Start with Horizon Zero Dawn — the story is the reason the series works, and Forbidden West assumes you know it. Forbidden West is better in every mechanical respect: traversal, combat variety, and machine design. But its plot only lands if you have the first one behind you.
Same world, same protagonist, same core loop of studying a machine, stripping its components with the right arrow, and bringing it down.
The slow uncovering of what happened to the world is the best thing either game does, and it only works once. The traversal is stiffer and the melee is poor.
More like this: games like Horizon Zero Dawn.
The glider, the grapple and the underwater sections open the map up, the machines are more varied, and the combat finally has the tools to match its ambition.
More like this: games like Horizon Forbidden West.
Start with Horizon Zero Dawn — the story is the reason the series works, and Forbidden West assumes you know it. Forbidden West is better in every mechanical respect: traversal, combat variety, and machine design. But its plot only lands if you have the first one behind you.
Better is the wrong question for these two — they are close enough that the answer depends on what you want from the next twenty hours. Pick Zero Dawn for the reveal. Pick Forbidden West for the play.
No. There are no scores anywhere on this page. This is a written opinion about what each game is for, so you can judge whether it matches what you are after.