Horizon Call of the Mountain review: sun-soaked post-apocalyptia

Arriving at a period in VR history when new headsets were much more common than AAA games, Horizon Call of the Mountain offered a rare virtual reality experience with blockbuster aspirations—and a rousing sense of largesse. As the launch title for the PSVR2, Sony were hoping the Horizon franchise was a big enough draw card to entice a raft of new gamers to the still-emerging medium. But, cautioned by the response to titles such as Half-Life: Alyx—still widely considered the locus classicus of AAA VR gaming—not even VR’s so-called “true believers” pretended this would be the “killer app” bringing VR to mainstream prominence, or even widespread usage within the gaming community.

So it’s hard not to think of Call of the Mountain as a pretty, shimmering blip on the radar, with its glistening jungle aesthetic and sun-soaked post-apocalyptic settings. That term, “post-apocalyptic”, is more likely to conjure visions of Blade Runner-esque cities and Mad Max marauders than Horizon’s pretty forests and mountain ranges. But there’s a narrative logic for its lushness: this world is so post in its post-apocalyptia that destruction and decay are things of a distant past, preceding rebirth and renewal. The experience’s eight hour-ish runtime offers many opportunities to savour the view, replete with profuse greenery, icy peaks and golden desert.

It’s essentially a climbing simulator kitted up with various bells and whistles and an underlying hero narrative that uses literal ascension as a metaphor for taking on oppressive power structures. The phrase “thank the sun!” is uttered by the warrior protagonist we embody, Ryas (voiced by Mark Allan Stewart), dozens of times, reflecting the now primitive religiosity of this world, where humans share the landscape with dinosaur-ish robots—some benevolent, others mad like flame-spewing dragons. Ryas, who belongs to a tribe called the Shadow Carja, replaces franchise heroine Aloy, seen briefly in a cursory early cameo.

Call of the Mountain begins on ground level, as we sit in a canoe-like vessel, during a water-set sequence that establishes environmental and storytelling context—like the boat journeys at the beginning of The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners and Wanderer. These scenarios have roots in riverboat rides and safari cruises (in Call of the Mountain there’s even a “machine safari” mode unlocked upon the game’s completion) and in VR adhere to a basic visual configuration: the player being in a fixed position while the virtual bubble is moving.

We’re in the boat because Ryas has been freed from prison and offered a pardon, on the proviso that he investigate why the aforementioned robo creatures are behaving strangely. Our investigations eventually lead to a key villain, who’s using them for nefarious purposes. Another revelation involves a familial connection, both occurring very late into the experience. It’s as if the writers realised they were missing fundamental narrative elements and scrambled to configure some underlying threads together, coming up with too little too late.

When the aforementioned canoe sequence ends in disaster, the core climbing mechanic is introduced and the journey upwards begins. Its reliance on this mechanic makes the experience broadly comparable to The Climb and its sequel: two fleetingly enjoyable, rudimentary productions wholly devoted to executing a single concept, helping pave the way for more fleshed out experiences like Call of the Mountain. Video games and verticality have a long history, spanning literal examples—all the way back to the original Donkey Kong, with old mate Mario ascending levels towards the barrel-hurling gorilla—to the metaphorical concept of leveling up.

Call of the Mountain’s repetitive but cathartic gameplay intensifies over time, finding a good groove particularly in the last couple of hours—when the climbing’s combined with large moving parts, creating a more visceral sensation. When we’re not climbing, we’re generally either walking around (environments are navigated by swinging your real world arms, like in the excellent Westworld Awakening) or engaging in a wee bit of archery. Every once in a while there are robo-bosses to take down with a bow and slingshot; in these sequences ordinary navigation ceases, allowing only left and right movement.

The stripping away of all other navigatory ability disrupts continuity and breaks immersion. It also concentrates the gameplay by drawing a simple set of combat rules, reflecting a broader experience that operates within clearly defined limitations. The climbing mechanics are simple; the rules of engagement easy to grasp; the path forward—literally and narratively—obvious. This clean-cut approach means there are rarely moments when we get lost, muddled, or fed-up.

With this kind of straightforwardness, it’s a shame the story doesn’t pick up the slack and invigorate an on-the-rails experience with more flair. But again: Call of the Mountain’s pretty largesse and sense of spectacle was certainly refreshing, given the dearth of AAA content available at the time of its release. Thank the sun for vision of a more spectacular virtual future.