Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores Beginner Tips

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is a post-game expansion developed by Guerrilla, with the Windows PC version by Nixxes Software BV and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It sends Aloy into the volcanic ruins of Los Angeles after the main story, so this beginner guide assumes you already know the base game’s core bow, trap, Focus, override, and machine-part combat.

Burning Shores is not the right first stop for a brand-new save. The guide is beginner-friendly for the expansion, but the DLC itself expects a late-game Aloy who has completed the main quest through Singularity and can handle stronger machines, bottom-row skill unlocks, and high-end gear decisions.

Essential Tips

1. Finish Singularity Before Planning the DLC

Burning Shores begins after the base game’s main quest. Once Singularity is complete, return to the Base and look for the artifact interaction that starts the new adventure.

Use that requirement as a preparation signal. Before heading south, spend a little time cleaning up combat practice, overrides, and gear gaps in the Forbidden West. The expansion is built around a capable Aloy, not a barely prepared one.

2. Treat Preparation as Practical, Not Completionist

You do not need to clear every activity before Burning Shores. You do want enough comfort with melee timing, machine scanning, part removal, traps, and larger fights that the DLC’s opening does not feel like a wall.

Melee Pits sharpen close-range fundamentals. Hunting Grounds test machine takedowns. Cauldrons expand override options. Arena challenges can help you pressure-test builds and earn strong gear. Pick the activities that address your weak spots instead of turning prep into a full-map chore.

3. Keep Your Build Flexible

Burning Shores adds new skills at the bottom of each skill tree, including new Valor Surges and tools such as Glide Targeting, Machine Grapple Strike, and Flying Grapple Launch. Those are expansion options layered onto base-game prerequisites.

Do not spend skill points just because a node is new. Look at your actual fight style first. A player who leans on bows and aerial approaches values different additions than a player who relies on traps, overrides, or low-health pressure.

4. Use Brimshine Jobs Early

Brimshine is the expansion’s special yellow crystal resource for new gear purchases and upgrades. It is scattered through Burning Shores, and some pieces may sit off the obvious route.

When a weapon or outfit needs Brimshine, create a Job from the purchase or upgrade menu and make that Job active. That turns resource hunting into a directed route instead of blind circling. As you explore, also listen for the shimmer, watch for bright yellow crystal clusters, and sweep suspicious spots with the Focus.

5. Buy Gear for Roles, Not Rarity

Burning Shores brings new legendary weapons, outfits, coils, and weaves, but legendary gear is only useful when it solves a problem your build actually has.

Before spending Brimshine, ask what role the item fills. Do you need stronger tear, safer elemental setup, better burst damage, a more comfortable outfit, or support for a specific weapon style? Buying everything eventually may be a completion goal, but early purchases should improve the fights you are losing now.

6. Learn the Waterwing as a Travel Tool

The Waterwing is one of Burning Shores’ most important additions because it can fly and dive underwater. That changes how you move through the volcanic archipelago.

Once the story gives you access, use the Waterwing to treat islands, cliffs, water routes, and high approaches as connected space. If you keep thinking like you are limited to ground paths, you will miss faster routes and useful angles.

7. Scan Every New Machine Before Committing

Burning Shores adds machines with different weak points, strengths, and battlefield behavior. Scanning first is still the safest habit.

Bileguts, for example, are heavy machines with important external components and variant-specific weaknesses. Waterwings have their own weak points and movement profile. Do not assume base-game muscle memory tells you everything; open with the Focus, mark parts, and decide whether you want elemental pressure, tear, or a safer disengage.

8. Respect Bileguts and Stingspawn

Bileguts can turn a fight messy because they interact with Stingspawn and carry several valuable target parts. If you tunnel on the main body, the arena can become crowded fast.

Start by identifying Egg Launchers, sacs, containers, and canisters. Control the small threats when they interfere with aiming, then return to the heavy target. Frost, fire, plasma, and purgewater relevance changes by variant, so scan rather than forcing one elemental plan every time.

9. Use the Specter Gauntlet With Intention

The Specter Gauntlet is a legendary ranged weapon with a shard barrage, a designator interaction, and an upgraded Railgun mode once its component is obtained and installed at a workbench.

Its default fire can overheat if spammed, so pace shots when you need uptime. Use the designator when homing shard pressure matters. Once upgraded, treat the Railgun as a deliberate charged shot for impact, tear, and piercing lines instead of a panic button.

