Not going to spoil anything, just wanted to let any prospective players know about this realization.

I was playing the game very leisurely, as I do with all games of this ilk. Trying to clean up every little nook and cranny of side stuff while slowly making my way through the main quest. Doing this, I started feeling fatigued with the "world" of the game, as it wasn't doing much to interest me. It came off as very derivative of past games.

The main quest, specifically up to the mission "Deep Secrets of the Earth", recontextualizes everything about the world in some interesting ways, making me view everything I've seen so far in a more positive light (I spoiler blocked the quest name just in case, but it isn't spoilery at all). Before I felt I was getting burned out, and now I feel like I might platinum the game.

If you have to level up to meet level recommendations, by all means do side stuff. Tallnecks, cauldrons, and hunting grounds should be good for this. Besides that, make a beeline for the main quest.

There are actually side quests that add some additional dialog during the last missions so if you don't want to miss out on that small bonus then make sure do actually complete some of the side plots before the cut off point.

@humanity: When is the cut off point exactly?

@punisherkaos: it tells you very clearly "this is the end" before you make the selection so don't worry about it progressing too far.

Honestly, I'd do all the main story missions up to the last one as soon as possible because the 2nd to last mission is where you get the last thing for the best armor in the game. They give that to you way too late in the game and I wish I'd done the main story missions sooner.

I don't know about this, I kinda feel like the Ancient Armor made everything afterwards too much of a breeze to go through. Maybe it's a different story on the hardest difficulty, but even on Hard I was at first confused if the game was just bugging out and I wasn't getting damaged, but apparently the armor just made me near indestructible.

@glots: yea it definitely breaks the game but it's the best looking armor and honestly I was getting bored with the gameplay that late in the game anyways

@punisherkaos: yah as others have mentioned there are real hard indicators for when that happens. The first "soft" point has a character literally tell you "hey there is no turning back now make sure you're ready" but after that mission you can totally still go back and do a bunch of side stuff.

I finished the main story at about 66% overall completion and felt like that was a nice mix of main/side stuff. Of course, I fell in love with the game from the start and already feel like there's a good chance it'll be my GOTY, so ymmv.

Yeah, I was definitely getting bogged down in side stuff for awhile and am enjoying myself much more now that I'm being a bit more focused about my mission selections.

Much as Deep Secrets is a great quest it doesn't really add or subtract from the already great world exploration systems.

Man, the way they handle that armor bums me out. I came across it, like, 15 hours ago and solved the puzzles to open the door, I just need to find the third power cell...it's especially odd because that quest is marked for Level 25 but I'm Level 43 and still can't get in there. Minor gripe but I feel like you should've been able to access that armor through something other than items picked up from discrete story missions.

I might just have to start mainlining the main story because I find myself at level 25, which the next story mission being level 12 Oo

@fredchuckdave: what great world exploration system? As cool as that world is on the surface, much like many things in Horizon apart from combat it's puddle deep. There are no cool secrets to be found in the open world, no ruins to explore apart from the couldrons which are cool at first viewing but then turn very one note.

The biggest problem Horizon has is that there is no variety in the activities you do in this cool world. There is no real exploration, there is no platforming or verticality to the world apart from the very basic tallneck sequences which can be all done blindfolded. All you really do is either fight machines or fight humans, which is why the side content can wear you down so much. Because the only real system in the game with any depth is combat, every single quest either terminates with a fight against humans (which are bad because there is little variety in taking on humanoids) or it terminates with fighting machines. After several of these quests where you follow tracks to an inevitable confrontation and don't receive any meaningful or unique rewards apart from experience it all becomes quite tiresome. Add to that the fact that all story bits that aren't related to the sci-fi aspect are pretty bland and it's no wonder some people would want to beeline through the story bits - and as cool as those are a lot of it is also presented in the worst possible way.

Guerilla did a great job with this being their first open world game, but you can clearly see how this is their first crack at this genre.

I'm playing on Hard mode and I can tell you that that mode likely expects you to be 5-10 levels above the recommended level for a mission if only for HP concerns, but yea. I'm playing level 22 main quests at level 45 lol. Still pretty hard but I have a LOT of health medicine I can burn through so I might have also begun playing more recklessly than I was in the early game.

I don't want to read anyone else's comments out of fear of accidental spoilers, but thank you for reinforcing my interest in this game. I was already pretty locked in after Jeff's review and podcast talk, but now you've given the right context to get me re-hyped. Thanks!

I'll definitely play it after Yakuza 0 and Night in the Woods and Nier... but by the time those are done, Persona might be out... so after that. And maybe after Mass Effect, too. All while getting through Zelda. Holy Hell, this first half of this year. God damn.