If there was ever more of a reason to jump back into Horizon Zero Dawn, outside of just how good the game is, then The Frozen Wilds DLC is the perfect excuse to do so. With a whole new area to explore, you’ll join Aloy as she delves into The Cut and surrounds herself in Banuk culture and once again finds herself solving as many petty squabbles as she can come across. All the while having to deal with new and fiercer enemies, and the deadliest foe of them all, fresh sheets of snow.

It’s hard to believe that Horizon Zero Dawn came out earlier this year, a testament to the year of games rather than anything against Horizon Zero Dawn itself. If you’re like me, you may have spent the last several months trying to convince everyone you can to play the original. With every sealed copy you find, unused and forgotten, you add to the mental list of betrayals of those you know, or stalk. If you’ve still got a hunger for more then the recent release of The Frozen Wilds will hopefully satiate that hunger like so much white powder. The powder is snow. I don’t know what white powder you were thinking of.

There’s not a lot I can really say about the expansion for Horizon Zero Dawn. Ultimately it is just more Horizon Zero Dawn, which is great. The original was an outstanding game. There’s new quests with characters as colorful and varied as those you encountered in the main game, the desire to explore and engage in the world is strong and the game always pays you back with something or someone to keep you interested. You’ll be exploring ancient ruins with the chatterbox explorer, Gildun. Perhaps solving a local monster issue for a young musician, Laulai, and her old and mysterious instrument. With this particular excursion taking place in the lands of the Banuk, who were the more shamanistic of Horizon Zero Dawn’s tribes who can be seen adorning themselves with machine head pieces as well as threading their bodies with blue cables, there are a lot more chances to enjoy and learn of their culture than you may have had in the base game, with the Banuk being one of the lesser touched upon tribes.

What I’m getting at is that if you enjoyed the setting and writing of Horizon Zero Dawn, then The Frozen Wilds DLC is still full of the rich character that leaves such a lasting memory. If you haven’t played the based game of Horizon Zero Dawn, which you definitely should do because it’s a great game, then I hope I can explain in that the world and setting of Horizon Zero Dawn is that of our own but takes place in one of the many dark timelines for humanity where civilization has been wiped out and have started out again forming various tribes with rudimentary spears. The twist being that the world is also full of angry metallic creatures with laser beams and mine launchers strapped to their back, evolution’s answer to mankind’s tool making was to just turn the animals into robots and heavily arm them with high grade explosives. Science is weird. Needless to say the world is rich and full of character and the characters themselves are rich and full of… world?

Outside of being a busy body, Aloy is exploring these cold mountains as there’s word of new and more aggressive machines on the prowl and, while trying to locate the source of them, she finds herself wrapped up in trying to save an AI from the malicious virus corrupting it known simply as “The Daemon”, which lies within the belly of “Thunder’s Drum” a large volcano of which these new machines originate from. While you’re hiking through the snow you may also find some information about your old mysterious friend, and voice in the ear, Sylens. If you’ve become deeply entrenched within the lore of Horizon Zero Dawn then there’s enough threads at play to have you happily bounding off through the the misty forests and maybe spend several minutes chasing after a goat to try and take its hide for your own.

The Frozen Wilds expands upon the outstanding combat of the base game by introducing not only new and devastating machines for you to learn the ins and outs of, but also several new elemental based weapons to add to your arsenal. Firing off a single icicle to give robotic T-rex the cool refreshing sensation of its heart being skewered, just make sure you’ve been crouched in a bush adequately long enough to charge the blow. There are new abilities to be gained which primarily improve the player’s time while riding around on your noble steed, being able to harvest without having to dismount and even being able to launch into battle with a mighty blow, plus you can now add modifications to your spear. Calm down now, don’t get too excited, I know it’s a game changer but you do have to jump through some hoops to get it, so your wildest dreams aren’t going to be fully realized just yet.

This will be where I mostly gush about how outstandingly beautiful the game looks. I’m not sure if there’s been any graphical upgrade specifically for The Frozen Wilds but with his particular piece of DLC there’s a notable contrast in scenery compared to the open plains of the Carja homelands. Due to the nature of The Cut, way back in the past, there are very few human ruins scattering the land. Instead it’s you and the cold embrace of nature and nature’s beauty, and boy do I never want to go outside again as I feel like I’ve seen all nature has to show just from exploring the titular frozen wilds. From snowy mountain tops to misty forests and even colourful dying pools, there’s a lot that’ll take your breath away in The Frozen Wilds and it’s not just the biting cold. When you’ve just scaled a mountain and the sky clears to reveal everything below you it’s this incredible scene. When you’re lurking after your prey and they disappear into a low fog filled forest everything tenses up and the snow tipped bushes become your only comfort.

Aloy shivers in the cold as her armour becomes caked in thick snow, especially as she’s probably not dressed for the weather if she’s just come in from the sun obsessed lands of the Carja, and witnessing the other characters in their big fur coats, speckled with snow following a risky battle with a large metallic bear. The interaction with the environment takes a step into maximum overdrive with the pristine sheets of white snow you’ll come across and then power slide through, leaving your mark in the world. When a pesky badger manages to escape your gaze you can follow the trench it left behind as it escapes through the snow, or just you and your trusty mount carving through the snow along the top of a cliff edge, taking in the sights below. Alongside the trees, which are knocked down as an enraged robotic buffalo smashes its way through to your none robotic face, frozen lakes are aplenty and the ice isn’t as thick as you may want it to be. Well, the ice is plenty thick, it just may not be thick enough for a giant animal made of metal that probably weighs more than most cars, and also jumps and fires lasers.

It’s quite hard to explain why this winter wonderland is such a hoot outside of saying it simply is more Horizon Zero Dawn. There’s just more of a great game that’s come out at a time where I might start yearning to play it again, and here I am, playing Horizon Zero Dawn again and loving it. This little story segment is between 10 and 15 hours long, depending on how much time you spend taking photos in game, I took plenty so I ended up with a longer playtime but I once again, enjoyed all of it. Except for the glinthawks. Glinthawks can go and fuck themselves.

As it is just more Horizon Zero Dawn, a side story segment that slots quite nicely into the main game, it’s not going to have as large an impact as the main Horizon Zero Dawn story, however the story is still a solid one and has enough going on in the grand scheme of things in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn that it’ll get story fans excited for what’s to come. It almost feels like a condensed version of Horizon Zero Dawn, which I have previously loved when The Witcher 3 did that with Blood and Wine, but the condensing down does result in a slight loss of the story, particularly the asynchronous story telling as the characters of the past just don’t have enough exposure to stand out, but ultimately The Frozen Wilds does a great job of creating a delicious cool dessert for returning Horizon Zero Dawn players with enough of a spike in difficulty to provide a hefty challenge to those who may still be playing.