I love open-world games.

Right now I'm re-playing (for the umpteenth time) Gothic 3, one of my favorite ones (even though it also has aspects I find very frustrating - but I like the "world" enough that it rises above the frustrations for me - even so, I still "curse the screen" at them, often :) )

Put this one the Wishlist. Not sure about paying $50 for it. Might change my mind - don't know yet...

I find myself wondering if some of the HUD can be toggled; like - turning off some of the quest and item markers.

If I get un-lazy enough, I'll try to "google out" that info; but if anyone reading this knows - feel free to chime in. :)

[EDIT]: It looks like there are extensive HUD-element customization options. Excellent!

I'd like to point out that some of the core privacy issues have been service packed into Windows 7 as well for quite a while. From a technical point of view, supporting a dead operating system is simply a nightmare.

Give Linux a shot. It works surprisingly well. I just installed Galaxy via Lutris and then install games inside Galaxy.

The Win7 version simply and unfortunately does not exist, so you would have to adress your complaint to the devs/publisher sincer there is nothing GOG could do about other than NOT offering the game here at all (and I am a Win7 user as well).
Well, imo it is not "dead" just because it is not officially supported anymore by MS ... but I know that many are seing this different - it was the same with XP which I used for years after MS abandoned it.

Linux might be a good alternative however you would have to live with the downside of missing Linux versions (at least not working without additional tools) here - so not exactly sure if this would be the best solution.

I tend to install Linux on the side on those PCs where I end up running some older unsupported Windows version. Then I quite often also disable networking on the Windows side so the Windows (XP or 7) will be used for offline gaming, while I boot to Linux if I need to go online.

Then you can still boot to the Windows side to play games that you can't get to run on Linux. Naturally single-player games only if you have networking disabled.

I seem to have accumulated already two PCs which are running Windows XP + Linux Mint, and this one old gaming laptop with Windows 7 + Linux Mint. Oh and also one very old laptop with only Windows XP, and my Raspberry Pi 4 of course.

My work laptop has only Windows 10. Luckily it is quite capable of playing semi-modern games as well.

If it's not supported anymore, it's dead. You can of course keep using it if you are careful about the implicit problems in that or completely do not care, but there is no sugarcoating it's a zombie. It might be a beloved zombie you care for very much but it can start eating your brain without much warning. Do not forget that, just like a zombie an unsupported operating system (or any piece of unsupported software you are using) is an extra security risk on top of the normal baseline.

As someone who makes his living writing software, you do not officially support dead operating systems (unless you have specialized customers who are willing to pay a hefty premium). You have enough problems with the goddamn stupid things that hit your support outside of that. That does not mean your software won't run on dead operating systems. You just don't put it into the official requirements. If people can get it to work there (out of the box or by installing extra software), fine. But if there are problems, at least you have a "Get out of jail free"-card for a problem which would be one hell of an annoyance otherwise.

That is your definition - not mine. If you would tell me that it is not secure anymore because of missing security updates or that many don't support it (officially) anymore you would have a point but as long as I can simply use a system and appliactions still are running on it it it is not dead for me. Like I said, I know that many see this differently but it still does not make it a fact. Dead is something that does not have any live in it anymore ... missing seccurity is not missing life.

Sure but as something who does write software you probably also know that Win7 and Win10 are not THAT different other than DX12 which so far hasn't been the success everybody was hoping for.

If you are unwilling to call a zombie dead, that is your prerogative. Do however keep in mind the "suddenly start eating your brain with no proper remedy available"-part.

Edit: Additionally, get used to people, especially doctors, telling you "he's dead, Jim" even though you might not agree.

Which is why I purposefully wrote my stuff in a way that strongly suggests software will run on Windows 7 even when it's not officially supported. There are however core differences in how Windows 7 and 10 work (for example an option for interacting with its API and windowing system in a very different way), though I have lost interest in keeping track of that.
While DX12 is the core difference for games, I would personally rather look at Vulkan instead since the essential shift in rendering API philosophy is mirrored here and it is platform independent (except, of course, for bloody MacOS).

In case you diod not notice: I only dislike the word "dead" and yes, even zombies are "dead" technically because they are missing the life and the consciousness living being have ... same with a OS. The definition "dead" is simply not true in the sense of something having life or not. There are only two things missing in an officially unsupported OS: security and guarantees that it will run ... there's no doubt about this.

I only added this part to say that usually the guys developing software won't have to invest additional work to make most software run on Win7 - it simply does and the chance to this not being the case is pretty small. However - and I agree here - you won't get a guarantee anymore and this might be a downside.

I hate to break it to you but Bloodborne has pretty darn A LOT of replay value for most of the people willing to play it by choice and not out of sheer curiousity.

Again, HZD on PC has price more-or-less-ish similar to MSRP of the original, PS4 release.
Why do people get so salty about this?
If say Half Life 2 would get a PS5 port now would you then say it should cost as much as Half Life 2 costed on a discount on PC? Why?
Do you all think a PC port of a few year old console game has to be cheaper just because it was already released on another platform some time ago?

