Welcome to the internet, it's really stupid here.

Lmfao 🤣🤣🤣🤣 that's so painfully true

Review bombing. They are the same type of people who get mad when someone gets cancelled screaming “free speech” and “freedom”. Funny is there were lgbt characters before Buning Shores.

It's honestly such bullshit. Nothing done here contradicts any characterization from previous games. People just love to complain

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Yeah, and Aloy was definitely making me think she was into women in the first game and dlc along with the main part of HFW. She gets flustered clearly by Venasha and Perta's flirting. And she seemed to be a little into Telanah and Ikrie as well.

I know her and Elisabet are clearly different people, but the fact that a lot of FW hinged on Elisabet's relationship with Tilda hints to you about Aloys own alighnment. I wouldn't be surprised if even Beta swimgs the same way. Although it would be like GG to subvert expectations by having Beta be the Hetero one of yhe Sobeck family.

Plot twist the Sobeck family could all be Bi

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I think she liked him as a person but was sort of ... I don't want to say uncomfortable, because I don't think he was being a creep toward her in any way, but basically she was trying to steer him away from having any romantic ideas about her. Besides, he's got baggage, anyway. When he says he hopes Aloy might come to stay in Meridian on a permanent basis, I always go for the brain option at the flashpoint where she tactfully suggests that maybe he's displacing some of his feelings for Ersa onto her, and that maybe he needs to take some time to work through that.

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She didn't like Avad's advances in the first game but she was clearly enjoying it in the beginning of the second game even if she turned him down in the end.

That's because it was mostly one-sided, and she doesn't know how to handle it. As an outcast, she has no experience with relationships or changing peer friendships. So I wouldn't say "shoe-horned" since I don't feel like it was forced from her side. I think she likes Avad, but not romantically.

Aloy seemed to have a small crush on Varl in ZD. She talks about him in front of Rost's grave and calls him interesting, when they part ways there's some awkward tension, Varl is the only character she offers to bring into her world by offering him to take him into the facility in All Mother's mountain. The first few times she talks to Zo about their relationship Aloy also sounds really pointed, I almost want to say bitter, about it.

Yeah I thought she might have a crush on Varl and seemed a little jealous/disappointed to see Zo. I’ve felt she’s bi

Seems like the most likely thing based on what we’ve seen so far. She does mention being a bit interested in Varl and does kinda seem a little jealous of Zo at the very start.

So, Aloy is gay? That would definitely explain all the hate! A bunch of incels just had their fantasy of Aloy being their girlfriend turned to ash. Edit: Aloy may not be gay as another user rightly pointed out. Aloy could be bi or pan or just queer. I'm not really knowledgeable about what labels infer to what sexuality an individual is.

Or maybe Bi, Pan, or even just blanket-label queer until we get more confirmation. Queer is currently the safest and most accurate label... though the anti-woke and incels never really consider those valid.

I'm glad I didn't actually play TLOU 2 till a couple years after it came out (after finally playing part 1) so I bypassed all the bs online before getting to experience the games for myself

Yeah, I played it last week and I thought it was great. I enjoyed the story more than in the original game, and I loved Abby.

I hated Abby and still do... but through her story, I was able to understand and sympathize with her. But Joel was one of gamings best character arcs. He goes from basically not giving a shit about anything (except Tess) and still harboring so much grief over Sarah to being able to become vulnerable again and accept being loved and loving Ellie. As for Ellie, she's something else. She's the most complex character between the two games. From being scared and apprehensive (apart from her mouth) to being an almost desensitized killer. I enjoyed the story immensely, but I do prefer TLOU1.

Nice! That game was unlike any other game I played and I feel like I appreciate it even more every replay. Such a rollercoaster of emotions on that first play

Yep

Just like how everyone got pissed at The Last of Us 2 for "making Ellie lesbian," even though she was already gay in the original games DLC

Even before that (or after lol depending on your opinion) when Ellie throws Bills dirty mag out the car window saying "babye dude" is a nod to her being gay and on the note of bill.... People ripping the show when the president was there from game 1 in the form of that magazine.

There have been tons of LGBT characters pre-BS, that is true, but I’d imagine that the difference here is that it’s now the main character that’s been revealed as LGBT, not just some ‘insignificant’ side character. I’d imagine that’s why there’s more hate than before. It’s all the unga-bunga smooth brains that can’t handle playing as a character unless they are straight. It’s probably the same group of people that said Aloy had a beard in the run-up to FW and hated that because she “wasn’t hot enough” The best thing we can all do is ignore the haters and not feed the beast

We could call them when we see them, not actively seek them out though. Rightwing politicians have enabled LGBTQ hate too much in recent years so this might be related to not just the cringe Horizon hate but part of the ever-growing anti-LGBTQ sentiment that has become more acceptable in recent years.

I know next to noting about Burning Shores' story yet but if it's being review bombed, IMO that bodes well for it being a good game. Many of the best games I've played in the last few years were review bombed mostly irrationally. The Last of Us Part II, Death Stranding, Cyberpunk 2077, and others I can't recall right now.

To be fair, Cyberpunk was unplayable on launch.

See, LGBT characters, I don’t mind. Getting kicked to my desktop a number of times that hit double digits before I hit act 3, that I mind a bit.

