Horizon Forbidden West Gameplay (PS5) State of Play Preview

A preview of the highly anticipated sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn was released on the 27th of May, 2021. While a release date has not been confirmed for Horizon Forbidden West, there was still was much to see in terms of what Guerrilla Games has in store for us.

State of Play opened up Horizon Forbidden West with a brief cinematic cutscene. Without giving away too much of the main narrative beats in this sequel, Aloy and the audience are informed of an ambush that has just occurred and that ruins are “crawling with raiders.” With that, Aloy sets out on a mission to find where Erend is as he is currently “still out there”, despite the recent attack that has severely injured several people. Additionally, we come to find out that these particular raiders have machines by their sides, which could beg the question of who this rival group of raiders are and how they have acquired machines to ally among them. Overall, it was a solid set-up for the gameplay that swiftly followed.

With a smooth transition, we pan out to a wonderful shot of the greenery within our environment. One of my favorite aspects in Horizon Zero Dawn was the environmental art — a post-apocalyptic future with nature reclaiming Earth and large, robotic creatures roaming and dominating our world provides a lot of ground for highly defined modeling and 3D sculpting. That, coupled with amazing narrative beats, arguably made Horizon Zero Dawn a standout in roleplaying games. So if I was worried about Horizon Forbidden West staggering behind in any way, that photorealistic shot alone eased my mind — it literally gave me goosebumps. And I have not even gotten to the underwater sequence of the gameplay reveal.

As we further progress into the gameplay reveal, we get a chance to dive into the clearly upgraded combat. As the music quickens, the audience witnesses Aloy battle with these intense machine-like creatures. From a spectator’s standpoint, the melee combat appears to be incredibly fluid as I had no problem in following each sequence. In my opinion, the awkward cuts between a cinematic cutscene to gameplay were incredibly limited, but that could be more jarring as a viewer than as a player.

I wanted to feel immersed into the world in Horizon and I felt that each step of the way. Every emotional beat carried a lot of weight for me and I felt myself being lured in further and further into the narrative. With the help of our trusty Focus scanner, I felt the gravity of each action whether that was through tree climbing, diving, descending from great heights, or mounting a new animal-like machine; I wanted to be there as Aloy navigated through her journey. Much like Breath of the Wild, the open-world aspect of the game seems to not be lost on the creators. Therefore, as excited as I am to follow through on Aloy’s main storyline, I cannot wait to turn over every rock and stone and explore every sea craven that is within the world of Horizon.