Horizon Forbidden West, Sheerside Mountains
Completing three trials on Horizon Forbidden West’s Sheerside Mountains gives you rewards and a chance to step on some of its good fake snow. While other parts of the game offer thick piles to push through (and 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn had perfect sound effects, like crushing styrofoam in your hand) Sheerside Mountains expose you to dusty flakes, forming a thin layer over the black mountain rock. It looks cold, but isn’t cold enough to freeze any of the area’s glistening creeks—just enough to invigorate protagonist Alloy as she works on her hack-and-slashing.
Poem: “As a fen-fire’s beam / On a sluggish stream / Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there, / And it yellow’d the strings of thy tangled hair, / That shook in the wind of night.” – “The cold earth slept below,” Percy Bysshe Shelley