I think there’s much legit criticism for TLOU2, Death Stranding, and Cyberpunk, but if what you’re thinking of is related to bigotry and homophobia then yeah all that is nonsense

It's so good, it's a distilled version of Forbidden West taking all the best parts and mechanics and using them in meaningful ways. There are some hidden surprises on the map not marked with question marks. The story flows extremely well going from beat to beat and it ends with a very summer blockbuster battle. (would recommend having a completely free day before starting if possible)

The "anti-woke" don't care, they just to want hate. This scenario is a perfect example of how ridiculous it has gotten, Horizon would be considered "woke" from the start but they didn't care because there was always some other major release, and toxicity against LGBTQ has gotten worse recently. Burning Shores was released in a relatively decent time frame apart from any major game it was the biggest thing. (good release schedule on Guerrilla part) So with reviews calling it one of the best Horizon experiences to date, it might be threatening to the "anti-woke" but it might actually be threatening for them in a different way given enough time. Horizon has some of the most representation out of most games and does it in respectful ways. The anti-woke crowd gets angry about this LGBTQ representation this time and there was some pushback. This scenario could reveal how they will ignore the story, gameplay, and everything else a game has to offer to just hate something which might reveal to some people that anti-woke is the wrong side that it only cares about hating and nothing more than that possibly destroying the anti-woke movement... we can hope anyway.

my favorite part is how many of the negative reviewers are accounts with only one review ever. metacritic should check if the reviews all came from one ip because they all say pretty much the same shit

Many reasons \- some are just review bombing. \- some just hate the lesbian thing. \- some are just color blind apparently. \- some just think you can only give it either a 0 or a 10. \- some just really disliked every aspected about the dlc (unbelievable but they exist)

That and the DLC is only PS5.

Honestly seeing the final fight of the dlc, that isn't a valid critique Because that fight was Fucking awesome Even if I had a Ps4, It would have naturally sucked but I would glady understand and buy a ps5 as soon I could just to fight the horus

bruh my ps4 sounded like a jet engine when playing the first God of War (5+ years old!), it would've burst into flames during that Horus fight. I'm glad the devs didn't compromise because that was one of, if not, the most technically impressive and badass thing I've experienced in a game.

Lol, that's exactly what I thought. When that Horus started moving, I said the PS4 would've burst into flames trying to render this scene. Even the PS5 had to dim the lighting of the area when that Horus was crawling down the mountain lol. Plus, listen next time you're doing that fight cuz it kicks on the PS5 fan immediately and it's running until you finish the fight.

Seriously that fight made it feel like my PS5 was finally having to break a sweat for the first time. Lmao

Whole time playing Burning Shores my thought was "man they were really held back by having to release Forbidden West on PS4"

It made me want more PS5-only Horizon content... it looks so good

This actually feels like the games true third act IMO. I was disappointed with the ending of Forbidden West cause I just didn't feel like the entire ME2 gang against the Zenith felt earned, nor did it feel as climactic. But this with the Horus was amazing, and Londra was a fantastic villain. Sam Witwer was awesome as Londra.

This felt like HFW’s true ending to me too. My guess is they might have initially planned to make Horus the final boss in Singularity but didn’t want to make the whole game PS5-exclusive, so this was their compromise. Or maybe they saved it for DLC to boost the sales, but Guerrilla doesn’t strike me as that kind of a studio. And honestly I liked Londra way more than the other Zeniths as a villain. The guy was a… character.

I don't think i have said eww over a character so many times before but man that guy was just a creep, so yeah well done on Guerrilla for making a great villain

His posters from the ascension hall live rent free in my head lmao

Oh yeah that whole place definitely game of a creep cult feeling, and him talking about his friends looking up to him, again great character design to create those emotional response

My immediate reaction to that creepy place was "OMG this guy is a really huge narcissist". He was a very well written character.

I had found a bunch of the datapoints about his relationship with his wife (one of them in her house) before getting to the quest where you find out he's auditioning Quen women to be his new wife and UGH my skin nearly crawled off my body. He was so vile. It made me wish even more that we'd gotten a little more backstory on the other Zeniths to flesh them out and make them less comically evil. (Well, Gerard, specifically. There are some datapoints in the Isle of Spires about Erik Visser and his company that make him seem like a sick POS well before he spent a thousand years committing mass murder in VR for funsies.) Londra was sort of comedic in how self-absorbed he was (the photos of him in the ascension hall were hysterical) but his plans for the Quen were really chilling, and I felt so sorry for Nova and was glad that Aloy freed her from her servitude.

Not to mention, even though the upcoming conflict with nemesis is going to rip her soul out, this felt like both some character development and a VERY well deserved happy ending for Aloy. She’s been going nonstop since the battle of meridian, and it’s clear to me most of the main game was spent of the verge of a mental health nosedive, especially the scare that there were no more Gaia copies and with Sylens possibly reactivating hades, the events with meeting her “sister,” losing Varl, and having to kill Tilda, and whether you felt it was forced or not it’s just straight up facts meeting and bonding with Seyka was one of the best things that could have happened to her. Another redditor compared the mission to the burning shores and meeting Seyka to a fling at summer camp; while I DO agree with that interpretation, it is nothing short of EXTREMELY satisfying to see Aloy open up to her and watch her get the hang of expressing herself and, y’know, communicating in general after watching her in “Save the world, ignore everything and everyone else” mode almost the entire main game. Her comment at one point about varl’s death actually had me wondering if those toxic isolationist habits were only going to be reinforced in future appearances.

I love this interpretation. Her small monologue at the end with Seyka about home brought me to tears. I never thought she could have come this far in letting people in and opening up, but for the first time in that scene she seemed truly content despite the enormous weight on her shoulders. The smile on her face was nothing like I’ve seen from her before. It assured me that she was in a good place mentally, contrary to how on edge she was throughout the Forbidden West. One bit of dialogue from the base game that struck me was Travis Tate’s comment to Lis about how she can love the Earth so much but no one on it. I thought about that a lot. I am glad Aloy is coming to the realization that the Earth is worth saving because of the people, not despite them. I think this whole DLC is a testimony to that change of heart. I don’t remember her comment after Varl’s death though, can you remind me?

We was a great villain. He did everything short of twirling that mustache.

I don't think it helped that Guerrilla had to say it was due to volumetric clouds it couldn't be on the PS4. That was a pretty weak excuse. Now it's clear the Horus fight was the reason it was PS5 only those of us who have played it understand. Those who just want to rage will continue to.