Digitally distributed products don't cost less to PRODUCE. The cost of making a game is THE SAME.
And if you are referring to cost of producing physical releases itself, well, you have very poor choice of words then.
Costs of manufacturing physical discs and boxes for them is a drop of water in an ocean that is overall cost for a developer.
Even then it still doesn't fall under the cathegory of product MAKING cost. It falls under DISTRIBUTION along with physically moving and storing it.
Ergo: digitally distributed products are costing less to DISTRIBUTE.

This is highly dependent on a lot of factors, including specific demand on specific market in a given country. Situation for each game isn't the same around the ENTIRE world. Don't put everyone in the same bag implying that if in country X things get cheap fast then "it must be like that as a fact for entire world".

I don't think it's going to transition ENTIRELY into the digital distribution within your said generation. And btw which one do you mean? PS5 or the next one?
Please, try to look outside of your implied country or region or whatever - internet WORLDWIDE is still WAY TOO BAD for digital-only distribution. There is still way too much issues for that to happen any time soon.

You are saying like it's something that is ONLY SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN in your "soon" - no - this is nothing new. People who are not willing to pay this much for a new game will just not do so regardless of distribution method. They will just wait for sale.
You have examples of that in this very thread with people unwilling to pay set GOG MSRP for Horizon Zero Dawn.

No, seriously, piracy is nothing new as well and it's not like it "died" or anything after Denuvo showed up. It just takes longer to crack things now, but the existence of it didn't change at all. Plus piracy of games on new console platforms on day 1 ain't that easy. Just saying.

Actually, wrong, you are not stealing gold master copy, or the only existing copy of that matter (so there is no loss of source material that would result in "loss of culture"). If someone decides to pirate HZD it's only a small loss of a 1 sale. That's it. Don't demonize piracy to unreal extends by trying to imply that pirating a game will somehow make a code vanish from existence.

Please don't compare few year old game to examples of games where source code got lost over the years due to developers' archival efforts negligence.
HZD is a new game with patches being actively worked on. Pirating it will NOT make it magically vanish from Guerilla local content servers and archival grade backups.

Well it is a FACT that unfortunatelly MANY people cannot see, that GOG has actual double standards sadly.

Yeah I get the message. It's pretty funny. It's extra punishment for customers for being entrusted with a DRM free copy.
It's like they trust legitimate costumers less than pirates. After all history proves that in the LONGTERM a DRM was more bothersome for legitimate costumers.
Also: protip: If you quote a long message you can put ... or whatever between quote tags and it will still link to original quoted post without taking lots of space visually.

Considering that most costumers cannot be bothered to even read a TOS I dare to say that MAJORITY of owners of HZD on Steam or Epic DO NOT EVEN KNOW that their purchased product is an "infinite lease".

Whatever you say Mr Doom*TM-sday prophet /s
I personally wouldn't see NEAR future as SO grim.

It's pretty funny but it's now easier to play HZD on Linux than Windows legacy systems (and I say it as person who uses Linux as a primary system and very rarely fires up Windows for ANYTHING).

The thing is, you can support DX11 without mentioning any form of support for Win 7. Let's get Win 7 out of equasion. This all resolves around HZD only supporting DX12. If it would have Vulkan or even DX11 this talk wouldn't be a thing.

edit:
Fixed some spelling, fixed some formatting issues, added clarity to Linux usage sentence.

There are absolutely fundamental differences between DX12/Vulkan and previous rendering APIs. Supporting DX12 and DX11 (or Vulkan and DX11/OpenGL) is not a minor issue, it requires more or less a complete rebuilding of the whole system. If they built a new engine specifically for the next generation of rendering APIs instead of retooling an old engine to try and gain a small subset of the advantages, this is completely out of scope.

How much of an RPG is this? I see it is tagged with Role-Playing but the sense I get is a more "open-world action". Can anyone clarify?

I would say open-world exploration/action game with heavy elements of crafting, skill trees and such.
Whether it justifies use of RPG denominator is up to personal point of view.

I'm half-tempted to purchase this at "full price".

Sure, it will at some point go on sale. That's expected.

But one thing holding me back atm, is...

I don't want to pay full price and then see it go on sale in just a few days or weeks. Months? I'm okay with that.

But we have Black Friday, Christmas, and the annual Winter Sale opportunities for it to go on sale in the near future.

That is holding me back atm. The thought that it might go on sale in the fairly-near future.

Wish I knew...

Okay, thank you, I appreciate your answer.

It has a lot of mechanics similar to Witcher 3 (in that you are supposed to study the different machine's weaknesses and address them with appropriate damage type/equipment). The crafting and gear system revolves around this.

It's less of an RPG in terms of dialogue choices (you can pick a "flavour"/tone of response, but all responses lead to the same outcome), and in addition 100% ing the game would garner you enough skill points to max out progression. In that sense, it's not really a "build" oriented RPG, as everyone ends up with the same skillset in the end- your "build" variety woudl essentially be "what do I choose to prioritize first", but in the end, all players end up with the same skillset. THe variety would come from differences in equipment- or rather, "what enhancements you choose to augment these standard equipment pieces with". It's rather rudimentary, though the DLC does have a bunch of unique enhancements that certainly come in handy towards endgame.

Also, there's several sets of collectibles that make it feel a bit more open world busywork. Though most do give some background lore, at least.