Horizon: Call of the Mountain is a VR spinoff of the Playstation-exclusive Horizon series, set in a post-apocalyptic world where huge machines dominate the majority of the earth. For the first time in the series, the game's protagonist is not Aloy but a former Shadow Carja looking for redemption known as Ryas.
Though the game's design and story are generally solid enough when put under a microscope, there are a few glaring inconsistencies that might pull you out of the world. Since the whole point of virtual reality is trying to get you immersed in a space, the last thing a VR game wants to do is break the illusion.
10 Why Are Bows The Most Prevalent Weaponry?
If you're a fan of the series, you might already have the answer to this question: in the post-apocalypse, the materials needed to make weaponry like guns are limited to the point that bows are the most resource-efficient way of protecting oneself. The issue is, bows aren't the only old-world weaponry that exists.
One of the most obvious alternatives to a bow is a crossbow, which uses similar technology but can be used more freely in exchange for a small accuracy penalty. There have technically been a few bolt weapons in the series, but they function less like traditional crossbows and more like shotguns– in an environment where a lack of preparation can mean death, it makes no sense that a character wouldn't even keep a small crossbow as a sidearm.
9 Why Does Ryas Speak To Himself So Much?
To the surprise of most people, there's actually a subsection of the population that practices verbal self-talk– but that's just not what Ryas is doing over the course of gameplay. Thanks to the canned lines he spits in certain situations, you begin to ask yourself why he keeps repeating "I've been seen" multiple times in a row over the course of a single minute.
If it's purely to give you an indication of what's going on, there are more subtle ways to lead players to a better understanding of their environment. Instead of being helpful, Ryas ends up sounding like more of a robot than the mechanical monsters he fights.
8 Why Didn't Aloy's Meeting With Ryas Ever Come Up In The Other Games?
Nobody expects Aloy to suddenly break off into a tangent about how she helped out Ryas that one time, but it's strange that meeting up with a former Shadow Carja who ends up playing such a pivotal role in helping her allies doesn't ever really seem like anything more than a footnote to her.
This is especially interesting considering Call of the Mountain is supposed to take place during Zero Dawn– it may not have been in production until well after the first game, but they also didn't have to include Aloy at all if they wanted to avoid a bit of confusion.
7 Why Is Climbing So Restrictive?
For a master climber, Ryas only seems to be able to climb along extremely specific paths– he ignores certain geometry objects altogether despite the fact that he probably could climb on them if he wanted to.
There are multiple places in the game where Ryas decides that climbing on something like thin rebar or the shaky tendrils of an ancient machine is a much sounder option than attempting to climb around a slight overhang. This is the consequence of linear gameplay design, but that doesn't make it any more logical.
6 Why Is Ryas So Bad At Stealth Combat?
In the mainline titles of the Horizon series, stealth is a tool often used by Aloy to get an advantage over her enemies. It makes sense– you need all the help you can get when you're a one-woman army against a myriad of powerful foes. Strangely, though, Ryas seems to be physically unable to maintain any sort of stealth advantage during his journey.
Even if you attempt to hide in the tall grass like Aloy, the focus on combat in Call of the Mountain means you'll be forced into a fight after only one or two arrows are flung. There's really no reason that this works for Aloy and not for Ryas– it's just another mechanic that didn't get the care it deserved.
5 Why Are Watchers So Bad At Their Job?
When it comes to non-combat stealth, there's a section of the game where you must effectively sneak by a set of Watchers by climbing around obstacles that block their view. This is supposed to be a tense moment where you avoid their gaze and escape unscathed; instead, you realize just how bad Watchers are at watching.
Even if a Watcher ends up spotting you and shooting a few shots with the lads, there really isn't much stopping you from hanging around a corner until they lose interest. But then, they probably won't ever go on alert, as they can't recognize your dangling legs as signs of life while you hang right in front of them.
4 How Is Radel Okay To Walk After Two Days Of Being Stuck?
While muscle atrophy probably won't affect anyone over the course of only two days, hunger and dehydration work much quicker than you might expect. Radel might have had some backup rations for the trip that helped as she sat immobilized, but considering that her bottle is strapped to her back as she gets up to leave, it's unlikely that she had the means to properly hydrate herself while stuck.
Dehydration can cause severe side effects to the body, even resulting in dizziness and hallucination– Ryas's joke offer to give her a piggyback ride is a lot less funny in retrospect considering that under normal circumstances, that's exactly what she would've needed to get down the mountain without injury.
3 Why Does Ryas Need To Craft His Own Tools?
Though it's certainly a nice spectacle to be able to put together many of the tools you use on your wall-scaling adventure, it's strange that many of the simpler tools require construction. While complex and niche tools would take a lot of time to make backups of, there's no reason that there weren't at least one or two pickaxes sitting in storage for Ryas to use.
You can't help but think of this when Ryas accidentally drops his tools into the void, as under normal circumstances, he would have to go back to a crafting table and redo the entire process again.
2 How Does Ryas Have So Much Pocket Space?
Ryas keeps a lot of resources and tools in his possession over the course of his adventure, so much so that it's not unreasonable to wonder where he's keeping all of it. A backpack seems like an easy explanation, but that would mean he has the stamina of a Greek god when it comes to climbing while encumbered.
This question is further exacerbated by the fact that the game is in VR, giving you a physical form in space that you would assume adheres to the rules of physics. When you're hanging by one hand on a ledge with no foothold, it's kind of amazing that you can also pull out a grappling hook with little-to-no search time.
1 Why Can Ryas Teleport His Tools To His Hands?
Where other games might lock items in your hands until you properly store them over your shoulder, Call of the Mountain doesn't stop you from dropping your tools and watching them fall into the void during climbing sections. Never fear, though, because the context menu allows you to get them back into your hands almost instantly.
This puts Ryas on a list of protagonists like Kratos who can call their items back like pets; the difference between Ryas and Kratos, though, is that Ryas isn't supposed to be a god. Why can he do this in a game that also places focus on the necessity of crafting?