Even though Horizon Forbidden West had a high approval rating from various critics, it wasn’t enough to beat Elden Ring. When Horizon Zero Dawn was first released, it was in the same timeframe as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. So it seems that the Horizon series has some sort of curse that they can’t get rid of. And their devs are more than annoyed at the Elden Ring’s 96% critic rating.
Horizon Forbidden West developers publicly criticize aspects of Elden Ring.
In a series of tweets, executives from both Sony and Ubisoft exchanged their sentiments on Elden Ring. Ahmed Salama, Ubisoft’s User Experience director, shared their thoughts on Elden Ring’s 97 Metacritic score. In their initial tweet, the Metacritic score was “proof” that reviewers don’t give “a flaming poop” about a game’s user experience.
Watch as a Horizon: Forbidden West Developer complains that Elden Ring got higher scores than his game, and then starts lashing out saying that Elden Ring has shit quests and keeps whining like a baby.
Then going protected. pic.twitter.com/R66bBPIgeb
— GamesNosh (@GamesNosh) March 5, 2022
Afterward, Rebecca Fernandez O’Shea replied to Salama’s tweet. “Nor PC graphics, stability & performance, apparently,” O’Shea wrote, implying that reviewers didn’t pay attention to those aspects in Elden Ring. O’Shea is a graphics programmer at Nixxes Software which is owned by Sony.
And finally, senior quest design for Horizon Forbidden West Blake Rebouche added his thoughts. Rebouche criticized Elden Ring’s quest design and said, “Nor quest design, really.”
Horizon Forbidden West is a great game, but Elden Ring clearly dominated them in terms of sales.
The concepts of both games are far different from each other, so it’s impossible to compare them. But given that Elden Ring is available on multiple platforms while Horizon Forbidden West is a PlayStation exclusive, we’d like to think that’s a factor. Additionally, we cannot deny the popularity that Elden Ring has and it’s likely this affected Forbidden West.
In conclusion, it would’ve benefitted Horizon Forbidden West more if they chose either an earlier or later release date. Deciding to release at the same time as Elden Ring was a bad decision on their end. Maybe in the future, Guerilla Games can finally break this curse and choose a proper release date for their future releases.
What do you think of this beef between Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. For more content, stay with us, here at Spiel Times.
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Elden ring beat on sales? That’s cuz HFW is an exclusive -__- let’s not forget they pumped ER on the back of George RR Martin. – extremely disappointed ER player
Name says it all, go back to playing some Ubisoft game.
Confused how you can’t refute what I said, but can read the tea leaves of my name? Quite mystical.
•unmanageable play, not even a progress journal
•boss fights are so boring and repetitive
•empty map
•hidden story
•lame lore (my opinion, true)
•sh*tpost elitist meme culture
Compare this to another GOTY game like the Witcher, ER is not even close to as exciting, deep, intricate, or competitive.
Or is this still too much for the sensitive mods? -__-
I’ll refute it then.
– George RR Martin is not why the game sold well, Fromsoft has a very strong reputation they have built over the years with their soul-series, also including bloodborne and Sekiro. Yes this article mentions sales which i agree is a bit misleading since its an exclusive, but it is not even the point of this article.
-“unmanageable play, not even a progress journal”. Fromsoft puts emphasis on the player finding things out for themselves, they expect the player to be smart and not need to have their hand held like a child. This could be a bit of a problem in the older souls games as you would then just walk in circles (depending on where you were) until you either gave up or found it. In ER, getting lost is part of it and you just end up with more stuff to experience. Characters, dungeons, bosses, puzzles and so many things just waiting.
-This leads into your “empty map” and hidden story point.
The map is absolutely packed with stuff to experience, if you don’t agree then im gonna have to call willful ignorance and that you are flat out wrong (give me an example ill prove it but i doubt you will).
-The hidden story and “lame lore”, the story isn’t hidden, but you are not being forced to sit and listen to NPCs give you a full detailed explanation and bore you to death. How much you want to know about story depends on YOU. Keep in mind that this is A WORLD. It is not YOUR world, it is A world, and you will have to go out of your way to talk with characters, watch the environment and reading item descriptions. If you just skip through the few cutscenes there are and just bossrush, and dont care, then sure. after all it is just your opinion.
-The bossfight you called boring and repetetive, which i could MAYBE understand if you summoned 3 people every single time and just sat back doing nothing. The bossfights are absolutely stellar and incredible spectacles and super challenging in their own ways, challenging veterans aswell as newcomers and gives you total freedom on how you handle them.
-The elitist meme culture.
