Horizon Forbidden West Weapon Techniques Explained: How to Unlock, Change & Use These Special Attacks

Weapon Techniques are one of the ways that Horizon Forbidden West builds upon its predecessor’s excellent combat mechanics, alongside Valor Surges. As their name suggests, Weapon Techniques are special moves that use up Weapon Stamina, marked with a yellow bar in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. They can make attacks more powerful, or change the way a weapon works or effects an enemy. In this Horizon Forbidden West Weapon Techniques guide, we’ll be explaining how to unlock them, change Weapon Technique, and use them in combat.

Unlocking Weapon Techniques

Weapon techniques are unlocked by purchasing them with skill points from the six different skill trees.

These have a pentagonal shape, and are labeled as Weapon Techniques when you hover your cursor over them, as shown in the screenshot above.

Changing Weapon Techniques

To change your Weapon Technique, press and hold L1 to open your weapon wheel, and select the weapon that you want to use.

Before releasing L1, you should now see, just below the ammo types in the very center of the wheel, a small menu of icons in between left and right d-pad arrows. Press left and right on the d-pad to cycle through the techniques you’ve unlocked for that weapon.

Using Weapon Techniques in Horizon Forbidden West

That’s everything you need to know on Weapon Techniques in Horizon Forbidden West. For more tips and tricks, head over to our wiki or see more of our coverage on the game below.