Horizon: Forbidden West officially announced

[SaintRidley]

During the PS5 announcements today, they dropped this trailer for a sequel to Horizon: Zero Dawn. No release date announced, but given the absolute quality of the first game, I'm pumped so hard.

[JadedDM]

I, too, am equally pumped. Can't wait to see more.

[AlanBruce]

I have yet to platinum that game (it has a lot of trophies), but I did finish it and the DLC.

What an incredible story, world, and characters... especially Aloy. I always hoped they would answer several questions the game left ambiguously open.

They may not answer them in this new entry, but it’s a game I’m definitely getting.

[Dire_Flumph]

A great example of worldbuilding and how they revealed the mysteries of the past over the course of the game. Only problem I had with the first game was the open world aspect felt like it contained little other than shallow busywork between missions. My son was also sky-high after seeing the Miles Morales and Sackboy games.

[thethird]

I am really looking forward to this one myself.

I really enjoyed the world building in the first game, I found the Spanish voices to be very good (I normally end switching to the original language if I have a problem with the dubbing) and felt that both the plot and gameplay were good and well integrated.

If I missed anything was life finding a way and adapting, and with that red plant in the trailer it seems that there might have been some evolution in this new game.

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

That Red Weed looks like it's going to be a big old plot point in the story, with its association with seemingly plagued corpses and rotting agriculture. May the botanical terraforming Sub-Process have turned life-hating, like Hades and Hephaestus? I always took our hints at it from the first games mechanical flowers that it was one of the more peaceful Sub-Processes.

Course it also kind of looks like whatever unshackled the Processes from Gaia are coming to make some form of appearance. Might be exerting influence. Aliens, or the Odyssey project having faked its own destruction? I mean, the chances of anything coming from Mars, as it were...

I just played through Zero Dawn a couple months ago to platinum the game and finally play Frozen Wilds. (And then I built a Thunderjaw out of the Lego I had intended to sort out) I am definitely pumped for this one.

[AlanBruce]

That Red Weed looks like it's going to be a big old plot point in the story, with its association with seemingly plagued corpses and rotting agriculture. May the botanical terraforming Sub-Process have turned life-hating, like Hades and Hephaestus? I always took our hints at it from the first games mechanical flowers that it was one of the more peaceful Sub-Processes.

Course it also kind of looks like whatever unshackled the Processes from Gaia are coming to make some form of appearance. Might be exerting influence. Aliens, or the Odyssey project having faked its own destruction? I mean, the chances of anything coming from Mars, as it were...

I just played through Zero Dawn a couple months ago to platinum the game and finally play Frozen Wilds. (And then I built a Thunderjaw out of the Lego I had intended to sort out) I am definitely pumped for this one.

They never explained who hijacked GAIA in HZD. I don't think it was Sylens, so hopefully we'll find out here. I suspect HADES will be present as well, given the game's ending, but some have proposed that Ted Pharo may be back- not alive, but it in some way, shape or form.

[Spacewolf]

At the end of the game they say the signal that caused hades to activate came from outer space. That combined with the heavy emphasis the game placed on a failed attempt to save humanity through a generation ship and then something unknown going wrong with it makes me think there maybe another faction of humans out there possibly highly technologically advanced but with small numbers.

[SaintRidley]

They don't say it came from outer space (unknown origin, represented by Gaia as a lightning bolt), but a lot of speculation has gone into the datapoints regarding the Odyssey mission and if that could be coming through in the sequels somewhere.

My personal pet theory is that Vast Silver stowed away on the Odyssey computers and falsified the telemetry that said the ship failed and that it's responsible for liberating the subordinate functions somehow.

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

Huh. I had thought there was a data point that was actually about Vast Silver going rogue (instead of the legal aftermath) but I must have dreamt it up. I remember it said it stopped following commands after a lightning strike. Ah well, dang old brain anyway.

The one thing that kind of bugs me is that all the new Machines in Frozen Wilds and the new trailer have very animal-shaped heads. Apart from three of them all the base game Machines had very robotic heads, all flashlights and tools and armour. I know its been 20+ years for Hephaestus to develop his art style but I liked that first aesthetic more.