From one red-head protagonist to another, I thought the brief lull during the holiday season (for games I was interested in anyways) would be the perfect opportunity to try out the Burning Shores DLC for Horizon: Forbidden West. After all, there was a reason why I kept the game despite finishing it after a hundred hour marathon of a month gaming last year. That reason, of course, was to ensure I knew the new story threads leading into the third game. But with the passing of Lance Reddick, it was also a chance to catch a glimpse of his last performance as Sylens – Aloy’s reluctant ally.

So, from the highs of the Star Wars universe, I plunged back down to a post-apocalyptic Earth where robot dinosaur roam and a rogue A.I. is hurtling back to destroy what remains of humanity. Good stuff!

Following on from the ending of Forbidden West, Burning Shores sees Aloy heading down to the ruins of Los Angeles after being notified by Sylens that Walter Londra, a member of Far Zenith, had headed there following his arrival on Earth. Aloy agrees to investigate and heads down the coast on the back of a Sunwing.

As she approaches the the remains of Los Angeles, Aloy is shot down by a drone tower. With the help of Seyka, a member of the Quen, they take down the machines in the area before heading to Fleet’s End: the settlement the Quen have made since floundering in Los Angeles after a typhoon.

It isn’t long before Aloy agrees to help the Quen out and find their missing people. And it certainly wasn’t very long before I was scrambling across the map of old Los Angeles to scrounge up collectibles and completing the scattered side quests and errands available on the map.

Could it have benefited with having a Tallneck to climb up? Yes, but given Aloy had flight on her side (granted soon after taking down the first drone tower), it wasn’t very long before I managed to explore most of the map and engaged with a few select new machines like the Bilegut and the Stingspawn.

From a narrative perspective, Burning Shores didn’t really add anything new to the overarching plot except another scavenger hunt across an open world for a weapon to take down Nemesis. Or, perhaps, the third game will truncate the search a little by focusing it once more in some area of the North Americas. Here’s hoping, though, the Horizon series takes our allies across the seas and try something a little more different from the remnants of the ol’ United States of America.

At the very least, though, Aloy walked away from the adventure with a new ally she was keen to work with. All throughout the DLC, Seyka stayed by Aloy’s side and proved to be an effective fighter. Was it any wonder she proved to be Aloy’s first actual love interest?

Both of them are capable warriors and hunters of machine. Both are practical problem-solvers, doing what needs to be done instead of fussing about if it’ll offend someone’s sensibilities. And both are driven.

I’m actually somewhat relieved Aloy didn’t try to push Seyka away. Although, it did take her a while to finally admit the impending threat that was Nemesis heading back towards Earth, keen to destroy the Earth. Still, Seyka had her own secrets when it came to her sister and her fears Kina had willingly joined up with Walter Londra (a fairly forgettable antagonist) who was willing to irradiate the surrounding land in order to escape back into space and be surrounded by a loving and brainwashed cadre of followers.

Combat-wise, Burning Shores added in a few new different skills to tackle on enemies. In the end, though, I found myself still relying on tried and true abilities. Given it had also been a year since I last played Forbidden West, my skills were also quite a bit rusty. So, I’m not ashamed to admit I did dumb the difficulty down just to ensure I could enjoy the story rather than struggle in a high-end area because I’d forgotten Aloy couldn’t parry attacks like Cal Kestis or that the way she normally tackled enemies was from afar with ranged attacks.

It was also a matter of relearning the status effects of the game, like drenched and frozen and shock and corrosion.

Targeting weak points also proved to be a trying affair after all the different games I’d played over the year. Especially given how the machines move and make it difficult to target the one spot that’ll do MASSIVE damage.

Or maybe I just need to ‘git gud’ as the pro gamers like to say.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Burning Shores. It was good to dive back into the Horizon universe and tackle on a map that wasn’t as large as the base game. It also helped there weren’t a ton of collectibles needed to be found and unearthed. So, my map wasn’t entirely pockmarked with ‘?’ to drive my curiosity and insatiable need to uncover every. Single. Point. Of. Interest.

Thank goodness for small mercies.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are huge open-world games where I need to collect a thousand and one items calling my name.