10. Make Aerial Combat a Separate Habit

Glide Targeting lets you slow time and quick draw while gliding, and it enables Specter Gauntlet shots in the air. That does not automatically make every fight an aerial fight.

Use height when it gives you a clean opening, a safe angle on components, or room to start pressure before landing. If the target is already crowding you or the arena has poor vertical access, fight normally rather than forcing style over control.

11. Do Cauldron THETA When You Want Bilegut Control

Cauldron THETA is tied to the Bilegut override. That makes it more than a side activity if you like machine control or want more options around the DLC’s new heavy machine.

Save it for when you are ready for a focused machine challenge. Afterward, think about where a Bilegut override actually helps. Overrides are strongest when the terrain, nearby enemies, and your follow-up plan all support the machine you are turning.

12. Keep PC Features Separate From Gameplay Advice

On Windows PC, Complete Edition adds platform-specific options such as unlocked frame-rate potential, ultrawide support, graphics settings, mouse and keyboard customization, controller support, and wired DualSense features.

Those settings can make play more comfortable, but they do not change the underlying expansion route. Tune performance and controls before difficult encounters, then judge machine fights by build, scanning, positioning, and resource choices.

Combat and Gear Priorities

Situation	Priority	Why It Helps
First hours in the DLC	Scan machines and mark components	New variants punish assumptions
Brimshine spending	Buy role-fitting gear first	Resources matter most when they solve current problems
Bilegut fights	Control weak points and adds	The fight becomes harder when small threats and launchers are ignored
Waterwing travel	Think vertically and underwater	The map is built around air, islands, cliffs, and water
Specter Gauntlet use	Pace shots and use designators	Its strongest value comes from controlled firing modes
New skills	Match nodes to your build	Bottom-row skills are useful only when your prerequisites and playstyle support them

Exploration Habits

Move through Burning Shores with three checks in mind: route, resource, and return path. The route is how you reach the next island, ruin, cliff, or objective. The resource check is whether Brimshine, containers, or machine parts are worth detouring for. The return path is how you leave if a fight pulls in more threats than expected.

Use the Waterwing when the terrain looks awkward from the ground. Use Focus mode around ruins, ledges, and glowing resource clusters. When a gear upgrade asks for Brimshine, create a Job and let the game give you a cleaner path to the resource instead of memorizing every crystal location.

In combat spaces, avoid starting at the center of the arena. Scan from a safer edge, identify machine weaknesses, then decide whether to open with tear, elemental buildup, traps, or a high-angle attack. Burning Shores rewards the same disciplined approach as the base game, but it gives you more aerial and water movement to set that approach up.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Starting Burning Shores before finishing Singularity - The expansion is post-game content and will not open until the main quest requirement is met.
2. Spending Brimshine on gear you will not use - The resource is tied to DLC gear purchases and upgrades, so early spending should support your actual build.
3. Ignoring Job tracking for Brimshine - Creating a Job turns resource searching into a guided task instead of a long visual sweep.
4. Fighting new machines without scanning them - Bileguts, Waterwings, and variants have specific weak points and elemental behavior.
5. Spamming the Specter Gauntlet until it overheats - Pacing shots and using its designator are more reliable than holding fire blindly.
6. Forcing aerial attacks in bad arenas - Glide tools are useful when height and angles help, not when they break your control of the fight.
7. Treating the Waterwing like a normal flying mount - Its underwater movement changes routing through the archipelago.
8. Skipping Cauldron THETA if you want machine-control options - The Bilegut override comes from that Cauldron, so override-focused players should prioritize it.
9. Buying new skills without checking prerequisites - Burning Shores skills sit at the bottom of their trees and depend on your base build.
10. Using one elemental plan on every Bilegut - Normal and Apex variants have different weakness profiles.

Summary

Category	Top Tip
Starting point	Finish Singularity and return to the Base to begin the DLC
Preparation	Practice combat, overrides, and gear roles instead of clearing everything
Resources	Track Brimshine with Jobs and Focus sweeps
Travel	Use Waterwing flight and diving to rethink routes
Combat	Scan new machines before committing to elements or part removal
Gear	Spend Brimshine on weapons and outfits that support your build
Skills	Pick bottom-row skills that match how you already fight
Specter Gauntlet	Pace shots, use designators, and treat Railgun as a charged tool