#22. HORIZON: ZERO DAWN
Even now, it’s a little hard to fathom just how good Horizon: Zero Dawn turned out to be, especially when you consider the context surrounding it. After spending a decade working on linear first person shooters defined by hues of dull greys and browns that weren’t necessarily known for their storytelling, Guerrilla Games took a leap of faith and put out an open world story-driven RPG- and impossibly enough, they absolutely knocked it out of the park. Horizon is beautiful to look at, its setting is vivid and strikingly beautiful, its narrative is grand in scope and immaculate in its execution, and it plays host to an excellent combat system that, thanks to incredible and varied enemy design, never fails to be thrilling. On their first attempt, Guerrilla managed to make an open world RPG with a level of confidence that suggested that they’d been doing it for years, and for that, they deserve all the praise and recognition in the world.