The entire culture is born out of love for the series and is expressed in different ways, there will be elitists and gatekeepers in EVERY game, but if you just take a scroll through the Elden Ring subreddit, it is filled with people sharing their experiences to the enjoyment of everyone else. The reason you see “git gud” whenever people complain is because it is usually the stupid response to an equally stupid question.
And trying to compare this game to Witcher 3 is stupid as these games are experienced in VASTLY different ways. Wither3 tells a story, in ER your LEARN the story, you experience it and begin understanding what let up to it.
I’ve already spent more time than i EVER needed on this, so if there was something i missed then bring it on.
Well said.
So many are coming in to this series not understanding that there is a long lineage here. Elden Ring is probably not my favorite FromSoftware games, but it is one of my favorite games of all time.
Having played from demon souls all the way up to Sekiro, I feel as though I am able to watch this amazing studio evolve with their work. And that to me, definitely is worth a 10.
“The map is absolutely packed with stuff to experience,”
Wrong. Most of the map is empty with just random “camps” of enemies. Half way through the game, most of the things you “find” by exploring are random crafting items… for a crafting system that is almost entirely useless.
Most of the map is as empty as every other open-world game, no matter how much you FromSimps try to spin it otherwise.
“The hidden story and “lame lore”, the story isn’t hidden,”
Ah yes. Let’s take TES’s lore system, strip away all aspects of the actual plot and leave only the books and random one-liner dialogues, and pretend it’s good.
Soulsbourne has ALWAYS been light on lore and story. And that’s fine if YOU like it. But pretending it isn’t is just you lying.
“there will be elitists and gatekeepers in EVERY game, ”
There has NEVER been a gaming community more elitist and self-deluded than FromSimps. And I’ve seen Kojima’s cult following. But at least they will happily admit all of the faults and failings of Kojima. Meanwhile, on the Steam forums and reviews, you have FromSimps bashing everyone who dares say anything negative about the game and out-right crying that the game scored a 60% day 1.
Let alone the elitist meme culture is indisputable. You people are exhausting.
See the issue is, modern games are made for people that can’t be arsed to use their brain and have to be told at every single step of the way, where to go, what to do. That is not what a game should be. I have played Horizon FW and it is a generic boring pile of shit. That has zero innovation and holds the players hand for the entire game, and the quests are so fucking cliché. The Side Quests in Eldon Ring are hours long, not minutes, and you have to use your own brain to figure shit out. If you love having your hand held for 30-40 hours, then good for you, but claiming ER is a bad game just shows how ignorant you really are.
BTW Witcher 3 was a shit game covered up by pretty graphics and a decent story. The game itself was shit, it has the worst combat for a game focused on combat.
Lol, sounds like you haven’t played it at all, dude.
Love how hard you’re seething.
That is like your opinion, man. I thought witcher was a very boring shit (honestly I rofled here, nothing is so repetitive as witcher3). And half your points are positives for a thinking gamer. Except for the empty map point which is complete bullshit and makes me think you didn’t even play ER for very long. And repetitive bosses? No way, maybe some of the optional ones, thats why theyre optional.
1) A game on many platforms will sell more units than a playstation exclusive.
2) Elden ring is a very good game. 90% of the complaints i hear about originate either from people who judged it’s performance on day-1, before the day-1 patch and new graphics drivers came out. — pet peeve of mine is how many people will 1-star a game just because they are salty. 1 star should be reserved for games that are devoid of anything good. Be a grown up, and when you make a review, admit that almost no games are as bad as 1-star, and if you bandwagon the entire steam system with 1-stars because you didn’t wait to update your drivers is very unfair to the devs.
3) Its just the opposite of classy to shit on other companies games, especially when it’s clear that you are just jealous of the sales.
4) They are totally different games in a way. It’s not 100% apples to oranges, but its maybe… mandarin orange to tangerine or something. If you personally don’t like open world games that leave it up to yourself to explore and learn, thats totally fine, but it doesnt make the game 1 star just because its not your personal preference.
Those tweets honestly make me less likely to buy hfw…
I haven’t played ER but I’ve been playing HFW and I have to say that it has game design issues with weapons, upgrades, and skill trees. It’s still fun to play but it has disappointing technical aspects that make it too complicated to make your experience smoother. Yes there’s too much Ubisoft element in there and takes away from the experience.
I loved HZD but this one isn’t better. It feels rushed and unpolished.
Steam doesn’t even HAVE a star rating system. How are you going to complain about people’s complaints when you don’t even know how the system functions?
And why does ER suddenly get a pass for performance issues when hundreds of games get review bombed for it?
It’s also ironic considering how FromSimp fanbois are constantly shitting on every other game. I mean, “hand held” really? Your community is full of snobbish elitism and even the memey ways you refer to other games reek of it.