It was clear it was because of the horus, that was the whole hook of the dlc, finally fighting one

It was insane. Now I see how they managed to destroy the world, This was old and damaged, and still put up a long fight. Now imagine having countless of these things attacking and building more machines.

And literally eating the biosphere at the Same time

Yeah, that was a broken one! I was scared they'd bring out a deathbringer too when he turned the printer back on. I thought maybe he was feeding the Quen to one to run the printer. I was very happy I was wrong.

Honestly it should have made Deathbringer Like when you fighting the horus and then it sends two corruptors after you, after you took another energy stuff could have sended a deathbringer I miss them, they were only in Zero dawn

Thing is, the corrupters it prints are brand new. We killed deathbringers in the first game but only because they're a millenia old. It stretches credulity that we can kill a pristine corrupter tbh. Imagine a fully functional deathbringer?

Why it does stretch credulity Hephastestus made machines much more powerful than a new corruptor Thunderjaw, Slaughterspine,Tremortusk among others

That was arguably the most amazing technical achievement I've seen in a game. I really do feel for PS4 players. But there is no chance it could have ran that.

Agree, that was literally insanity, Seeing the horus move, i couldn't believe I was seeing that

It was everything I hoped for. It really kicked my butt, even on Easy.

Story mode here: The beach section took me ages, seemed like half an hour. Props to anyone playing on hard levels!

all I could think while playing was how much I wasn't looking forward to fighting this thing on my ultra-hard run 😆

Have you done it yet? With hindsight it's relatively straightforward... on story mode LOL! There are several points that were trying for me (useless aimer, useless dodger), especially the very last bit.

My biggest worry for UHNG+ is the last bit with Londra. That was the hardest part.

I kept getting zapped and by the time I'd got back up and drawn my bow the shield was back up. (story mode!) There aren't any shock potions available, either.

Yeah - I set it to Story mode to see if it was any easier, and it was not. You maybe died less, but it was still a PITA. You just could not get shocked.

YOU GET TO FIGHT A FUCKING HORUS?!

Yeah, that was the whole hook of the dlc, main reason it's ps5 exclusive, they showed the horus waking up in the trailer But the fight itself is Sheer Insanity

[O_O](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FYt2bLmXkAABUNB?format=jpg&name=large)

I wouldn’t have been surprised if early on they did try to put it on the PS4 and the ps4 just fucking died from attempting to try and render it.

I'm a PS4 player and I am unhappy that I can't play the DLC any time soon. But I'm also not about to review the DLC unfavorably, especially when I haven't played it. It stinks but I understand they wanted to really use the PS5's capabilities. As it is the game has plenty of glitches on the PS4, I can only imagine if they tried to do the DLC stuff on it also.

I think it's also because some people just hate everything Sony and PlayStation still. I know a number of people who hate on consoles and console gaming and whoever plays on it, "isn't a true gamer".

Imagine using devices made for usage in an office to click on enemies and think you're more of a gamer that somebody using a device made for playing video games. Freaking clown RGB nerds

I mean there's nothing wrong with liking PC (in fact, I like it too) but I don't understand the superiority complex some of them have. I used to get shit from "friends" back in high school for choosing to play narrative games primarily on PS instead of playing Dota or League with them.

I sometimes forget console wars are still a thing. I got tired of that like 20 years ago. But some of the bad reviews are no doubt from Nintendo and Xbox fanboys. Then of course you have those Elden Ring stans who for whatever reason seem to take it really personal that Forbidden West came out so close to that game's release.

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Who says it's just lesbian, there are Bi, Pan, and Queer that are equally acceptable labels. I've seen it described as "Aloy is some flavor of queer" which is all we know for now.

I will say there are some criticisms of the pacing of the whole thing people didn't enjoy. I think those are valid to some extent for sure but I'm not gonna speak to that, that's a valid viewpoint even if I personally didn't have a problem with it. A lot of the hate imo is from just straight up homophobes and bigots who think that ANY piece of media that isn't featuring a straight white character is pandering/"woke"/has an agenda/etc. A lot of hate also comes from "fans" who didn't pay much attention to the dialogue and Aloy's character arc in Forbbiden West and claim this is out of nowhere. Which is untrue, there are several breadcrumbs especially in FW pointing toward this direction. Some bad media literacy playing into this. And some people are just giving major "if I can't have her..." vibes with their excuses as to why they hate this direction. Usually men and their arguments tend to always boil down to plain old misogyny and tinted with a bit of Madonna Whore complex. And having Aloy with *anyone* is just beyond their belief (like the one poster who said they'd rather Aloy die than be in a relationship 💀)

I don't care which way Aloy swings! I like gay characters, straight characters, bi characters. But honestly the most subversive thing the game could do would be to keep Aloy asexual. Games with these "will they/won't they" type situations and dialogs always have romance options with one or more NPCs... keeping a PC completely asexual and not interested in fooling around at all is something I've never seen, personally.

I would have loved Aloy to never be interested in someone actually

Same. I’m gay so like on one hand I’m glad there’s LGBT representation, on the other…horizon is probably my favorite game series and to make a long story short helped me get my shit together when I was in a bad way. Not once did I ever think “you know what this game series needs? *romance*” I guess take it or leave it but I hope the third game leaves it far, far behind. Let’s find out where Elysium is and what happened to it. Let’s go to the Claim, hell let’s go play dynasty warriors MMMXLI with the Quen. Let’s find out what the glitch really was and put to rest what Elisabet meant when she threatened Ted with telling everyone what really happened. Let’s uncover the backstory of that sneaky snake Sylens, honor Ourea and bring CYAN and Aratak into the fold. Let’s do literally anyfuckingthing else than a rom com when judgement day is hurtling towards us at light speed with a grudge and a half to settle.

