Author: Rich Meister

I love a good game within a game and I feel like we’ve been inundated with them recently. From Final Fantasy VII Remake’s reworked Fort Condor to Eastward’s Earthborn, we’ve had some real bangers. Horizon Forbidden West may have included my favorite of these in a long time/ Lady’s and Gentleman, can we talk about Machine Strike?

Machine Strike is a physical tabletop tactics game within the world of Horizon and it is fucking bomb. It’s first introduced in the easy-to-miss pub area of Chainscrape one of the first towns Aloy finds herself in. A character sitting by the board offers some in-depth tutorials that immediately had me hooked and sinking about four hours of play into this side venture alone.

In Machine Strike players use chess-like pieces based on machines from the Horizon world. Different pieces have a variety of strengths and weaknesses that are also affected by tilesets on the board. For example, all pieces get a damage bonus when attacking from the high ground but Fanghorns might get a bigger bonus when attacking from a forest tile. Oh my, roughly six hours spent in Forbidden West at least two of those have been sunk into Machine Strike.

Frankly, I just wanted to talk about it because I don’t see anyone else doing so and I love it when a game within a game is crafted with such care. It has the look, feel, and complexity of a real tabletop game and we need a proper physical version asap.