Horizon: Call of the Mountainis a VR experience set in the same world as Horizon: Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, focused on porting the combat of its predecessors to VR as one of the first big games for Sony’s Playstation VR 2.
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But though Call of the Mountain can be electrifying at moments, with its beautiful landscapes and engaging combat, it’s lacking quite a few features that would take it to the next level; with some tweaks, the game could not only prove the value of VR to audiences but become the quintessential example of a VR game done right.
10Pick Up The Pace
It’s undeniable that contrast is what makes the highs of a game feel special– if Call of the Mountain was all action setpieces, they would feel hollow and rushed due to the lack of downtime for processing what you’ve been through. Nonetheless, the game fixates a bit too much on providing time away from exciting experiences.
Though some of the quieter moments provide unmatched beauty and serenity, a lot of them are padding that simply extends the overall length on paper. If some were shortened (or cut out altogether), a better balance would be struck over the course of gameplay.
9Keep The Open World
Linearity is certainly one of the more effective ways of designing a world for VR, since too much choice can quickly become overwhelming when your perspective is so narrow. Despite this, there are stillsome experiences that would be better structured in an open world, and Call of the Mountain is one of them.
The linear nature of the critical path takes a lot away from the vastness of the world, making the vistas feel more like corridors with a nice coat of paint. It wouldn’t even need to be a particularly big open world, just an area that you could explore with the included movement mechanics.
8Introduce A Stronger Narrative
Call of the Mountain may be intended to be more of a tech demo than a full-bodied experience, but for a price tag comparable to the other games in the series (on top of the cost of PS VR2), there should definitely be something more fulfilling in terms of plot.
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As it currently stands, the narrative is just a backdrop to justify the march from setpiece to setpiece; it isn’t necessary for it to be consequential to the larger plot of the series, but it needs more wrinkles to make it truly engaging and pair well with the fantastic combat.
7Vary The Gameplay
You’ll have to get used to having your face pressed into mountainsides when you play Call of the Mountain, as a significant portion of the game is spent climbing. The system for doing so is really great, even having some solid accessibility options, but it isn’t enough to be the primary focus of gameplay.
There are other ways to give players downtime, and while puzzles are thrown in from time to time, climbing is used to an extent that makes the overall experience feel cheap and monotonous. Sprinkling in a few more puzzles and occasions to examine environments will make the quiet moments of the game feel more valuable.
6Add Deeper UI Customization
Call of the Mountain does a great job of allowing you to choose the way you experience the game, especially in terms of accessibility. The UI, unfortunately, is a completely different story.
VR lives and dies on how comfortable and immersed you can be when playing it, which is why not being able to adjust subtitle locations or the weapons wheel is an unfortunate blow to the experience. Adding ways to change the UI would make the game more accessible to everyone, even if the defaults are kept for a majority of players.
5Make The Puzzles More Difficult
Not every game necessarily needs puzzles– to include them in a game with a heavy emphasis on combat, when implemented poorly, can leave a blemish on a title that would otherwise knock things out of the park. To that point, Horizon: Call of the Mountains puzzles feel more like busywork than an actual challenge.
These puzzles are more interested in the spectacle of being able to pick up and move physical objects than in what that can provide when problem-solving in a three-dimensional space– more reliance on perspective and environmental storytelling would better complement the medium of VR.
4Cut Out The Protagonist
Ryas’s story is central to the plot of Call of the Mountain, and yet the game would be significantly better if his dialogue was cut out of the game. His interjections often clash with your experience and perspective, leading to times when he directly contradicts how you might feel after a challenge.
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Though other VR games have done this well before, this game would be better suited toa silent protagonist like Gordon Freeman–you would understand Ryas’s story from the dialogue of other characters, but be in control and enjoy the experience firsthand.
3Portion Out More Combat
Combat is easily the best part of Horizon: Call of the Mountain, which is why it’s disappointing that it’s such an infrequent delight. Despitecombat being one of the central aspects of the series, it just doesn’t come up enough over the course of the story to feel fully utilized.
With just a few more occurrences of combat, the game would just be more fun overall. There’s certainly something to be said about overdoing a good thing, but it’s better to wear it out than to not experience it at all.
2Improve The Stealth
Stealth is another thing that doesn’t have to be in every game– only going part of the way with stealth systems can make an experience feel cheap, as anyone who seriously attempts to use them will find that the game is designed around a completely different playstyle This is exactly the case with the stealth added into Call of the Mountain’s combat-focused campaign.
Instead of getting rid of it altogether, the stealth simply needs to be given some reworks to make it comparable to earlier games in the series, including the use of tall grass to pick off enemies.
1Make Collectibles More Engaging
If there’s anything VR is good for, it’s exploration and collection– though Call of the Mountain has its fair share of collectibles, there aren’t as many as you would typically expect. Additionally, they aren’t so valuable that you’d be inspired to go out of your way to find them all.
Useful upgrades and weapons could be found by gleaning information from collected lore documents, making the process of finding things feel rewarding and exciting. You would be engaging with lore by choice, and with more collectibles, you would have plenty of reasons to keep coming back for more.
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