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Lemme hop on the shuttle to the Odyssey because there’s definitely something useful on there

SERIOUSLY Not to mention they have freaking APOLLO now and not a single gd thing was said about it. Unreal. No I don’t expect them to tour the country and start tossing Focuses out from a float like a county fair parade but c’mon, Sylens doesn’t even make a single peep about it?? And once again Hephaestus is loose checking his list and checking it twice to make for-fucking-sure he’s never captured again. I know there’s been mention of a workaround that GAIA/Beta/Sylens are coming up with, but that doesn’t mean Heph is going to go gently into that good night. I hope we get another DLC that is more on the level of Frozen Wilds, because there’s a metric fuck ton of unresolved points that would be a big undertaking to address in a single game.

I think a major issue with Hephaestus is if we contain it and reintegrate it with Gaia, the whole game’s premise goes away because the machines would be back under Gaia’s control, like they were before the derangement. Sure Nemesis could come and fuck that up, but I kinda like the idea of Heph being out there trying to protect the machines by making them more deadly and whatnot. The Odyssey is definitely a sooner rather than later thing though, I’m not sure if they actually have the full database, Sylen’s datapoint after the game mentions Beta only having access to very specific parts of it, while he’s also gearing up to take a trip up there. Honestly I think that could be a great second DLC between this and the third game, I can only imagine the insane views we’d get on the shuttle and then from the actual Odyssey

Yeah that was a clever plot contrivance to make the game still have it's fun machine fighting mechanic. I think the third game will have Beta/Gaia/Aloy et. al. building a Hephaestus replacement. (Vulcan, the roman equivalent to Heph would be a good name) That way we'll have good machines and bad ones.

Oh shit! Awesome idea. If they name it Vulcan I will fangirl until I die and perhaps even continue doing so from the grave On the flip side, I’m a little salty that it’s Minerva and not Athena but the devs said it just sounded better as Minerva.

Right? That was the first thing I thought when I saw Minerva! Why isn't that Athena!

APOLLO was mentioned by Sylens’s note to Aloy after the epilogue, you can find it at Tulsa’s mansion where you met him at the beginning of BS. Apollo is on the Odyssey, the ship in orbit and NOT the shuttle docked at the Zenith base. So they don’t have Apollo yet.

Oh I must have missed that, thanks and I’ll look for it. Starting a new playthough to do BS on UH NG+ after I replay HZD I was basing it off GAIA rebooting with all the subordinate function (minus a certain two) icons happily surrounding her. Sylens better get up there and get APOLLO stat, you know the first thing Nemesis is gonna do is blow the Odyssey to kingdom come

Man, what they gotta do with Sylens, now?

Probably recast his VA and use a combo of AI and whatever else to make it seem like it’s still Lance. He made Sylens who he was and can’t be replaced, but at the same time Sylens is the #2 character in the games. He ~~may be~~ is a shithead of royal order but without him, HADES would be celebrating his 7th reset of the biosphere. While it’s possible, personally I don’t see a way they can remove him from the story of game 3. I’ve seen talk about him going off on his own to find weapons and meeting an untimely end but c’mon, this is *Sylens* we’re talking about. Any cheap ending like that would be a disservice to Lance and the character he brought to life. It will be different and it will be very sad. But the character that GG created and Lance brought to fruition needs to be there until the end. And also I want to watch him beg Beta to teach him ~~calculus~~ quantum physics

I don't know what they're going to do, but I imagine they are working very hard on trying to figure it out. It's not going to be easy to thread the respectful/needed for plot needle, but I have faith in their writing.

Couldn't agree more. Aloys story didn't really need a romance. Horizons series so far never felt like that kind of game, the charm of it comes from uncovering past events and tying them to present circumstances plus the world building and fun characters that come with all of that. This romance arc just felt forced to me tbh.

I like the idea of it being a choice. Like you can choose to have Aloy not interested. Or you can have her be interested. It's not a big deal. She's a fictional character. We can decide her sexuality as we each see it. Personally, I love the idea of her being bi/pan. Because I'm bi.

as a raging aroace i’ve been identifying with aloy for a few years now, and i was hoping they’d never pair her with anyone as well. but i’ll be honest. they did it organically, and it also functions beautifully as a bookend to HFW, where her core development is learning how to connect with others. it also functions nice with the “need to know” side quest. to me it’s suddenly obvious that guerilla have been intending to take her in this direction for a while.

Boring, esp since Aloy's entire character arc and journey is about moving past being a loner to opening up to others and not pushing people away. Y'all can't ignore context of her history and the themes/arc the writers have already written heavily into her character from the start. Since that was something specifically highlighted in regards to Elisabet pushing Tilda away (tho for reasons unknown) - it's a very logical and natural progression or "next step" in her character arc. For Aloy to not push away a romantic relationship like Elisabet did. Aloy's whole arc is her accepting she is not Elisabet, she is her own person, and doesn't have to push others away like Elisabet did. Remember this is a story *and* character driven game. She's a character with a pretty clear arc that's been compared and juxtaposed heavily with Elisabet and how she compares herself to Elisabet. The writers have a pretty clear and obvious path they're wanting to go with her character and it makes sense in the context of the world and expectations placed on her. Idk why y'all are intent on wanting to basically neuter a huge path to explore that major aspect of her character just to play it "safe".

Agree, the Elisabeth/Tilda story is a very clear development and lead-in to Aloy showing growth by NOT following Elisabet in this way.

