The Frozen Wilds expansion for HZD came out on Tuesday. Anyone else get it?
It's pretty good (NO SPOILERS, so rest easy). As reported in several review articles, it's about 15 hours of content if you take your time and do all the side quests and errands. Since it takes place before the game's ending, the outcome of the DLC isn't earth-shattering or anything, but it is pretty engaging and it does expand on the background of the world and offers more insights into certain characters and story elements.
The graphics and landscapes are, of course, gorgeous and impressive. They've improved things like snow effects, water effects, and the conversation animations (facial expressions, body movements, gestures, etc.) are noticeably improved too. Voice acting is top-notch, just like the regular game. Some of the new background music is a bit "off," though, because it just doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the game. It's a noticeable departure from the style of the main game's music and seems like it'd fit better in a purely sci-fi game like Mass Effect. Not a big deal, though, but given that the rest of the music fits more of a fantasy genre, one or two bits of the new, "sci-fi sounding" music kind of stuck out like a sore thumb.
You get new weapons and armors. They're actually quite useful, and not just superfluous fluff. So, I recommend getting as many of them as you can. If you horded shards from the main game, they won't do you any good in most difficulty modes* because the Banuk use a new type of currency called "bluegleam," so you'll need to find as much of it as you can in order to buy the new stuff. You can dig it up around the map, you'll get it in reward boxes from some quests, and one of the merchants in Meridian now trades for it (you'll need shards and machine hearts to trade with him, though).
*But, if you're playing on Ultra Hard, New Game+ mode, then the 3 maps you need to purchase to find stuff in the new area will cost over 20,000 shards total (about 7,000 shards per map!).
Several new animals but only 3 new machines, but all of them are cool and challenging to fight (bring your fire protection!). One of the three was waaaayyyy too tough to fight (in my opinion) but thankfully they released a new patch today that nerfed two of the new machines so that they're not insanely strong and tanky. I was playing on "very hard" and one of those machines was about 3 times as tough as fighting a Thunderjaw, so it really did need to be nerfed.
I'll probably play through it again this weekend on Ultra Hard.
Over all, if you liked the main game, then this DLC is totally worth the money. I really enjoyed it. This is the only expansion/DLC they're going to release for it, so it's going to be a long, painful wait for the sequel.