150 hours in, Horizon Forbidden West player discovers the gnarliest machine attack in the game

If you're planning on jumping back into Horizon Forbidden West for the upcoming DLC, you might have some surprises in store. Players are continuing to discover some downright frightening machine attacks even after hundreds of hours in the game.

In a Reddit post titled "150+ hours and I just found out they could lasso you," user philohendron demonstrated their first encounter with a particularly gnarly Leaplasher attack. The kangaroo-like enemy shoots out an energy beam, grabs Aloy with it, draws her in, and then violently dropkicks her to the ground.

150+ hours and I just found out they could lasso you.. from r/horizon

Judging by the comments on that post, philohendron was not alone in taking a long time to discover this attack. "I have over 200 and just now found out from this," Jnelly2019 wrote. "Ayo wtf was that?? Lol around the same amount of time put in. Never seen that," Rs90 added. "When I first experienced the grab after playing for 80+ hours I thought it was a (unique) death animation," MaulendeMyrte said.

Of course, plenty of people have seen this attack, too, so it's not exactly unprecedented. It's even documented on the Horizon wiki as the "Reel and Kick" - apparently it's only available if the Leaplasher's Cargo Claw is empty, which may explain why a decent number of folks have never run into the move.

One thing everyone can agree on, though, is that Leaplashers suck.

Horizon Forbidden West fans have the Burning Shores DLC on April 19 to look forward to, and the new companion set to be introduced in the expansion is already setting the hearts of Aloy shippers aflutter.

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.