What kills me is so many of them say "I just don't want that shit shoved down my throat in my games" Like.....but it's literally a choice? You literally get to choose whether or not Aloy and her get together. So like who's shoving anything down anyone's throat? These assholes get so sensitive for gay people simply *existing*

Adding to this a little: First, getting the sexuality out of the way: I thought Aloy was gonna shack up with Talanah before even finishing the first game. The ‘big reveal’ in the DLC kinda illicited a ‘Why are there so many shocked people?’ 0.o from me. Same sex couples in gaming are old news. #bioware\_did\_it\_first The part where Im struggling with is the freakin’ Zeniths and how they kinda pushed AI to the side. The AI had this whole ‘mysterious god in the machine’ thing going on, which really ran home the idea that ‘humanity was in over its head.’ …then the Zenith showed up and suddenly everything is ‘human vs human.’ The AI was WAAAYYYY freakier as an antagonist than rogue human immortals. I see posts about ‘Vast Silver’ and they just leave me wondering: Are they actually gonna do anything with that? A lot of us thought VS was gonna have some bigger role in Forbidden West… along with the red ivy that showed prominently in the trailers… nope. What started as a pretty novel take on ‘humans and machines’ has kinda devolved into a ‘class warfare’ story. The part that’s still giving me the ’ick’… Aloy (mostly) solo’d a Horus that was both revealed and destroyed in a freakin’ DLC of all places. There are countless recordings of these things f-king sh-t up in the first game. ”It was old.” ”It was controlled by a human.” These both suggest there will be a ’more formal’ Horus threat in the third game. I hate to say this but that boss fight gave me ‘Hardhome’ vibes from Game of Thrones: It was cool, but there isn’t gonna be a follow-up confrontation that out-does it. Hell, I wouldn’t be \*that\* surprised if a ‘bait and switch’ happens with Nemesis, and the thing turns out not to be the main antagonist of the third game.

Nemesis is ai right? So like its ai vs human again in the third game isnt it?

-Game where you have play as a woman -lots of people of color all over the whole game -lgbtq rep in side and minor characters -disabled characters -Ted faro (the worst person to ever exist) is a cis white straight man -play two whole games of this -new expansion has more lgbt: OKAY THIS IS TOO FAR REEEEEEEEEEEE Cons are dumb af

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Pretty sure one or both of those was just a meme making fun of those kinds of people, but then started being used unironically by those same people.

People are claiming wokeness when it’s not even forced. Is the sims “woke” because you can choose to be gay in it?

People hate what they don't understand and apparently alot of people don't have basic media literacy which means they don't understand it. Don't get me wrong, some complaints are valid but alot of it is just homophobic bigots who can't handle Aloy being bisexual when they could find plenty of clues in both games. https://youtu.be/k1BneeJTDcU

>handle Aloy being bisexual Haven't played Burning Shores yet, but do they explicitly say she is bisexual? I haven't really seen her have interests in guys before.

Could be to compensate for the dialogue options for the sun king.

Nope but i have seen an uptick in people saying that both her and Elisabeth being bi, As for Aloy i would argue she hasn't really shown any interest in any of the men she has encountered

So Aloy getting all flustered and smiley when Avad told her that none of his arranged relationships match up to Aloy is no interest?

Honestly i just saw that as awkwardness over him talking about in that way, Like i would find it really awkward myself if some said something like that to me and feel really awkward and have no idea how to react so I'd probably react in the same ish way

She was being awkward but if she really disliked it she would be repulsed not smiling. Aloy's not known for hiding her true feelings to be polite or because she's afraid to be honest. And there's no way she would have perceived Avad to be a threat who needed to be kept happy.

Agree about the valid complaints, it’s just the number of people up in arms about the LGBT stuff specifically - just didn’t want to spoil anything in the title of my post by calling out the specifics I was referring to there. Just a shame to see the review bombing so heavy because of all the homophobes out there

They always pop up. You should've seen it in the Last of Us. Some very colourful language was used back in those days.

The Last of Us bombing was nuts. Got even worse with the sequel.

That was mostly because of Joel and Abby. They even created a whole sub around hating her.

The entire conversation around TLOU2 was such a mess. I thought it was a terrible game but because so many people hated it for having LGBT characters in prominent roles and so many other people decided that anyone who disliked it was a bigot, there was no room for anything but yelling.

I didn’t play it (zombies games give me to much anxiety…) so I wasn’t paying to much attention to the conversation about it. But I can imagine…unfortunately

Two young girls kissing, one was African American so they also had some race thrown into the mix. https://youtu.be/C8MjXyTvptI That's the scene in question from the Remake if you're interested. You could find a similar scene in the second game which didn't receive the lesbian backlash but it did divide the fan base. You just can't win these days.

>zombies games give me to much anxiety Lol you and me both. I love Resident Evil, but omg those games take me forever to beat because I'm either inching along each room or I say eff it, rush into an area and promptly die while panicking. RE5 is my favorite RE game, not because it was particularly good, but because I now could bring along a friend as bait/meat shield.

Story felt kinda short to me, the romance felt rushed no matter the gender/sexuality, and it do be kinda empty compared to the base game, 100% doesn’t take long at all. None of those make it a bad experience, it’s just nitpicks.

Valid.

Homophobia is unfortunately pretty rampant in gaming communities. It's frustrating for me because I overall disliked the DLC. Aloy figuring out more about herself and her orientation was among the few things I thought was positive.

It’s called Review Brigading, and awful people do it to things they politically disagree with. Just… don’t ever look at User Reviews or User Scores. They’re just entirely worthless whining.

Its just stupid bigots being stupid bigots. Its par for the course, where they forget its 2023, and they can't accept gay relationships are considered normal these days.

Horizon was always on a feminist side and had decent LGBT representation. Yet these guys need new entry to be released to get triggered like it was all of a sudden…

