I am playing Horizon Zero Dawn and haven’t gotten to the first main event, but it gives me this feeling like if I upgrade all my equipment now it might be for nothing. I know that is not the case, I looked it up, but what are some games that are the worst offenders? One I can think of is Aerith in the original FF7.
Fallout: NV in dead money did this.
You do get your stuff back when leaving Sierra Madre, I enjoyed it though.
At least there’s a good justification for it, given how the adventure plays out, and also given it’s at the very start of the adventure - which sets a certain tone.
It was honestly my favorite DLC.
Only change I’d make to it is make the casino unusable. Once I get into the Sierra Madre I just win a crisp 10k, buy all the stimpacks and other supplies I could ever need and the rest of the DLC is a cakewalk. The first part of dead money in the villa feels amazing. The casino is less so IMO. I know I could just not use the casino on my own, but my advantage seeking brain just can’t be helped sometimes.
I really didn’t like Dead Money.
Not only do you lose everything, but the first half is miserable fetch questing back and forth to find the team to enter the museum. Once you get inside the Casino it’s fine, but up to that point it was one of the worst expansions I have ever played.
I absolutely hated it for the first 5m going in blind the first time, but then it hits almost immediately that you’ve been tossed into a survival horror scenario and you completely forget about your gear.
I forgot to make a save before entering the bunker, too, so I had to commit to it.
I absolutely adore that dlc. The feeling you get when you finally leave that god foresaken bunker and emerge into the mojave is unlike anything I’ve experienced in gaming. That entire dlc made the normally hellish mojave into a paradise.
It also invalidates all ranged combat skills. Hope you specced melee/unarmed and survival!