Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam Deck is... interesting

I know this is old but I would say to Linus to turn the difficulty down! I agree with him there that later in the game the bigger enemies are TEDIOUS so turn down the difficulty to get through them and just experience the story b/c you're right, there's no dopamine from killing the stuff and you there's no reason to even kill them. You don't need the materials b/c you are overloaded with them and you just want to get to the next area.

I am a year late, but zero dawn runs pretty great now…

Despite being verified on the deck, It does not work at all. It crashes upon loading and it wont get pass the main menu.

Luke says the Horizon series is one of his favorite series, but he hasn't played the second game, hasn't even finished the first game, and barely remembers anything about the first game. LOL.

Horizon plays terrible for me on SD, constant frame drops to 12 - 20. Tried loads of recommended settings that others say work well for them

kinda therapeutic to hear linus give horizon the what for while also standing up for BOTW.

Thats true…everytime yu turn it on all yur games need an update 😅 its annoying for me as well

Horizon Zero YAWN bro, its honestly still the weakest "Open-world" game TO THIS DAY, even TES: Daggerfall has better open-world mechanics/story/combat than the Horizon Zero Dawn series, at least it's pretty...kinda?

Lots of people don't realize that when your Steam Deck is downloading updates or other games in the background; if you're currently in a game while either of those 2 things are happening...you're going to get noticeable performance and FPS dips.

Also, if you have a billion games that update at once or whatever causing frequent issues for jumping right into games (causing you lag, etc.) simply turn "auto-update" OFF for those games lol.

I guess you missed the echo shell arrows. Best ones in the game.

I agree with every point on Horizon.. I'm to the point where I can't play it on steam deck, machines are too hard for low fps, small screen, and joysticks. PC experience is much better but I am getting bored with the game already at 13 hours in.

Plays perfect on my deck

if youre clearing 3 corrupted zones, you havent even started the game. the story of the old ones gets huge after you start uncovering it

I actually had this very same stutter problem in HZD on my PC. (Made and configured by Maingear 👍)

I found out it was an old mod I forgot I even had installed. I removed it, and it totally cleared up.

Having just got a switch and playing botw, weapon breaking mechanic is garbage. Any cool weapon, and i immediately think, “cool, time to not use this weapon otherwise it gets wasted on trash mobs”. Like imagine getting divinity in Destiny and not using it in GMs otherwise it breaks.

Horizon is STILL borked on SteamDeck. Stutters to 12 fps every few seconds. Even on lowest settings at 540p. Absolute garbage that should NOT be "Verified"

This was 3 months ago...how is the game now passing 10 hours ?

I didn’t play HZD, I started playing HFW and while it was beautiful I felt no motivation to play it.

ive experienced the same things on my pc with 2080 super and r9 3900 so i think lukes right that game is the problem but yeah steam shouldnt have verified it if it has that issue

Actually listening to Linus' experience with playing proper single player games makes me think he's... really not into proper single player games...

So, Luke only just got out of the Embrace in his playthrough and it seems like Linus might only have got just past Daytower gate and on the road to Meridian.....
As far as I recall midpoint in the game was well after that and there aren't really any advanced weapons to access until you reach Meridian anyway.. So yes, I think at the point where Linus is he probably has just the regular bow and spear and maybe a tripcaster if he visited the trader in the embrace.

Maybe it's because Linus is playing this on such a tiny screen that he's apparently missed the point of the combat and upgrades?

I 100% agree with Linus on the problems of Horizon zero Dawn.

Never managed to beat the game, because i really lost the interest

Hey Linus. I'm getting these weird issues on an RTX laptop. Maybe it's more game bound than hardware bound. I'm playing right now. Far enough to have all the cauldron finished. I've started getting excessive frame drop with mirroring audio issues as if the game itself is being slow and not just the frame rate. I would really like to finish it so hopefully it doesn't get too worse. Definitely requires application restart twice so far to recover performance. And lowering resolution had little impact on the issues.

The Horizon games are really all about the main quest. You don't get much through side quests, though you can randomly find cool stuff by looking around.

For example, a lot of the complaints about not getting strong weapons is mostly addressed by moving through the main quest to the new area. The weapons you get from there (rare or very rare weapons) are definitely stronger than earlier (common) weapons.

