It’s been almost a year since we’ve heard much of anything about Horizon Forbidden West, the much-anticipated sequel to Guerrilla Games Horizon Zero Dawn. The game was first shown during Sony’s June 2020 Future of Gaming event before getting a 2021 release window a few days later.
It then promptly fell off the proverbial news radar. But during today’s State of Play presentation, fans of the series finally got a new look at the upcoming action RPG. The State of Play kicked off with Director Mathijs de Jonge introducing 14 minutes of Horizon Forbidden West gameplay captured on the PlayStation 5.
The gameplay trailer starts with Aloy on a mission to find Erend in the ruins of San Francisco. Though the gameplay shown seems to be at some point in the mid-game — Aloy has at her disposal a number of weapons and gadgets — some later narrative elements point to it potentially being earlier in the campaign.
It’s possible that progress could carry over from Horizon Zero Dawn, but that’s purely speculation and has, in no way, been even talked about by Guerrilla.
Either way, Aloy makes her way through the lush tropical forests now surrounding San Francisco and down to the coastline shown in the previous reveals. As she comes across raiders and some vicious machines, a fight inevitably ensues.
It kicks the trailer into high gear, showing many of the game’s mechanics in action, such as free climbing, swimming underwater with a dive mask, and stealth combat. There’s also a hang glider, special weapon ability power surges (supers, essentially), a grappling hook, and the tremendously terrifying Tremortusk.
Honestly, it might seem lazy to say, but it’s just much better to watch than to read about. Check out the full 14 minutes below.
After the gameplay reveal, Forbidden West Narrative Director Ben McCaw followed up with a bit of narrative context for the game. Unfortunately, aside from briefly talking about the plague that’s set to consume the land and be the centerpiece for Forbidden West‘s story, McCaw didn’t share too much more information.
There was no release date or updated release window shared. McCaw shared in a PlayStation Blog post summarizing the gameplay footage that Guerilla hasn’t quite settled on a release date, saying “We don’t have an exact release date yet, but development is on track and we’ll have an update for you very soon.”
Horizon Forbidden West will be releasing on PS4 and PS5 when it does launch. It’s one of our most-anticipated games of the year, and it looks to be shaping up quite well. We loved Horizon Zero Dawn when it released for the PlayStation 4 back in 2017, calling it “primal futurism at its finest.” Stay tuned for more on Horizon Forbidden West throughout the year.
