Know that we escaped the worst with The Frozen Wilds. The developers of Guerrilla Games have absolutely nothing to do with it, since it was the hard drive of our PS4 that died a few months ago. Why this precision? Quite simply because to take advantage of the extension, you must already have a certain number of hours of play behind you. Fortunately, we were able to recover one of our saves via the PlayStation Plus cloud, even if we lost a few levels along the way. Nevertheless, with an Aloy stalled at 38 – it is advisable to try your luck from level 30 – we could go and meet the Banuk tribe without too much worry. Also present in the game's main campaign, it is essentially made up of cold-hardened warriors who are not afraid of machines. However, they are not going to spit on the help of Aloy who, just as much as them, wants to put an end to the influence of the mysterious Daemon on the robots. Do you have to have completed Horizon: Zero Dawn to understand the ins and outs in Frozen Wilds. Not at all, but those who have gone all the way for the first time will no doubt grasp certain allusions more easily, in particular by listening to the audio files.
It's true that this walk among the Banuks isn't as exciting as the main story, but the splendid realization, the impressive new machines and Aloy's banter (mea culpa) make the difference.
In terms of gameplay, the base has not changed, and we can therefore always use the Focus to better target the weak points of the machines and use the right elemental attacks, in order to inflict the maximum damage. Infiltration still lacks depth, but we can assume that the Dutch studio will really look into it when it embarks on the development of Horizon 2. In the meantime, it has still expanded the skill tree with a fourth category : Traveler. Thanks to the latter, it is no longer necessary to get off our mount to search the corpses, we can increase the number of slots to store a greater number of resources (and God knows we accumulate them), or even repair a hacked machine. Some skills seem so obvious that we suspect the developers of having deliberately kept them under the elbow for The Frozen Wilds. Given that the DLC can last about fifteen hours if we take the time to clean the area 100%, we want to pass the towel. What we can hardly forgive, however, is the story which is much less exciting than the original scenario.
FREEZE, FROZE, FROZEN
Obviously aware of the lightness of the script, Guerrilla Game was rather generous on the sidelines with a whole bunch of resources to pick up, including the famous blue crystals that you can barter to improve your equipment. And since we're talking about it, let's specify that The Frozen Wilds offers the opportunity to get your hands on three new weapons: the Rail of Ice, the Breath of Forge, and the Blaster. With an “adjusted” arsenal, it makes sense that new enemies will appear. Finally, we especially think of the Grilleuse and the Claws (of Frost and Fire) which give a hard time when you don't use the right approach strategy. We also come across certain machines that we already know, all fed by the rage of the Daemon. They have obviously gained in aggressiveness and resistance, and there is even a kind of control tower capable of repairing the damage inflicted on the robots. Worse, if a machine that has been tamed is within its perimeter, it will be immediately neutralized. Casually, put end to end, all these elements bring challenge when you know the game inside out. Finally, is it really necessary to talk about the realization of the game which, unsurprisingly, is sublime, snowflakes or not? No. We will only insist on the new camera angles which make the dialogues less soporific. Proof that Guerrilla Games has left nothing to chance.