Whenever someone complains about elitism, I honestly don’t understand the lack of shame in it. In basically not wanting to measure up to a base standard. I mean, it honestly startles me because I assume people want to count on you in life right? Your job, studies, friends you play board games with, etc. That a developer expects some competence out of you, and that this becomes a shared experience among a community is not elitism.
This is a community bonded by powerful experiences, it tends to manifest itself in a sense of growth, of well being, and pride.
This is a game that lets you see phantoms of other players playing alongside you, literally walking in each others footsteps. You can witness each others failings. Celebrate each others successes. Join each others toils, or even choose to become that very challenge.
The game trusts that you will succeed if you try. It knows you will. Unless you give up, or don’t even bother. It knows that if you do, if you’re in it, you will win. That’s not elitism. You completely misunderstand. But it’s there for you to do so whenever you wish.
Elitism implies exclusion, but you just exclude yourself.
It does help HFW at all that all of the major media sites are completely subbing Horizon as if it didn’t exist. Go to GameSpot and you’ll see what I mean. Literally every other article is on ER and literally nothing on Horizon only weeks after its release.
I feel like making an analogy to movies helps. Does a movie that looks the best and is accessible to the most audiences = the best movie of all time? I feel like you’re wondering why David Lynch is more respected than Michael Bay if that’s your criteria.
My biggest complaint about ER is the engine. It’s a next gen game running on an old engine. Demon Souls looked way better (and yes, I know it was remastered by a different company but that shouldn’t matter). The gameplay itself is mediocre (quests, crafting, cliffs I can’t climb) and isn’t any different from DS1 (which was also technically open world btw). I still bought it, but it’s a worse game then many others I’ve played including HFW.
I just want to say F ER for kicking my butt so hard . And I haven’t bought HDW instead I bought Tiny Tina and waiting for it . I’m also aware when games first come out there’s going to be hiccups until patches get made I’ve noticed that on all game companies but maybe because I’m in my 40s it’s no different to me as when I was a kid with an NES and having to beat on the thing and hit reset a million times to get my game to fix if you love a game or love gaming you take the good with the bad I’ll take a hundred bad games for a good game I just love games even when they kick my butt but I enjoyed all your opinion minus the one immature one but I still enjoy the comedy.
Own both games, just like sekiro I got into Elden for about 8hrs and just stopped. It’s a good game but it’s not fun plain and simple. The story like all formsoft games is convoluted. I’m having more fun with HFW. Same as ghost of tushima vs sekiro the story is more fleshed out and its flat out more fun to play. They should have just waited a month or two to release it though. I understand why Elden Ring is getting higher metacritic score since it’s multiplatform. But that doesn’t make it the better game, still a good game but better then HFW? No.
It’s much better than HFW. I mean, there are a lot of games better than HFW. It’s literally an Ubisoft checklist, but, maybe if you played Elden Ring past the first zone you might feel differently. Honestly, I’d think it pretty sad if you didn’t. If only because, there’s just, nothing else like it.
This is just silly both games are amazing, but for different reasons. I haven’t gotten too far into Elden ring yet but I’m loving it so far, and Horizon Forbidden West was an absolute blast to play. They both offer a different experience and trying to compare them is ridiculous if you like one and not the other that’s cool. This doesn’t need to be any kind of competition and I feel like that’s one of the biggest problems in the games industry today. Everyone is so worried about which game is better or which system is better it’s all nonsense it’s a matter of perspective. And one quick note I do feel that the HFW devs are being a bit petty but that’s just my opinion I don’t give a flying fuck whether you agree with me or not. I know there’s lotta younger gamers out there that grew up with all this but just look at how far games have come in the last 30 years and be thankful that you have these amazing thought provoking experiences to enjoy. If there’s one you don’t particularly care for move onto the next there’s plenty of options. For me it’s simple I play games and I have fun, if it’s not fun then why are you playing? Move on!
Haven’t played ER, but I completely agree. Games provide different experiences. If you don’t like one, fine, but stop sh*tting on other people’s love of a game just cuz you don’t like it.
I’m only just starying on ER. Ive played a few of the fromsoft games and always ended up rage quitting just because I dont have the type of time required to master super hard games. That said, I just got through HFW and enjoyed it very much. I decided to pick up ER in the end and resolve myself to play through it no matter the cost to time and rage. All y’all just need to chill the hell out. If you like a game, play it. Dont if not. Who cares what anyone else thinks, including critics? There is help to be had if you find yourself stuck in ER so just relax and try to enjoy it. Or not. Either way I dont understand the personal attacks because some people dont like this or that. Who cares? I’m too old for that shit. I’ll play both games and love them or leave them based on my taste not what some moron in some random comment section somewhere says. Just calm the hell down and play what you like.
HFW is a doo doo game deal wit it scrubs