Horizon Forbidden West: Language and Representation

Language

Introduction

Read this review of Horizon Forbidden West in the Financial Times. Answer the following questions:

1) Why does Guerrilla Games have 'a serious case of bad timing'? 

No sooner had it released its fantastic 2017 open-world role-playing game Horizon Zero Dawn than it was overshadowed by Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which launched a week later and turned out to be an all-time gaming great. Now just as it delivers an excellent sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, another phenomenon arrives on its heels to suck away all the oxygen, Elden Ring.

2) What is the narrative for the original game Horizon Zero Dawn? 

The one-line pitch is that you’re a hunter-gatherer fighting robot dinosaurs across a post-apocalyptic US. With such a fun hook, nobody needed Horizon Zero Dawn to have a good story, yet its narrative proved unexpectedly compelling. The games take place a thousand years after rampaging machines have wiped out most of humanity. Survivors have clustered into tribal communities who view relics of technology as objects of either suspicion or religious reverence. The dramas of warring clans are narrated alongside the tale of how our world came to ruin. 

3) How is the central character Aloy described? 

Guerrilla struck gold with flame-haired heroine Aloy, who balances grit and tenderness as one of the most memorable new characters of its console generation.

4) What is the narrative and setting for sequel Horizon Forbidden West?

Where the first game stretched across a terraformed Colorado, Forbidden West beckons players to Nevada and California with a new threat to humanity that, naturally, only you can resolve. The previous game revolved around the mysteries of Aloy’s identity, which were neatly wrapped up by its conclusion. The new game’s story is more diffuse, yet it smartly explores themes of climate catastrophe and the hubris of big tech with a nuanced script and brilliant voice acting that includes appearances by actors Angela Bassett and Carrie-Anne Moss. Action junkies be warned: this game contains an enormous amount of dialogue, best suited to those who like their robot-slaying interpolated by lengthy, though rarely dull, disquisitions on sci-fi politics.

5) What does the review say about animation and graphics?

Forbidden West is the first truly eye-popping flex of the PS5’s muscles, with graphics so beautiful that I have often found myself halting the adventure just to gawp at the landscape, whether dust clouds careening across the desert or forest leaves quivering in the breeze. The robot enemies are ingenious works of biomechanical clockwork, shaped like snakes, hippos, ferrets, rams and pterodactyls, with electric cables for sinew and gleaming steel for ligaments. Most impressive are the character models. Aloy’s complex hairstyle is a marvel in its own right, and the animation of facial expressions achieves an unprecedented realism — never before have I seen a game character communicate subtext so convincingly by tightening their jaw or subtly shifting their gaze. 

6) What do we learn about the gameplay and activities in Horizon Forbidden West? 

Forbidden West’s gameplay offers robust, satisfying combat beneath its good looks. Aloy’s movement feels ultra-fluid as she deftly transitions between sliding, climbing and making use of new tools such as a grappling hook and paraglider. Each fight with a robot enemy is tense and exciting, demanding that players think like a hunter by analysing opponents’ behaviours, deploying traps and elemental attacks to gain the upper hand. Minor irritations from Zero Dawn have been resolved, allowing you to make better use of stealth and melee weapons or manage resources more easily. 

Close textual analysis

Watch the trailer for Horizon Forbidden West:

1) How is narrative, character and setting introduced in the trailer?

The narrative follows a quest to save the world from advanced technology as well as defeat the many tribes shown. We are introduced to this strong female lead, Aloy who is seen to subvert many stereotypes through her own independence. The setting can be easily recognisable despite being set in the future, we can see the Golden gate bridge in San Francisco.

2) How is the game's open world / sandbox genre shown in the trailer? 

There are multiple shots showing off different locations you can explore throughout the trailer, we also see the protagonist Aloy travelling through some of those locations such as riding through a field, exploring an underwater city, or climbing a snow covered mountain. 

3) What representations can you find in the trailer? 

The trailer portrays Aloy as a strong protagonist and goes against the traditional harmful depictions of women in media by not appealing to the male gaze. Despite having good representation when it comes to the protagonist there are some harmful stereotypes when it comes to some of the side characters such as one of the antagonists, a black women, is portrayed as being constantly angry which is a harmful stigma that is perpetuated in media such as this.

Watch the gameplay video and answer the following questions:

1) How does the game use media language to communicate ideas about narrative and genre?

The protagonist (Propp's character types) is Aloy, who is there to bring about peace (Todorov's new equilibrium). It is possible to view the other characters who accompany and assist her in battling the robot enemies as the donors. Aloy versus the robots or Good Tribe versus Bad Tribe are examples of binary opposition (Levi-Strauss). All of the weapons are used to establish action codes (Barthes), which indicate that a conflict is imminent.

2) What representations of people, places or groups can you find in the gameplay video?

Women are represented positively in this game through character such as Aloy, and there are many characters of colour present, including native people and tribes.

3) What audience pleasures are suggested by this gameplay trailer?

- Diversion: through playing a video game which immerses you in a different world

- Personal Relationships: Audiences can bond with the characters in the game as they watch them progress through their lives in the story 

- Personal Identity: Audiences can resonate with the characters and see themselves through their portrayal.

- Surveillance: The game gives audiences a view into the potential future of the world if we continue to ignore important issues like climate change.

Narrative and genre

Read this excellent Den of Geek article that addresses elements of narrative and genre. Answer the following questions: 

1) Read the opening to the article. How can we apply Steve Neale's genre theory to Horizon Forbidden West?