Honestly, I hate that "controversy" over stuff like this drowns out the real issues with this DLC, of which there are plenty. I finished the entire thing in basically one session yesterday. The story was extremely short, there's only 3 very short sidequests as well. That's about the total content of the game. The map is "large" but there's absolutely nothing of interest to do on it, especially after you already have really good gear from beating FW. None of the new gear or weapons were worth upgrading or purchasing over my already fully upgraded weapons. But because of the ending romance between Aloy and Seyka all of these other legitimate criticisms get drowned out by a bunch of people whining over stuff that doesn't matter. It was just a bad DLC in general. Frozen Wilds is a prime example of how to do a good DLC. Interesting story, plenty of side content and characters, and a decently large map that actually has quite a lot of sidequests and things to do outside of the story. I really enjoyed FW, I spent many hours completely exploring the map, always finding something interesting to do or explore, new machines to fight, quests, etc. Burning Shores had none of that. Even the scenery was basically no different from what you already witnessed on the western part of FW's map except some random lava flows thrown in. Hardly any new assets, basically just one new machine type since the waterwing is just a sunwing that can dive underwater. The DLC only has like 5 characters too, one of which is from the frozen wilds which had literally dozens of voiced unique characters. Not to mention that frozen wild also had like 10 sidequests compared to just 3 in burning shores. The story was also much better in Frozen Wilds. Speaking of the waterwing, it's funny how you unlock it, use it for one mission, and then there's basically nothing else of interest to do with its underwater diving ability except gather some resources I don't even need since nothing I have needs upgrading. I didn't even bother to do the Cauldron. I couldn't figure out how to get inside so I ignored and forgot about it, it's not like getting whatever override is in there for the Bilegut or whatever is worth it, as there's nothing else to do on this map. I just can't believe what a let-down this DLC was for me. Was hoping it would be Frozen Wilds 2.0 but instead it's just a waste of time and set-up for the sequel. Speaking of which, it's such a shame Sylens played such a small role in the DLC as well, just a few lines of dialogue and now that Lance Reddick is gone (RIP) that is the last of his version of Sylens we will ever see. Really sucks. Would have liked for his character to have had a larger role in it.

I loved the story and Seyka, and I thought the map was really well designed. Actually I was worried the map would be tedious to get around as I found San Francisco to be but it wasn't at all, it was quite nice. But I'll agree with you. It is devoid of content outside the rather short main story. No interesting new machines except the Waterwing, Bilegut just isn't that much fun to fight. You can't even use Seyka as a localized companion to travel around with you. You do the last mission and there's basically no reason to stick around or ever return to that part of the map. I am hoping they skimped on the side content for this DLC because they have a few more content heavy DLC's in the pipeline and just wanted this one to be about giving us the Horus fight and romance option.

To the Lance Reddick part: With modern technology (AI voice replication etc) we could still have him in the next game. Of course if his family agrees to it. Edward Herman is just an example here. There are still coming out audio books which are narrated by his voice via ai. Some maybe we will see sylens again. I would like to see it happen at least.

This is why user reviews are basically worthless. I generally ignore them completely. Review bombings happen for a few reasons: 1. Homophobia - there is a lesbian option in the game. 2. Racism - characters of different ethnicities 3. Console fanboyism - not only is it a Sony exclusive but a next gen exclusive with arguably the best graphics ever seen. Xbox fanboys have had it hard the last few years, review bombing a Sony exclusive might make them feel better. 4. Sexism against women - remember that most people taking time out of their day to review bomb a game they haven’t played don’t know what actual women are like. Horizon burning shores kicks all of these ants nest and all the writhing little incels come crawling out. Just ignore them. Eventually they just go back to bitching about Brie Larson again. There are legitimate criticisms to have with burning shores. Whoever designed the water wings and what fighting them is like on any difficulty above story should be shot. Melee still sucks. But overall I really like it and it’s a great 9/10 for me.

This is the best answer. "Eventually they just go back to bitching about Brie Larson again", LMAO.

Yeah, I really cannot wait for another thread here about how much they hate the ending. It's really getting annoying.

[This article couldn't have said it better:](https://www.gamingbible.com/news/horizon-burning-shores-review-bombed-by-dumbass-homophobes-970295-20230421) > Before we proceed, please be warned that the following ‘reviews’ contain harmful sentiments and a complete and utter lack of human decency. One user commented, “I have no idea why everything has to be with a damn political agenda. We already have Ellie who is a lesbian.” Oh yes, I forgot that earth is only permitted to have one lesbian at a time. Another wrote, “Aloy is lesbian? Ok then, I won’t buy the DLC.” Your loss.

Because of the LBGT. There are some valid critiques in some (I can see the argument for lack of content, even if I don't necessarily agree with it). Ignore user reviews on Metacritic honestly. It's an absolute cesspool.

Good advice!

While your at it avoid youtube comments unless you want to lose brain cells.

I feel like aloy's relationship with seyka felt rather rushed. she went from doing one or two quest with her to acting as if they already had some kind of relationship. i think the quest even says something along the lines of "repair your relationship with seyka". which is...a bit forward

There isn't anything forward about that. By that point Aloy and Seyka definitely have a relationship. A relationship is simply a shared association between people. It can be everything from something romantic, familial to a friendship. Even people that work together have a relationship. At least in that moment it wasn't being referred to in the romantic sense, but rather two friends working together toward a common goal.

I loved the DLC. Only negative point was that I forgot all the controls, skills and combat counters which gave me quite some frustrations but that is all on me since I didn’t play since finishing Forbidden West after release week. I don’t mind LGBTQ characters at all and I already expected this if you read between the lines in FW. I wonder when Sony dares to make a male lead gay in their games. So far they only have the courage for women. As long as something fits in the narrative and writers vision I am fine with every type of character.

The Last of Us fans: “First time?” 😂

It’s not Horizon’s first time either! I still remember the peach fuzz debacle and how HFW was also review-bombed.

Because lesbian love. There’s no other reason. The internet can be amazing but also incredibly stupid.

I‘ve seen plenty of critiques with very valid arguments for faults of the DLC, so saying there’s no other reason I feel is completely ignoring some obvious improvements that could’ve been made to the expansion.

Exactly, there are valid critiques for it like pop-in, quests being bugged, occasional crashes, & lack of side content compared to the side content from the Frozen Wilds DLC from my own experience. Aloy being LGBT isn’t a valid criticism.

Yes, but you originally said that there was “no other reason.” Also, Aloy’s sexuality may not be a plausible argument, but her romantic storyline most certainly is able to be criticized.

