Horizon Forbidden West guide: How to throw a rock

In this Horizon Forbidden West guide, we’ll show you how to throw a rock, rather than swing your weapon, blow your cover, and maybe throw your controller across the room.

Here’s how to throw a rock in Horizon Forbidden West:

1. Pick up a rock. They’re all over the place, though roads and riverbeds are your best bets.
2. Press left or right on the D-pad until it says Rock. It’ll also tell you the number of rocks you have in your inventory.
3. Press down on the D-pad to select the rock you just … selected. Aloy will hold the rock, ready to throw.
4. Aim.
5. Press R2 to throw the rock.

It’s really that simple, but it’s also maddening when you get it wrong. R2 is the throw rock button. Keep this guide open or come back to it rather than blow your cover.

Horizon Forbidden West tools and Hunter’s Kit

This is also ultimately a guide to using Aloy’s Hunter’s Kit in Horizon Forbidden West, which houses tools and traps, where you first select a thing by pressing left and right on the D-pad and then pressing down on the D-pad to use the thing that you just selected. What happens after you press down depends on what you’ve selected. We were confused. Here’s how we worked it out in our heads:

• If you select a trap and press down, then you place the trap. There is no second step.
• If you select a rock and press down, you get ready to throw it. The second step is you throwing it.

There’s also a third option: If you hold down on the D-pad on many (but not all items), you enter the crafting menu of your Hunter’s Kit. Tapping down when you have a trap selected makes you place a trap. Holding down when you have a trap selected allows you to craft more traps (unless you’re already carrying your maximum or you don’t have the resources to craft another).