I liked the story of lost tech and the overall geoengineering effort run amok. I honestly enjoyed the game more than BotW which had weirdly similar vibes. The second one was feeling less coherent though, I haven't finished it yet. I enjoy uncovering the mysteries, which means I don't think I could replay it.

I kind of noped out when I discovered that the larger enemies turned into arrow sponges. The combat never really clicked for me and it just became tedious.

The combat sucks too, especially against the human enemies that are just boring to fight, at least the machines look interesting and have their own specific weak points. For some reason you also get really good weapons like halfway into the game, which makes it too easy.

I think a lot of the enjoyment in these kinds of open world games comes from how good the traversal is. Spider-Man has a very similar formula, but swinging around New York on webs is a lot of fun. Traversing Horizon's world isn't fun, and you need to craft items for fast travel.

I liked it, but I literally didn't play any of these survival/craft/shooter games until the first Horizon caught my eye. The thing that wins me over is the controller gimmicks with the PS4. I love when it lights up and makes noises in sync with my actions in the game.