Horizon Forbidden West will explore the story of Aloy, a young huntress on a quest to a mysterious frontier spanning Utah to the western Pacific Ocean coast for a world saving mission. On her journey across the uncharted lands of the Forbidden West, she encounters hostile regions filled with natural threats and ravaged by massive storms, dangerous enemies and deadly machines, both new and old. As Aloy attempts to explore the wider and deeper parts of the Forbidden West, she discovers a vast array of diverse environmental ecosystems, including lush valleys, dry deserts, snowy mountains, tropical beaches and ruined cities, both above and below the water.
Gameplay
Horizon Forbidden West is an action role-playing game with a third-person perspective. Players control Aloy, a huntress in a world ruled by machines. Set in an open world of post-apocalyptic California, Utah and Nevada, the game will explore the setting of a mysterious location known as the Forbidden West. As a result, the map will supposedly be bigger than its predecessor, filled with unsettling secrets that lie beneath past ruins from the world of the Old Ones. The game will feature a multitude of iconic locations including a ruined San Francisco and the Yosemite Valley with various biomes. One of the main additions to the sequel is the element of underwater exploration. Players will be able to uncover the mysteries beneath the surface of seas, lakes and rivers.
Development and release
Horizon Forbidden West is being developed by Guerrilla Games and published by SonyInteractive Entertainment for the PlayStation 5. It is a sequel to 2017's Horizon Zero Dawn. Ashly Burch and Lance Reddick reprise their roles as Aloy and Sylens, respectively. The game was announced during Sony's PlayStation 5 reveal event in June 2020, and is expected to be released in 2021. Horizon Forbidden West will take advantage of the PlayStation 5's Dualsense controller to support haptic feedback, enhancing the player immersion experience. With the increased processing power and inclusion of a custom solid state drive storage in the PlayStation 5, the game will feature near instantaneous load times and a wide variety of enemies, visual effects, and objects within gameplay scenes. The game will also feature an updated version of the Decima engine. A comic book series, set after the events of the first game, was published by Titan Comics on 5 August 2020.
