Horizon Forbidden West fans are only now realizing Burning Shores fixes one of the community's biggest bugbears

Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores pre-order bonus
(Image credit: PlayStation/Guerrilla)

Horizon Forbidden West players are celebrating Burning Shores drastically changing Legendary gear requirements.

Burning Shores launched earlier this month, taking Aloy to Los Angeles and its surrounding wasteland for a brand-new adventure. One feature that's understandably gone a bit overlooked so far is gear requirement changes - Horizon Forbidden West demanded a metric tonne of items for Aloy to upgrade her Legendary gear, but in Burning Shores, that's no longer the case. 

The Horizon-dedicated subreddit post just below highlights this huge, and underappreciated, change. Upgrading your Legendary bows, Boltcasters, slings, and armor gets a whole lot easier in the new DLC because the required items are reduced, meaning Aloy has to fight less incredibly intimidating Apex machines as a result.

I’m Surprised no one is talking about how Guerrilla addressed one of the biggest complaints people had with the base game in Burning Shores? from r/horizon

The comments section is full of players celebrating the fact they no longer have to grind out their most feared monsters for high-level items. The Slitherfang Earthgrinders and Fireclaws are two beasts that are seriously dreaded, as well as the Apex Stormbirds in the original subreddit post just above.

It's a change that's understandably really easy to overlook. Upgrading your gear after 30+ hours in Horizon Forbidden West's world just becomes second nature eventually, and because Burning Shores makes this process a lot easier, it's even easier to overlook what's actually required of Legendary gear upgrades, and simply pump the materials into the workbench.

Earlier this week, Guerrilla casually announced the next Horizon game starring Aloy was in development, prompting fans to get their wishlists ready for Horizon 3. The sequel is no doubt a good few years away, but that hasn't stopped fans already piping up for the return of Seyka.

Meanwhile, Horizon Forbidden West players are noting all the Burning Shores quality-of-life changes Guerrilla isn't.

Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.