The only thing that really beats it for me is Breath of the Wild, but I haven't even come close to finishing that so I guess it's not a fair comparison.

I like The Witcher 3 better, but I think Horizon is probably actually the better game.

I haven't played Breath of the Wild, so take my claim with a grain of salt. HZD beats W3 for me on the purely primal joy I have at fighting robo-dinosaurs. It's not a thing I ever thought my life needed, but damn - my life needed that!

Yeah, I'd agree. I like the gameplay loop of Horizon more, and I think it's just a better designed, more coherent experience. The Witcher 3 has a lot of half-baked systems that prevent it from being as good a package, I think. I just like being in that world more. They're both amazing, and I can't wait to jump back into Horizon's DLC.

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Better than pretty much every game -- except for TLOU, Portal, and Super Mario World.

But is it better than DEUS EX?! :-p

I've not playing Sonic Lost World, so I can't say with regards to that game. Definitely better than Destiny and TLOU in my book. There's no weak links in HZD. No wonky gameplay or boring enemy AI. The encounters all feel scripted, even in an open world. Every shot is stunning.

The biggest complaints that I hear about HZD is the fact that the Human enemies aren't as fun to fight as the robot dinosaurs. A shocking claim, I know... And yet, I enjoyed the human enemies enough as a change of pace and strategy...

TLOU has terrific story, but is a great stealth game married to a mediocre third person shooter. That holds it back.

Play it on Grounded difficulty. You won't have to worry about shooting elements, since you'll have zero ammo throughout most of the game. :P

... Seriously though, I had a great, painful time playing it on Grounded, where you really have to play the entire game stealthily, even during the unavoidable firefights, so every room becomes a complex puzzle that has a couple of possible solutions.

Horizon has a great story, great gameplay, there is no grind at all, and all of the systems work beautifully. I can't point to any part of the game and say "that's a weak link." There simply aren't any flaws. It's wholly satisfying front to back, and is so fun to play that, upon completing it, I immediately jumped back in. Plus the devs are still adding new features at player requests. Just a couple weeks ago they added new game+. It really is a marvel.

New Game+, an even-harder difficulty, new weapon & armor tiers, and cosmetic rewards for playing through NG+. It was a neat surprise.

Not to mention that they bothered to release a Latin-American Spanish language pack for free as well, simply because of fan request (yeah, we can understand Castilian Spanish well enough, but It's Not The Same!). Combine that with the multiple additions and improvements to Photo Mode, and Guerilla is quickly becoming one of my favorite studios...