Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is a fun if not brief, epilogue to Horizon Forbidden West. Those looking for massive reveals may be a bit disappointed, but there's enough fleshed out in Burning Shores to make it a worthwhile play. Seyka jumps straight to the top of Aloy's best companions, and the Bilegut & Waterwing are awesome machine additions.
Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is an excellent epilogue to 2022’s standout sequel. While not hugely revelatory with its story, Burning Shores offers several new gameplay elements and character moments to easily cement itself as a “must-play” piece of DLC. Picking up immediately following the events of Forbidden West, Burning Shores takes Aloy to the titular location in search of information that may lead to a way to deal with the impending Nemesis threat.
Set in a volcanic and fragmented Los Angeles, the Burning Shores is a lush and beautiful location to explore. Guerrilla Games’ water tech and general visual flair are turned up to 11 throughout Burning Shores, and I wouldn’t fault someone for thinking the DLC looks better than the base game. As soon as you make landfall, Burning Shores smacked me across the face with how gorgeous its foliage and water effects are. Immediately Aloy is introduced to one of the brand-new navigational options: the Skiff. This new skiff option is essentially a canoe with machine jet engines strapped to it; something that is incredibly valuable when navigating the largely water-based Burning Shores.
But vastly more importantly, the navigator of said skiff is Seyka; a Quen marine who is perhaps one of the best new characters introduced in the Horizon universe thus far. Seyka acts as a sort of guide for Aloy throughout the Burning Shores but is so much more than a simple companion walking players through the DLC. She’s also a deeply conflicted and interesting character that I felt Forbidden West was lacking; for reasons I won’t disclose in this review. Her motivations are interesting, but also her relationship with Aloy is developed in such a natural and unforced way that she is easily one of my favorite side characters in Horizon. I’m very excited to see how Guerrilla fleshes out her character even more going forward.
Of course, what is a Horizon DLC without some new machines and pieces of gear to play around with? Burning Shores introduces two new machines: the Bullfrog-like Bilegut and the Pelican-esque Waterwing. The Bilegut is a massive and fearsome machine that spits acid and hops around like a murderous frog; with the added ability to plant eggs that hatch bug-like machines called Stingspawn that swarm Aloy. The Bilegut also can use its mechanical tongue to latch onto Aloy and steal items from her inventory, which caused me to verbally yell “damn that’s cool!”
The Waterwing is the second, yet most important, new machine within Burning Shores. While essentially the same as a Sunwing from the base game, the Waterwing has the added ability to dive underwater and act as a faster means of traversal than swimming. It’s certainly a welcome addition to navigating the many underwater areas in Burning Shores. While I prefer the more Pteranadon look of the Sunwings, the added functionality of being able to swim much faster while riding a Waterwing can’t be ignored.
Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores’ story is quite brief, taking around 9-10 hours to complete with only two side missions available. The side missions are pretty lackluster and only add a small bit of context to the main Burning Shores quests. That being said, the main Burning Shores campaign serves as an excellent epilogue to Forbidden West. Yes, some boring boss battles leave a lot to be desired, but the big set-piece moments are much larger than anything found in Forbidden West. The final boss battle in Burning Shores is such a big “WOW” moment, I couldn’t believe they didn’t include it in the main game. The conclusion of which sets up some interesting, if not questionable, plot points that could be explored in the next Horizon game. That is if Guerrilla doesn’t have another expansion up their sleeves!
Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is a fun if not brief, epilogue to Horizon Forbidden West. Those looking for massive reveals may be a bit disappointed, but there’s enough fleshed out in Burning Shores to make it a worthwhile play. Seyka jumps straight to the top of Aloy’s best companions, and the Bilegut & Waterwing are awesome machine additions. All in all, Burning Shores is a must-play for Horizon fans; especially those curious as to what the future may hold for Aloy.
