Publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment and developer Guerilla Games have just released a new developer diary for the recently announced PlayStation 5 sequel of their hit action role-playing title Horizon Zero Dawn – Horizon Forbidden West. The developer diary only runs for three minutes, but in it game director Mathijs de Jonge discusses the game’s brand-new setting and guarantees a 2021 release window for its fans.
De Jonge starts off by picking up where the story left off: players will still assume control of Aloy, a hunter of the Nora tribe who is on “an epic quest to solve mysteries and secrets that will change her life forever”. The game is still set in the United States and will follow Aloy’s journey further west, hence the game’s title, Horizon Forbidden West.
The "west" in question is “a mysterious new frontier that stretches from the Utah in the U.S.A. all the way to the Pacific Ocean in the west”. What should players expect from this brand-new landscape? Stunning valleys, deserts, and ruined cities full of iconic landmarks. Guerilla has made the map a lot bigger, and this time, with more depth for players to explore and discover and with every corner possibly teeming with danger. Brand new machine creatures have also been added, such as the Shell Snappers that guards shores and swamps, Snapmaws that hunt the waterways, and Sunwings that patrol the skies. These machines present their own unique threats to Aloy and must be studied in order to defend yourself from them properly.
The Forbidden West is also home to a number of different human tribes, both peaceful and hostile. One of those showcased to be hostile are shown to have the technology to control machines and use them as beasts of war. One such example is the gigantic mammoth-like Tremor Tusk, which is hard enough to face in the wild, but more so when outfitted with special weaponry from dangerous tribes.
Lastly, de Jonge stated that with the added power of the PlayStation 5’s SSD, the game will contain “virtually no loading screens” with restarting from checkpoints, fast-traveling, and booting up the game being “superfast.”
That's all the news as of now, as Guerilla Games doesn’t want to spoil anything yet. Players will be able to get their hands on Horizon Forbidden West for the PlayStation 5 in 2021.
