Difficulty Settings - Explorer or Guided - Horizon Forbidden West Guide - IGN (2024)

There is a huge number of difficulty and accessibility settings in Horizon Forbidden West. This Horizon Forbidden West guide covers the difference between each difficulty level and more subtle changes like explorer or guided settings; plus how to use these settings to make it easier to loot enemies and more.

Jump to:

• Explorer vs. Guided
• Difficulty Levels Explained
• Custom Difficulty
• Accessibility Settings
• What is Co-Pilot?
• Does Horizon Forbidden West Have a Difficulty Trophy

Explorer vs. Guided

In the settings, accessed in the main menu or by pressing the Options button, there are two options for both Quest Pathfinding and Waypoint Pathfinding - Explorer and Guided. Quest Pathfinding refers to icons that appear when you have an active quest, and Waypoint Pathfinding refers to icons that appear when you've physically chosen a point on the map.

Guided is technically the easier setting, but the only difference between Explorer and Guided settings is the appearance of icons in the game.

• Explorer - Does not show icons on the screen directing you to your destination
• Guided - Shows icons on the screen guiding you to the direction you should head, with the distance displayed.

As you can see in the comparison above, in Guided, there are icons representing waypoints in the distance on screen. In Explorer, these icons are visible only on the compass at the top of the screen instead. The actual map does not change.

Reduce Screen Clutter Even More: Turn the HUD Visibility to Dynamic and it will only show information, like active quests, XP, HP, and weapon information when immediately relevant. It cleans up the screen almost entirely. You can also customize the HUD, where there are dozens of display options.

Difficulty Levels Explained

There are five levels of difficulty in Horizon Forbidden West, in each, you can set your own Pathfinding preference. There's a lot more to Difficulty Levels though - here's what we've learned about each by experimenting. And keep in mind, you can change these difficulty settings whenever you want at will! Just press the options button and go to "Settings".

What Doesn't Change?

Across the board, enemy behavior seems to remain consistent, as do enemy levels. The amount of experience earned remains the same, as well.

Difference Between Difficulty Levels

These are the in-game descriptions of the different difficulty levels, but there's much more to it which you can read below the chart. In general, Aloy takes more damage with higher difficulty level, and enemies take less damage with higher difficulty levels. There is also Custom Difficulty

In Story difficulty, enemies have the least amount of health and do the least amount of damage to Aloy. This rises as the difficulty levels do. For example, you may be able to OHKO a machine with a Silent Strike in Story Mode, but will not be able to succeed with the same machine on Hard.

For Story and Easy mode, you also have the option to change these settings:

• Concentration Duration - Concentration slows down time when you aim, giving you more time to line up a shot. You can unlock Skills to increase Concentration duration as well.
• Auto Concentration - Concentration usually needs to be activated by pressing in on R3 while aiming. With Auto Concentration, you will enter Concentration as soon as you aim (as long as the concentration meter isn't depleted.)
• Auto Heal - Automatically consume Medicinal Berries when Aloy's health goes below 50%. Much easier not to have to worry about pressing up on the D-pad in the heat of battle.You still need to manually refill your pouch when you run out.
• Easy Loot - You can't see this setting, but it is "on" in Story and Easy mode. This makes it so you don't have to remove components, like a Fanghorn's Antlers, for example, in order to loot it from its body.

As mentioned before, the higher the difficulty, the more health enemies have and the more damage they deal. On Normal, you'll need to focus on weak points to deal with strong enemies in a timely manner, and on Hard and Very Hard, you'll need to be even more deliberate with your strategy or you'll be wailing on enemies for a long while before they go down.

Custom Difficulty

Maybe you don't want to face damage sponges, but you want the danger of hard-hitting foes. You can do this, and a lot more, with custom difficulty.

Change all of the options available to the Story and Easy difficulties, but also change Damage to Aloy and Enemy to Health separately to whatever you want.

Exploit: If you're really struggling to get a certain machine part, you can always temporarily change the difficulty to Story, Easy, or Custom to turn Easy Loot on. You can do the same to get XP very fast. But the higher level Aloy is, and the more machines she kills, the more likely Apex Machines will appear in their place.

Accessibility Settings

Some options aren't necessarily included to lower or increase a game's difficulty but are there to make it easier to play for people who need the options. These can commonly be used the make the game simply easier for people who don't need the options. Here are some options that will make the game more accessible, or easier, depending on your perspective:

• Weapon Wheel Slowdown - Adjust how much time slows down when the Weapon Wheel is activated. If you have a hard time making decisions in the heat of the moment, slowing this down will help.
• Aim Assist - A familiar setting to help with aim. This doesn't change the feel of the game, but changes the trajectory of the arrow so it's more likely to hit. If your cursor is close to a target, it will hit, so you can be less accurate.
• Hold/Toggle - If you have a hard time holding down buttons for long, changing these settings may make things easier for you. However:
  
  • Aim only affects L2, not R2 - you still need to hold R2 to draw arrows and other ammo.
  • Quick Craft Ammo will continue making ammo until it's full, which can waste resources. When you craft ammo, it uses the materials for an entire pack, regardless of how much room you actually have left. You'll have to leave the weapon wheel before it can craft a second pack.
    
• Auto Sprint on Foot/Mount - These make it so you don't have to press a button to sprint, you just automatically will sprint all the time. You don't have to think about sprinting before making certain jumps and save your finger endurance! We wish all games had this option. You can still walk if you don't push fully forward with the stick, too.
• Controller Vibration -Strong vibration can potentially affect aim, and it may also exacerbate hand or wrist pain for those susceptible. You can turn it on low, or off entirely,but keep in mind vibration also serves as a feedback tool that lets you know when Aloy is hit andwhen an arrow is fully drawn, among other things.
• Climbing Annotations Always On -Usually, you need to use your focus to highlight climbing paths, but turn this on and every grippable surface will be highlighted in yellow.These will also appear in photo mode, though!
  

You can also change things like the audio mix volume, motion blur, camera shake, and subtitle size and background, but you can't affect text elsewhere. There are also "Dead-Zone" settings that change how much you have to move the stick for Horizon Forbidden West to register the input.

What is Co-Pilot?

Co-pilot is an accessibility feature that allows two people to control Horizon Forbidden West simultaneously with two controllers. This not only makes playing a single-player game together with someone potentially more fun and interactive, but can make the game accessible to those who may have trouble performing certain functions.

Does Horizon Forbidden West Have a Difficulty Trophy

In short, no, Horizon Forbidden West does not feature a difficulty trophy, meaning you are free to switch between difficulties throughout the game with no consequences or effect on your trophy status.

• Learn more trophies in our Horizon Forbidden West Trophy Guide.