You just gotta get out of the starter area, leave and then come back for side quests if you are really interested in the side-quest stories. The quests are also labeled by your level.

Zero Dawn isn't really hard, but Linus could probably lower the game difficulty...

Sounds like you need to play HZD more dude. The story rocks and so does the gameplay. Sounds like you're not very good at playing video games lol.

I've had that problem with Horizon where the sticks stop responding happen playing it with a controller on my PC. Usually tabbing out and back fixes it, which I assume isn't possible on the Steam Deck.

thought the video was about the Steam deck and ended up mostly being about Horizon, lol loved it!
I do understand the points he's making tho about the boring looting and overworld fights. Tho the fights can be worked around by just hacking a "horse" and running past everything. I guess that'd be the quickest solution. I loved the game and enjoyed the fighting, but its also true that they can be demanding specially if you're playing with controller.. controls, on a smaller device. The gameplay focuses a LOT on bow and arrow which makes it more of an "FPS" (if that makes sense). I know that playing the game on PC, with a mouse, makes it 10x better than on console (for fighting machines, at least for me) so I can see his experience being a bit more draining

From what I’m hearing is Linus needs to get good. I think there’s a easy mode or a story mode in there. I highly recommend that for him.

Horizon Zero Dawn does that on Windows. Well on my PC...

Why is Linus saying the game is not good, because its too hard, because the enemy weak points are too small...because he's playing a game not designed for a handheld on handheld. How are people so dense...

Ah the PCMR playing a game designed for console and a TV on a handheld device. The irony.

I love you Linus, but seeing you play other games makes me think it could be partly your problem that the weak points are hard to hit lol

Sends shivers down my spine when people say 'hashtag, bla bla bla'! Like, if it's not something that is actually on social media that you want people to look up then don't! Like please don't! Actually, even if it is on social media, just don't. It's like, 'so 2015' teenybopper stuff. It's 😖 painful from someone who I actually respect and like

"Linus Rant Tips" LOL

BotW having no difference in gear is simply not true. Barbarian armour gives insane attack boost and you can literally walk through electricity heavy shrines in rubber gear. Gear stats can also be leveled up. It matters.

HZD isn't a game silly. It's an Apple original television series in disguise.

BOTW sucks. Horizon zero dawn is an incredible game. Last good zelda game was twilight princess. I get nintendo was trying to innovate but they made a really boring open world full of nothing. The story was boring as well

TIL Linus is wrong about BotW

Sounds like a memory leak…
Maybe accumulation of data is causing memory overloads.

the cracks are starting to show folks. steam deck is a FLOP

how dare you say HZD isn't good
i am personally offended for no apparent reason

I can't imagine you can play HZD on this thing without cooking your hands alive... It's quite impressive...

Im curious about trackpads, say for a game like stellaris. Is the track pads that much better then the joysticks?

Yea right now there are 0 bugs on pc, just finished playing it on January. Definitely one of the best game ever!

Edit (after hearing the rant): Holyshit Linus! That was their first big game! Cut 'em some slack! And not all games are the same, they don't have to be! Zelda didn't have the story neither the graphics of HZD! It isn't like it was their 2nd or nth installment and they didn't give a damn about the players complains! It was their first one and they did listen to the players on the 2nd one! Also some of the things that you said like "crappy loot", "bad weapons", "enemies with tiny weak spot" could be countered, it takes a lil work but the options are there so they aren't really issues the only one I agree with is the spear. I really can't name any company that made a masterpiece like that on their first try, maybe some small/medium ones but a behemoth like HZD?! I don't know of any.

Stormbirds are annoying and arguably the toughest machine in the game. Most players flee that first encounter after a few deaths trying to kill it. You get a lot stronger after entering Meridian because of the better equipment.

Having only played horizon zero dawn one time through so far, and playing it on the hardest difficulty, the joy of the game is not looting but the dopamine hit for taking down big machines. The looting allows for a bit of vertical progression, and allows you to specialize your weapons (i do have a rapid fire bow) but mostly, you have to learn your own playstyle. Also, the machines repopulating makes some sense in terms of the world building (though it can be a bit jarring when you find a zone boundary line that triggers a respawn)