Guerrilla Games and Kojima Productions have had a close partnership, thanks in part to the sharing of Guerrilla’s proprietary Decima Engine. Decima has powered not just both Horizon titles developed internally by Guerrilla Games but also Kojima Production’s inaugural Death Stranding title. With technology being shared between these two AAA developers, it should come as no surprise to see that one of Death Stranding’s more unique features plays a big role in Horizon Forbidden West.
When you compare Aloy’s Focus to that of Sam “Porter” Bridges’ BB, there are some instant similarities between the scanning capabilities of both futuristic devices. In addition to being able to scan out points of interest (typically enemy combatants and their various strengths, weaknesses or equipment), they can also be used to give a quick snapshot of the environment and the immediate hazards presented.
In Death Stranding, these hazards are clearly marked by simple colored lines and symbols that chart out the intensity of a given path, ranging from blue to yellow to red given the intensity and the sheer amount of difficulty Sam Bridges would have at traversing them. Red paths are almost always nigh impenetrable and will easily lead to losing control or being unable to progress safely with load intact.
Just the same, Aloy’s focus in Horizon Forbidden West has been upgraded with some of that secret Kojima tech to help give the player more agency to be able to climb around the environment at well. Yellow-painted handholds still mark the most obvious parts of the traversal, just as they did in Horizon Zero Dawn, but the main difference is that Aloy’s climbing prowess has been developed to include free clamoring over most surfaces in the game. As not every vertical grab or cliff face will be smeared with sunflower yellow paint to guide the way, routinely scanning the environment with Aloy’s focus clearly illuminates the path forward when things become less obvious.
With the technology imported from Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding and added into Horizon Forbidden West, the upgraded Focus is a simple innovation that makes the climbing and parkour of Horizon Forbidden West that much more enjoyable. Even looking back to the original Horizon Zero Dawn, the scripted nature of key climbing sequences carries over into the sequel but with much less obvious direction as the player can now climb more freely around the environment.
