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Horizon Forbidden West is easily one of the most anticipated games for the PS5 after the breakout success of Horizon Zero Dawn back in 2017. While the new installment will also be released on the PS4, Sony CEO Jim Ryan stated in an interview with The Telegraph that the game is “built from the ground up to take advantage of the PS5 feature set.”
That includes nearly no loading screens, which considering the massive environments and wide-ranging post-apocalyptic terrain spread across the western U.S. is astounding. The PS5 hardly needs a system seller at the moment given that it’s still hard to buy one, but Horizon Forbidden West looks to be that caliber of game.
We are gathering every last bit of information we can find on Horizon Forbidden West as we wait impatiently, so here’s what we have so far including the release date, the trailers, the setting, the gameplay and more.
Horizon Forbidden West release date
Horizon Forbidden West finally has a confirmed release date of February 18, 2022. While it had indefinite release dates in 2021, this is the first firm date we’ve gotten for the game, so we can be pretty confident in it.
A nearly complete leaked build of the game lead to some images being shared on January 10, 2022, but according to VGC the images were taken down quickly, and the leaked build hasn’t widely surfaced. While this may potentially lead to some spoilers doing the rounds online, it’s a positive sign that the release is still on track.
The delays, unfortunately, put it in good company with numerous other exclusives that were pushed back to 2022 including Ghostwire: Tokyo and Stray.
Horizon Forbidden West launches February 18, 2022 for PS5 & PS4. Pre-orders go live September 2. Full details: https://t.co/wr0Vy7S86t pic.twitter.com/UMTtFILla9August 25, 2021
Horizon Forbidden West trailer and gameplay video
We got our first extensive trailer for Horizon Forbidden West courtesy of the big PS5 games event in 2020, which was a tantalizing glimpse into what Guerilla Games has in store for Aloy this time around.
However, during the PS5 State of Play in 2021, we got a much more in-depth look at the game with over 14-minutes of actual gameplay and cinematics captured on a PS5.
Horizon Forbidden West setting
For those who haven’t already played the original Horizon Zero Dawn, the general setting is Earth roughly 1,000 years in the future. Humans have reverted to a tribal society with limited technology, and robotic creatures roam the earth and have become increasingly hostile.
The official description for Horizon Forbidden West from the reveal trailer reads, “Horizon Forbidden West continues Aloy’s story as she moves west to a far-future America to brave a majestic, but dangerous frontier where she’ll face awe-inspiring machines and mysterious new threats.”
While the trailer gave us a vast array of landscapes, including the ocean, beaches, a desert, lush forests, icy mountain peaks, and more, there were only two easily identifiable man-made landmarks: the remnants of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Ferry Building, placing you in what was San Francisco.
However, given the varied terrain and the reports of the “gigantic” scope of the game from VGC, it’s clear you are traversing at least quite a bit more of California with Yosemite glimpsed at another portion of the trailer.
Horizon Forbidden West gameplay
The basic style of gameplay is unchanged from the original Horizon Zero Dawn based on what we saw in the initial gameplay reveal. This is an open-world action RPG that will focus on combat, evasion, traps, traversal, and stealth.
Horizon Zero Dawn featured both a traditional RPG skill tree progression to enhance Aloy’s abilities as well as weapon crafting, both of which will presumably be present and more advanced in Horizon Forbidden West, but we don’t have any new information on them yet.
From the trailer and gameplay, we have seen Aloy riding, diving with a futuristic diving mask, climbing, fighting, and using some impressive new tools. These include a grappling hook (pullcaster) and doing her best BoTW impression with an electric parachute (shield wing). Her bow will again be the central weapon, but she will also use slings and ropecasters, which will all make liberal use of the DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers.
We got a reasonably extended look at fighting against both other humans and the machines with Aloy clearly having learned some new skills. She has more extensive combos and different battle surge effects available during combat. The weapon wheel shows off some of her other varied options including adhesive grenades, explosive spikes, and more. Aloy can also pick up discarded enemy weapons to turn against them.
Her signature “focus” earpiece is, of course, still present, which is a kind of AR device that gives Aloy special abilities to track and scan enemies. We saw a new quick scan feature in the gameplay trailer revealing handholds for Aloy, but there could be more to come.
The same report on the scope of the game also indicated that a co-op mode was planned, but it remains unclear if this is part of the main game or a standalone experience, as this does not appear to fit with anything we’ve seen so far.
Horizon Forbidden West story
For the story, we know that it picks up sometime shortly after the events of Horizon Zero Dawn and The Frozen Wilds expansion.
Aloy is continuing on her journey to stop the HADES system and whatever triggered it from destroying life on earth. We get glimpses of a number of new characters including raiders that have the power to harness the machines, including the frighteningly large mammoths that Aloy confidently draws her bow on as the trailer comes to a close and battles in the gameplay footage.
According to the aforementioned VGC report, the plan is for the Horizon series to be a trilogy, which means we should expect one more game to reach the end of Aloy’s story.
If you are looking to delve further into the world of Horizon ahead of Horizon Forbidden West, a Horizon Zero Dawn comic book series offers a new story following the events of Horizon Zero Dawn.
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