The article suggests that Forbidden West is very similar to Zero Dawn and other open world games releasing at the time linking to the idea that genres all contain instances of repetition, as Forbidden West is using the pre established ideas in the genre to build their game from. 

2) How many copies did the Horizon Zero Dawn sell and why did this influence the design of the sequel?

It sold 20 million copies, meaning the sequel did not have to drastically change in order to reach new fans as they already had a large audience.

3) How does the article criticise the story in Horizon Forbidden West? 

“More story” doesn’t necessarily translate to “better story,” though. Much like Zero Dawn, Forbidden West’s greatest narrative strengths are the quality of its world and mythology. Some of the best storytelling moments in the game happen when you take a little time to look around and really think about how and why this somewhat primitive world was built upon the ashes of a high-tech “advanced” society. To its credit, the game also does a pretty good job of expanding both our understanding of the world that was and our appreciation of the world that is via sequences that often blend the two concepts and use them to enhance each other. 

The problem is that Forbidden West spends a bit too much time letting a small army of side characters spout what sometimes feels like an endless amount of exposition. There are fantastic side characters and sidequests in this game, but Forbidden West’s reliance on extended dialog sequences starts to wear you down relatively early into this massive adventure. There are times when you’ll find yourself wishing that Guerrilla Games had simply recognized how impressive the world they created was and found ways to let that world and the characters in it do the heavy living rather than those extended dialog sequences that seem determined to tell you absolutely everything.

4) What do we learn about the gameplay? 

There are new combat features and its navigation mechanics where getting around such as Aloy's abilities to dive underwater, glide, climb more surfaces, utilise hook shots and climb are more effective. The game has a hunting combat system where you hunt down robots interspersed with dialogue scenes exploring the history of the world that they inhabit.

5) What is the article's overall summary of the game?

Whenever I found myself waiting for yet another expository dialog sequence to end or debating whether it’s worth engaging with another sidequest that may just pile onto the core story elements I was truly invested in, I started to sympathize a little more with those cries for Forbidden West to do things differently. The game’s occasional struggles to stretch this franchise’s best qualities across a larger world were sometimes substantial enough to make me wonder what a version of this game unburdened by the “icon-based” expectations or modern open-world design (or one that embraced a minimalist approach) would have looked like. 

Representations

Race representations in Horizon Forbidden West

Read this fascinating Polygon feature on why Horizon Forbidden West isn't post-racial and answer the following questions: 

1) How does Horizon Forbidden West use narrative to create a fully diverse cast of characters?

After human civilization was fully wiped out by a plague of self-replicating machines, a terraforming AI named GAIA rebuilt life on Earth, with the genetic diversity of humanity, but without the history and societal structures that underpinned racism in the 21st century. It’s a clever narrative move to let the developers pack the game with people of all skin colors, a fact that has been routinely lauded as progressive by some critics and gamers.

2) What is orientalism? 

Orientalism is a type of racism in which “the West” — generally understood as Europe and North America — projects savagery and beauty onto “the East,” or the Orient. This allows Western imagination to see “Eastern” cultures and people as both alluring and a threat to Western civilization. The Orient is flexible and moves depending on European and American obsessions and war efforts; its definition really depends on who’s asking, and when they’re asking.

3) How does the article suggest orientalism applies to Horizon Forbidden West? 

Orientalism is embedded at the core of Forbidden West’s narrative of exploring exotic lands. Protagonist Aloy’s Orient is the “Forbidden West” itself: the present-day southwestern U.S. and California, filled as they are with foreign tribes, religions, and customs. In this morass, Aloy is both an explorer and a (white) savior. Only she understands what is at stake in the world, and she has to spend time in the petty politics of a bunch of tribes in order to convince them that the problems she’s facing are more severe than theirs.

4) Who is the player encouraged to identify with in the game and how does this influence how representations are constructed?  

Players are encouraged to identify with Aloy which means the perspective of a white character is what the story and your actions are meant to be viewed through, contributing to racial bias. 

5) Finally, what did the writer of the article (an Asian American) feel when playing the game?

"...the game asked me to identify with Aloy and support her mission to save the planet. But to progress in the game, I ended up role-playing different kinds of cultural violence, including Orientalism, which founds and fuels a lot of the racism I experience as an Asian American. Even though Aloy’s world is supposedly post-racial, its developers still repeat Orientalist tropes in their design choices, which paint Asian cultures, and therefore people, as perpetually foreign, mysterious, and threatening."

Gender and videogames

Focusing on Aloy and the representation of women in videogames, read this Forbes feature on the topic. Answer the following questions:

1) What is the debate regarding Aloy in Horizon Forbidden West? 

Aloy's appearance sparked online debate from some fans of the Horizon franchise, causing people to discuss whether she was "sexy" or not, raising the question of the necessity of female videogame characters to be attractive in order to be popular or deemed relevance. 

2) What examples are provided of other female characters and representations in videogames?

“Characters like Aloy remain too rare among mainstream games. As a video-game enthusiast, I find it uncomfortable playing leading titles like Tomb Raider, Genshin Impact or Bayonetta, all of which feature female characters in skimpy outfits."

3) What are the issues facing the videogame industry in terms of gender?  

The industry has massive, massive problems with retaining women employees and treating them well within gamedev. And there have indeed been female characters created entirely within a male gaze. But the presentation here, that Aloy is the gold standard, both discounts decades of beloved women in games and simultaneously demonizes “attractiveness” in characters that everyone, even women (often especially women) love in their games.