Nearly a year after Horizon Forbidden West, the Burning Shores DLC has finally been released! I pre-ordered it so that I would be able to play it on launch day – but the perks were mediocre. No new statues for me! The pre-order came with the Blacktide Sharpshot Bow, the Blacktide Quen Commander Outfit, and the Blacktide Dye.
I managed to avoid any spoilers for myself by avoiding all media related to the game outside of the initial trailer. I’m really glad that I did.
I found that this DLC was very short. The price point of $19.99 seems fair, as this was not as big of an expansion as The Frozen Wilds. I completed the story in about 10 hours – and this DLC has the weakest piece of the story yet.
I found that I was much less of a completionist this time. The world was very pretty, so I may pop back in to finish searching the new map for collectibles.
Gameplay
The gameplay for Burning Shores is about the same as it is in the base game, and in Zero Dawn. The level cap has been lifted from 50 to 60, and you’re able to gain a handful of new skills. I honestly didn’t find that they were too terribly exciting compared to what was already in the game.
No new mechanics have been added, although you do now have the addition of the beautiful, majestic Waterwing! The Waterwing is basically a cousin of the Sunwing, and they look pretty similar. The head and wings are a bit different – but the Waterwing… goes in the water!
While this is a fun way to explore the Burning Shores, the Waterwing was only required for one mission. Like the Sunwing, you have no options for any type of combat while riding it. This was disappointing, as all of the terrestrial mounts have an option to attack, but the flying ones don’t.
The new character, Seyka, will accompany Aloy on the main quest missions – and oh boy. I found her to be incredibly irritating to work with. Aloy talks to herself plenty as it is, but when Seyka is around they talk to each other. If you happen to get too far from Seyka you won’t hear the end of it. I also found her AI to be difficult to deal with at times. She frequently would crouch to close to me and impact my shots, or she would just Leeroy Jenkins out of hiding. I was grateful for the breaks in the game without her!
There are new sets of armor that have been added, but I stuck to my Nora sets for the most part as I prefer that aesthetic. Rather than rehash information that already exists – here’s a great comparison of the new legendary weapons and armor sets that the DLC adds. I can say that I completely agree – Last Argument may be the best weapon added. It is amazing! If you aren’t using a a spike thrower, you are missing out. I will add that you can now “glamour” your armor – so you can change how it looks and still use your preferred gear!
As with the base game, the Burning Shores unfortunately had several bugs in it. For example, I attempted to land my Waterwing on a perch in Fleet’s End and he didn’t seem to take that too well!
I also ran into multiple instances where events would not trigger – for example, on ‘Stormbird island’. You are meant to follow the track of the Stormbird into the cloud until it attacks. I flew around for quite some time, and the track just stopped generating. It would dead-end into a cloud. After a lot of frustration, I ended up doing some googling and found it to be a common issue. The best solution was to try reloading from a previous save. It fortunately did work, and I was able to continue from there.
Another case of this occurred while exploring the Armory – the quest indicates that you need to ‘watch the recording’ but the recording never plays. This was also resolved by reloading a previous save in order for it to trigger.
Some of the oddest things I noted would be Sunwings that just hang out in one particular place in the sky – unable to be targeted or scanned, and when I fly close to investigate them, they would snap back to their correct locations. I also found that occasionally when flying around, there would be holes in the sides of cliffs – as in, the assets weren’t loading all the way, so you’d just have a spot of nothing. Typically getting closer would allow it to load in, but it was very disruptive to an otherwise beautiful view.
There have been a few patches since launch, and I haven’t gone back to see if these are resolved, but hopefully they’ll patch them out pretty quickly!
I did stream the first few hours of this – so if you’d like to see it in action – here’s a video:
Story
Unfortunately, despite how much I loved the original game, this Burning Shores has the weakest story so far. Londra is just not the best villain – and I don’t know why, but the more the story progressed the more I started to feel like he was basically the in-game version of Elon Musk?
The last boss is definitely a challenge, but I don’t feel that Londra’s story really adds to the overall game. We don’t end up any closer to the angry squiggly AI monster Nemesis, or really learning anything new about it. There are a few lines of dialogue in the Epilogue which mentions that Sylens found some additional information relating to ways Londa thought you might be able to fight Nemesis, but that’s about where it ends up.
There is also a bit of controversy that happens this go round. Spoilers in here!
Aloy spends a fair bit of the game with a new character, Seyka. Though their time together – you learn that Seyka is much like Aloy, and they have a fair bit in common. Through the dialogue, Aloy mentions her often – it seemed pretty apparent to me where this was going to end up, but it seems like a lot of players were… surprised.
Towards the end of Forbidden West, we also learn that Elizabet and Tilda certainly had feelings for each other, and Tilda attempts to convince Aloy to go with her. Given that Aloy is a clone of Elizabet, it doesn’t seem far-fetched that they may have similar preferences.
At the end of the Burning Shores, Seyka confesses how she feels to Aloy, and you are given a choice on how to respond.
If you select ‘Yes, I do’ then Aloy wand Seyka will share a tentative kiss as they part ways.
There are numerous male characters who have expressed interest in Aloy throughout her adventures – and she has shown zero interest in them. To me, this didn’t feel out of character at all – and despite how terribly people have tried to review bomb the game over their blatant homophobia, the representation was wonderful.
Not only do we see our main character as an LGBTQ+ representative, but we’re also seeing how she remains an incredibly strong woman in her own right – and we’re seeing a portrayal of love that neither belittles heterosexual relationships, nor does it play into any fantasies.
There are plenty of things to not like about the update to the game – but this moment is not one of them. If you’re reading a lot of reviews for the game, be prepared to see some extreme reactions.
Additionally, there are a few scenes featuring Sylens – which sort of hits differently after the loss of Lance Reddick. He had a big impact on this game, and it’s so sad to hear of his loss. I don’t know how this will impact the next game, but I appreciate what he brought to this series.
Overall Review
There were a lot of things I liked about the Burning Shores – mainly, I always want ‘more’ out of these games. But there are some things I didn’t like –
- The story is not the best,
- It’s incredibly short.
- THE BUGS. I’d like to say I can be pretty forgiving of this, especially in an indie title, but on a triple A studio like this, the number of bugs is too high.
While I’m still going enjoy the game, and I can’t wait until the third one – the weak story, bugs, and short content means I give g this expansion 6/10 Waterwings.
Hopefully the next edition will bring some major improvements! Did any of you play it? What did you think?
The Bardic Unicorn 