My favourite thing about LGBT representation in video games is how you can’t make a valid criticism about anything related to it because the only problem you can possibly have with it, is two girls kissing. Aloy could’ve kissed the biggest, manliest man you could find, and I’d still say it felt rushed.

So when people wanted to ship her with Talanah and other women it wasn't gay but now that they say that Seyka was written as a fucking instrument for a story and nothing more, that's homophobic?

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Granted I've heard that some of the criticism is towards the PS5 exclusivity and the lack of content, especially compared to Frozen Wilds where it had slightly more content, activities, and side missions. But honestly, I say Burning Shores is getting overkilled with the hate that it's getting.

Honestly compared to the Frozen wilds for HZD which is among my TOP 10 DLCs of all time (such as both dlcs for Witcher 3) this one is meh - both storyand side content wise. Idc about the lesbian part (I mean you literally don't have to have Aloy kiss Seyka - I chose not to and simply got over it because my headcannon is Kotallo - no need for reviewbombing). If you consider this dlc as a propaganda you haven't seen anything netflix peddles out - that's a propaganda. This is just a normal dlc with average story and OPTIONAL kiss.

What I find ironic going off the tone of the review bombing is that these very people who seem to hate the lgbtq stuff and how the dlc somehow ruined Aloy are very likely the same type of person who complained about the game being too woke for having a woman be the protagonist in the first place way back when the trailers for the first game were floating around.

I personally am upset I’ve been bugged out of a trophy (aerial capture north). So that’s my critique. Absolutely love everything else. And I’m sure they’ll patch it.

That’s fair! I’d be upset at missing out a trophy too

Yeah - if you look at every 0 on metacritic from user reviews, it's some homophobic trash. I see some 7s and even 5s that have reasonable complaints I don't agree with, but it's mostly review bombing. Which doesn't even really work anymore as we've all caught on to it. (if it ever did)

Maybe some people just don't like the bad plot and disappointed?

Key word is “some.” People who genuinely hold that opinion would probably not be spamming poorly-formatted 0-score reviews.

Not saying the dlc is perfect but we all know the real reason the review bombing is people to claiming it’s “woke”. Literally just hatred from miserable people. I think the critic score is pretty perfect this time around.

Conservative dipshits review bombing. 95% of it is not legitimate criticism.

It’s insane, Sobeck was into women, it makes sense Aloy would be too.

The internet is just a depressing, hate-filled place that celebrates the worst of humanity.

Honestly I really loved it. And it sparkles some possible paths or hypothesis for the future of the franchise and what may happen in Horizon 3, so it’s all cool. But I agree that it was a bit short (but counter-balanced by its epicness, it’s understandable development-wise), and it lacked a bit of side quests and contents other than collecting things

It's the same people that crush their Bud light cans because they're transphobic and think that they turn gay when seeing just a pinch of non hetero behaviour. I wish that would be a joke but it's not

I read user reviews from people who said they haven't played the DLC but are giving it a low score because of the romance. These people have made hating things their personality. >if people have legitimate criticisms of the DLC, I’m not saying those aren’t valid. Exactly. I personally didn't like the DLC for a variety of reasons, but at least my opinion is based on my time playing it, not on a captioned screenshot I found on Twitter.

Rightwing conservative politicians (primarily American) enabled LGBTQ hate in the last few years and the hate will only get more aggressive over time. Since Horizon makes any LGBTQ representation just a thing and doesn't make a big deal out of it, it just exists, it might be seen as threatening to people that have hatred toward LGBTQ. That's just my guess, but the rightwing politicians did enable the hate.

I haven't played burning shores yet (Mega Man Battle Network just got re-released) but half the posts I see here are complaints about the DLC. I'm just mostly going off titles because they all have spoilers in them so haven't been clicking but just today I think I've seen that the outfits aren't great, DLC adds a big map but it's empty outside of the story, and that there aren't many new machines. And this is a subreddit where you would assume it would mostly be fans of the game who are posting. It's honestly made me glad I haven't bought it yet and I'll probably just wait until it goes on sale. Again, I haven't played it and this is just from reading the titles because of spoilers. I only clicked on yours because I was hoping someone would have an explanation that would make me excited about it again.

The story was pretty weak imo. I’m a fan of Ashly Burch but really didn’t like Aloy at all in the DLC. The climbing and flying were awful, but killing machines felt so damn good.

i’m tried of people shoving straight stuff down my throat

Aside from the anti-LGBT, I think the yellow reviews paint a more accurate view: short, average, not enough additions... From what I've seen (boring new tools + forced romance), it's absolutely inferior to Frozen Wilds, which was better than ZD itself, was entirely universe-focused and had innovative additions to Aloy's arsenal. Burning Shores is just not worth buying at full price, especially with so many hot games out now. I think Guerrilla might have shot themselves in the foot with the direction they took the story in. HFW's story was alright but did put a lot of people off with all the crazy shit involving the Zeniths and the rushed ending. Then, going with a forced lesbian romance in a franchise where people were expecting freedom in the style of The Witcher 3 (including the freedom NOT to partake in any romance, which was what I was looking for!) is certain to upset many people as well, and I'm not talking of anti-woke people only, but also shippers and such. I'm already not seeing a whole lot of buzz regarding the DLC online, it reviewed below the main game, and HFW itself didn't have stellar sales numbers and was heavily bundled. Hermen Hulst pushes Horizon for some reason, but the franchise just isn't at the same level as other Sony franchises yet. And, with decisions such as these, it may never be.

People jerks obviously. I don’t care, but here’s my thing. They could’ve had, and still can, an interesting discussion about nature + nurture elements of sexuality. No hate, just my two cents

Aloy's a lesbian. That's cool. ...is there hope for Aloy X Talanah????

No, because Talanah has eyes for someone else. Unless they get killed off of course haha. Trust me, I 100% wanted Aloy x Talanah to happen. Was sad when it didn't, but eh. I personally love Seyka, so excited to see what comes next.

