Today, during a State of Play digital showcase, Sony showed off 14 minutes of gameplay for Horizon Forbidden West, the much-anticipated sequel to 2017's awesomest open-world robot dinosaur-hunting game.
The demo opens on the beachfront ruins of San Francisco, six months after the events of Horizon Zero Dawn. Raiders show up, riding machines, leading a captured Erend (the guy with the silly facial hair from the first game) in tow. He almost gets stepped on by a dino, twice.
Forbidden West looks to feature the bread-and-butter archery-based combat that made the first game such a standout, but it looks like protagonist Aloy has a deeper bag of tricks for the sequel. She’s got a glider, for one thing, and some sort of electrified staff, and some sweet Naughty Dog-style finishing moves. Like we saw in last year’s cinematic announcement, Aloy dives underwater for some claustrophobic gameplay, and even takes on one of those mechanized don’t-call-it-an-oliphant monstrosities.
Actually, to hell with words. You want gameplay? Here’s gameplay:
Horizon Forbidden West is planned for release later this year for PS4 and PS5. No release date today, but developer Guerrilla Games says an update is coming “very soon.”
DISCUSSION
My first reaction: “When’s the release date?!?”
My second reaction: “When’s the last time a game studio, making a game this big, actually made their first release date?”
So yeah, I’m bummed out by the lack of announced release date, but I would be shocked if GG actually released the game on that hypothetical date.