks that will help you out in the early goings.

Catch Up on the Lore

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Horizon Forbidden West picks up the story following the events of Horizon Zero Dawn, the first game in the series. If you've played it, you should hopefully remember the complex, layered narrative that's at the very heart of these games. We would highly recommend playing through the first game before tackling Forbidden West. However, if you can't or don't want to play Zero Dawn — or maybe it's just been a while — we would recommend at least familiarising yourself with its plot. There is a lot to unpack if you're to understand Aloy's journey.

Fortunately, we have a comprehensive guide that recounts the major events of the Horizon timeline:

Again, there's so much that is established in that first game, and while Horizon Forbidden West does offer a very quick briefing before the game begins, it might not be quite enough, especially if you're a brand new player. The above guide should give you a far better understanding of what's happening in this fascinating setting.

Pick Up and Loot Everything

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Image: Push Square

There are resources everywhere in Horizon Forbidden West, and you'll need basically all of it. This is because all the materials you find will be good for something, whether it's crafting useful traps and potions, or purchasing new gear from merchants. Even super-common resources like Medicinal Skybrush and Ridge-Wood are worth picking up if they're on the way to where you're going. In fact, those two items allow to quickly heal and craft arrows respectively, so they're arguably some of your most important pick-ups.

You should not only get into the habit of picking up stuff found naturally in the world. There are also hundreds of chests dotted around the map, and if you see one, you should definitely loot it for all it has. The same goes for any machines or humans you kill; loot their corpses for some potentially very valuable materials.

Your best friend will be a quick press of R3. Doing so will send out a "ping" from Aloy's Focus device, which will highlight items you can pick up in the surrounding area. Oh, and while Aloy does have a personal carry limit, don't worry — any surplus stuff you acquire will be automatically sent to her Stash, which you can access from any Shelter or settlement in the game. There's no excuse — pick everything up.

You Can Craft More Ammo on the Fly

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Because the majority of combat is handled with projectile weapons like bows and slingshots, ammunition reserves are very important in Horizon Forbidden West — especially early on, when you can't carry very much of anything. Fortunately, you're able to craft more arrows, bombs, and bolts whenever you like, provided you have the resources necessary.

Open the weapon wheel by holding L1. Highlight the ammo you need, and then simply hold X to craft more. This goes hand-in-hand with the above tip, by the way; picking up resources frequently should mean you can craft most of your ammo without worrying about running low on materials to do so.

Scan Machines with the Focus

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Image: Push Square

By holding R3 for a second, Aloy will pull up the Focus interface. While in this state, you can't move very fast, but that's not the point — the point is getting valuable information about the machines you're about to fight.

Using the right stick, you can hover the reticle over a machine, and the game will pull up a window that explains which machine you're looking at and provides a breakdown of its strengths and weaknesses. If a machine is weak to fire, for example, any fire weapons or traps you use will deal more damage against it. By the same token, if a machine is strong against fire, those same weapons will have little effect on them. Additionally, when you scan a machine, the Focus will highlight some parts of it that can either be broken off or contain useful resources.

Scanning machines is key to learning how best to deal with them, and learning about their strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerable components will often make the difference between success and defeat. Make it a habit!

Don't Forget About Tear Damage

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Tear damage is a mechanic that's pretty unique to the Horizon series, and it's a very important aspect of combat you should understand. As mentioned above, using elemental weaknesses against machines puts you at a big advantage, but using ammo with Tear properties is just as useful, if not more so.

This type of damage affects a machine's component parts. Each machine in the game has lots of armour plates, weapons, and other components that can be stripped away. If a component suffers enough Tear damage, it will be removed from the machine, an act that itself usually deals a blow to the enemy's health bar.

However, there's more to it than that. If you remove armour, you will expose parts of the machine that are more vulnerable to damage, letting you land some bigger hits. If you remove a machine's weapons, you will not only strip them of one of their attacks, you will also then be able to wield that weapon against them, and those things are strong. Finally, removing certain parts from a machine can yield some of the game's most desirable resources. When you're looking to buy weapons and upgrades, or want to upgrade the ones you already have, you will often need specific components from specific machines, and these require some precision and, yes, Tear damage to acquire.

Campfires Are Your Friend

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Image: Push Square

Across the expansive map of Horizon Forbidden West, you'll notice it's dotted with hundreds of Campfires. These serve a couple of very important purposes, and they shouldn't be ignored.

The game does autosave every so often, but at a Campfire, you can perform a Quick Save with the Triangle button or a Manual Save with Square — it's worth at least popping a Quick Save at any Campfire you reach. This is just to safeguard your progress; Horizon Forbidden West can be a surprisingly challenging game, and when a machine stomps you into the ground, you'll be thankful for your vigilant Campfire saves.

The second reason Campfires are great is that they not only act as fast travel points, they allow you to fast travel for free. You can fast travel from any location, but doing so requires the use of a Fast Travel Pack, which takes up resources to craft. Meanwhile, fast traveling from a Campfire doesn't cost you anything. If there's a Campfire nearby and you want to skip to another part of the map, it's worth making the short walk over and saving your materials for other things.

Sell Valuables to Get Lots of Metal Shards

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Metal Shards are the main form of currency in the world of Horizon Forbidden West, and you'll need lots of them if you want to buy new equipment and items.

You will gather Metal Shards from all kinds of places — looting machines you've killed, opening treasure chests, completing missions — but you mustn't forget that you can sell stuff, too. As you play through the game, picking up everything that isn't nailed down (as you should), you will naturally accrue a collection of valuable items in Aloy's inventory.

Under the Inventory tab in the touch pad menu, scroll down to Resources. The first section is labeled 'Valuables to Sell'. These items are purely for selling to merchants and vendors, and serve no other purpose. This means these items are always safe to sell, and if you sell a bunch at once, you'll get a big boost to your Metal Shard count.

Approach most merchants in the game and you'll be able to tab over to Sell rather than Buy. Scroll down to Resources, and press Triangle on each of the items you want to sell. Once you're happy, hold X and you'll sell all the highlighted goods at once.

It's worth noting you can sell other items, like machine parts or food items, but you'll want to keep most of these things handy so you can craft stuff, make upgrades, and so on.

That about wraps up our Horizon Forbidden West guide. We hope you've found some of this information useful. If you have any other tips, tricks, or advice regarding Horizon Forbidden West, share them in the comments section below. Enjoy the game!