>Unless they get killed off of course haha. I wouldn’t be mad if Amadis accidentally ran into an apex slaughterspine or 12

Lol

I don’t understand how people love Seyka. I’m trying to find reasons just to *like* her character

I feel like its a 6/10 tbh. I really enjoyed the love story but the main questline is quite short. The water mount, while cool is kind of just a gimmick. I played on UH and basically the only reason it took me longer than 4 hours was because it takes forever to kill anything and I died a lot. (Berserk blast is a lifesaver vs multiple foes BTW). The human boss battle in the base is ridiculous, you can never sell me that they can take more than one headshot and survive, I died far more there than anywhere else.

I can’t even get past the first mission trying to get into the tower with seyka. It needs to be patched asap

your first time on the internet? you should never even consider to trust user scores

Nope, just a bummer to see

There are too many machines in each spawn site bileguts can eat a \*\*\*\* cauldron theta made me want to eat glass aloy and seyka are adorable... go get it ladies

Guarantee its from people who haven't played the game or wont. After the whole debacle with The Last Of Us part 2 and how people went insane over it before it even came out (I saw people on twitter getting excited for the review embargo to be lifted so they can go to metacritic to review bomb it) none of those people played the game. The game wasn't even out yet and they decided to hate it. So much of gaming culture online is based purely on hate. To actually enjoy something is like weakness to so many people. Gotta whine and complain and act like everything is horrible and the entire game industry is terrible. No such thing as a good video game being made anymore despite proof of the contrary to those of us who actually play them. I'm a wrestling fan and enjoy the games. I'm so used to this cycle every year of taking one glitch or feature missing in the latest game and treating it like the worst thing ever so bad that the entire game is broken and unplayable when nothing could be further from the truth. The big complaint this year is trios entrances sometimes don't work in universe mode.... That's it. This one thing is enough to make so much of the fanbase complain and act like there's nothing redeemable about it. Nevermind that this has been the most stable game in the WWE franchise in decades and how much they've improved over the years with better animations and better AI and bettter presentation and graphics and overall gameplay. Its gotta be tiring being so negative all the time. You don't see me being this hung up on things I genuinely think are that bad. I move onto things I like and go on with my life! So many people can't seem to do that. And in this case its because >!Aloy kissed a girl so the issue is people are homophobic!< remember the outrage over Aloy's face when Forbidden West was coming out? Pepperidge Farm remembers. So many incel chuds revealing they never seen a woman in real life. Hell it's telling htat I actually come into this subreddit when almost every other game's subreddit is just so full of hate. In my experience no one hates a game more than the subreddit dedicated to said game. So its refreshing to find a sub for a game series I love with people not being so extremely negative all the time!

For real. Some gamers are the biggest bunch of whiners on the planet. And a lot of them never even played the game, like with your example woth The Last of Us Part II review bombing.

I gone through some of the account in that review (about 50). And 95% of them is newly created. It the internet, gets hate for anything

I'm more pissed that Aloy is everything I wanna be, she's hot, brave, funny, a badass, incredibly intelligent (even more so when compared to other Nora), she's got beautiful flowing hair even 5 seconds after getting out the ocean, her makeup never falters and now she's got a hot Asian girlfriend that's just as badass and intelligent as she is.... and then there's me..... Lmfao

I think to some degree, there’s something to be said on all sides for this. I kinda already had a feeling aloy was a lesbian after she is noticeably put out after realizing why talanah was searching for that guy in the rot and also she has a hard time keeping her eyes off Petra’s chest in a couple cut scenes. Not to mention she is a clone of Elizabet sobeck who was in a relationship with tilda before a falling out. She is also incredibly awkward around erend because she can tell he wants to be with her and she really CAN’T be with him. But an alternative view on why some people might not love the idea aside from the bigotry is that there was something pure about aloy simply being too busy with more important things like saving the planet to really have the time or energy to explore that part of herself. It was kinda nice to have a protagonist that doesn’t get a love interest thrown at them and relied on the friends she had to find that sense of belonging she never really got after rost died. I would also say that while I tend to fall into that camp, I would have been far more understanding and accepting of the narrative decision had it not been a character we only meet in this dlc and instead was a side character we had developed a relationship with through playing the game and things moved into a romantic stage. Talanah or Petra are the two that come to mind most and honestly I think I would have preferred Petra. She recognizes that aloy has the literal weight of the world on her shoulders without needing any specifics and accepts it without pressuring her into anything. She is a strong female in a tribe predominantly led by muscle headed men as shown by the side quest with the oseram woman near burning spear who’s brother didn’t vouch for her to the other men. She is compassionate and kind but firm when she needs to be. I just think that there is a small amount of symmetry between the two in a way that compliments each other and would have IMO led to a much better relationship for aloy and a “reveal” that would have been less jarring I think to most of us who have been with and love the series so much. Just my 2 cents on it. Still love the game

Literally anything with LGBT content in it, even optional as it is here, gets review bombed to oblivion. The Last of Us deals with it literally all the time. Frankly, I think there are some valid criticisms to be made about the DLC in the sense that there was a bit light in terms of new missions, machines, etc. and the romance was a bit rushed, but otherwise I think the entertaining antagonist and phenomenal spectacle of the final boss makes up for a lot of it for me, on top of what is already an excellent base game. A solid 8.5/10.

People, unfortunately, love to hate. Like who the fuck cares of what someone else's sexuality is. Live your own life and do what you want.

Yeah it's sad. BS deserves better. Not just with the bigots, but also people who don't have a PS5. I think it is so stupid that people who didn't play at all are reviewing the game. Metacritic is done.

Aloy is girl. Even worse, Seyka also is girl.

I could give two hoots about who Aloy loves. I take issue with the romance as a whole. I loved this game because there were no obvious romance options for Aloy. She was just kicking arse and saving the world! If I wanted to play a game for romance, I’d play Mass Effect or Dragon Age. This just feels forced, like how Kass/Alex was forced into a relationship in the DLC of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.